What Is Faith: The Biblical Meaning Behind True Belief
- Faith is not a feeling, because it stands on the historic truth of the Bible and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- Rather than mere intellectual assent, biblical faith becomes fidelity, loyalty, and allegiance that shows up in real-life actions.
- Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as assurance, calling believers to live confidently based on what God has already done.
What is faith? That’s an important question. Our culture has several different definitions of faith, and I want to define it clearly for you. But let me start with a story.
My brother is not a Christian. Like, he’s not even close. And so I wanted to share the foundation of my faith with him, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So I gave him all the evidence—the historical documentation, the empty tomb, the church with baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the transformation of the apostles—all the evidence.
At the end of it, he didn’t deny any of the evidence. Here’s what he said, and it took my breath away: “You believe that so it works for you. I don’t believe that. It doesn’t work for me.”
And I just wanted to scream, “No, you don’t get it!” Faith is not a feeling. He’s treating religion like you would treat a date: swipe left, swipe right. “I feel it.” “I don’t.” No. It’s not a feeling.
It is the foundation based on the historic documents of the Bible. And much of our culture, the reason they misunderstand faith is that they want it to be a feeling. And look, I’ve been a Christian a long time now. Sometimes I feel it. Sometimes I don’t. But that never changes my faith.
Now, feelings are important, and they impact your faith. Don’t get me wrong. But faith is not a feeling. But neither is it intellectual assent.
“Faith is not a feeling. But neither is it intellectual assent.”
That’s where I think the church I grew up in went wrong. It’s if you believe the right things—the virgin birth, the inspiration of Scripture, the bodily resurrection—if you believe the right things, then you have real faith. Except you don’t. Because I know a lot of Christians that believe the right things but do wrong things. In fact, James would say even the demons believe. But that doesn’t make them saved. They don’t have a saving faith.
It is not belief in your head. It’s not a feeling in your heart. Although both are important, until your thoughts and your feelings are reflected in your actions, you do not have faith. So I want to now define faith by reading a passage from Hebrews 11:1. It says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.”
That’s the biblical definition of faith: knowing what will happen based upon what has happened. And it’s not just, again, an intellectual assent. It is not a feeling in your heart. It is your actions demonstrating what you believe.
So I want to make a simple suggestion. This is transformational in how you will understand faith. Every time in the Bible that you read belief or faith, change the word. I’m going to give you three words to exchange. This will give you an authentic definition of biblical faith.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.”
Word number one: fidelity. Now, fidelity is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. That changes everything. You know, in a marriage, I can say to my wife, “I believe in you,” but if I don’t come home at night, we’re not married. We don’t have an authentic fidelity to each other. 
Here’s another word: loyalty. I know that you believe in Jesus. I know that sometimes you feel Him. Are you loyal to Him where you live, work, and play?
Third word, very similar: allegiance. Are you giving your allegiance to Jesus? Pick one of those three words, and every time you read faith in the Bible, just replace it with one of those three words, and you will see a qualitative difference in your definition of faith.
Now I want to introduce one more concept here, and that is this phrase. We run into it half a dozen times in the New Testament, and this actually has been a large debate in scholarly circles, what it means. It is “faith of Jesus.”
The Greek is pistis tou Christou. Pistis is faith. Tou is “of” or “in.” Jesus, or Christ. So pistis tou Christou—does it mean that we are saved by the faithfulness of Jesus? That is, He declares us saved. This is kind of the sovereignty of God angle, where God saves you. It’s God’s faithfulness to you that makes you saved, not your belief in Him that makes you saved.
Well, there’s a lot of truth to that. But there’s also a lot of truth in the second interpretation of that exact same phrase—that the faith of Jesus is not His fidelity to me, but my loyalty to Him.
“Are you loyal to Him where you live, work, and play?”
Now let’s be clear. We are not saved by what we do for Christ. But if we don’t show loyalty, allegiance, fidelity to Him, then our faith in Him, our claim to believe in Him, is bogus. How do I know?
Well, because the father of faith, Abraham—and he’s mentioned in Romans 4, he’s mentioned in James 2 as the father of fidelity—how do you know that Abraham had faith? It’s not how he felt. It’s not what he thought. It’s what he did.
When God called him out of Mesopotamia to go to a land he had never been, he went. We call that blind faith, although I hate that term because faith is not a leap in the dark. It’s a walk in the light. And based upon what he knew about God and God’s loyalty in the past, he showed loyalty to God in the present, trusting that God would be loyal to him in the future.
Abraham is the model for you and for me. So when we ask, “What is faith?” it’s not what you believe in your head. It’s not just what you feel in your heart. It’s how you live with your hands and feet, reflecting what you say you believe and what you feel in your heart about the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
