Assurance About What We Do Not See
What does the Bible mean when it says faith is "assurance about what we do not see" (Heb. 11:1)?
This part of our “faith definition” implies that there are some realities we are not able to see with our physical sight. Our visible world, the world we can touch, see, and smell, is not the whole of our reality. But we know that there is an unseen and invisible reality. Even though we are incapable of perceiving this reality with our physical eyes, it is real, it has an existence. Faith is the means by which we are able to see and experience that invisible order. Just like our physical sight gives us convictions about the reality of the physical world, so faith gives us conviction about the reality of the unseen world. It is stunning to consider that faith sees God! Faith contemplates the eternal order. Since God Himself is the ultimate and supreme unseen reality, faith enables us to see God (Heb. 11:27). Faith reminds us that our temporal circumstances are not the whole of our experience.
BY Dr. Winfred O. Neely
Dr. Winfred Neely is Vice President and Dean of Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School. An ordained minister, Winfred has served churches across the city of Chicago, the near west suburbs, and Senegal, West Africa. He is the author of How to Overcome Worry (Moody Publishers) and a contributor to the Moody Bible Commentary and Moody Handbook of Preaching. Winfred and his wife Stephne have been married for forty years and have four adult children and nine grandchildren.