The Expectation of Faith

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

The only proper approach to the expectation of the future is faith. For if we expect some thing or another in the future we hope. But if that hope is not based on a promise or assurance given, then it is speculation and vanity. If, on the other hand, the hope is in what has already been promised, or if it is a hope for the realization of what has already been given in part or in essence, then that hope is faith. The world does not distinguish between the two but uses the word ‘belief’ in all contexts.

Here is the difference: faith is given; if we hope or expect apart from what is given then our belief is in vain and we are idolaters. But if we hope for what has been promised then we already recieve the essence of that hope, a joy and peace that could never be conjured up in the world’s most belabored philosophies or its most fantastical wishings.

Nathanael Szobody

https://paradoxicalmusings.com/author/admin/

Husband, father, and working for Christ's kingdom in Chad.

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Rob
    Oh I like it, but then how does this reconcile with the *faith* of the people Christ healed? i.e. - where Christ says, "Your faith has made you whole."

    So these people where "hoping" for healing although it was not a given that Christ would notice them and heal them? Or was it "faith" in the ones that were healed and vainity in those that apparently got passed by?
  2. Nathanael
    I have often been puzzled over such faith. I cannot directly relate to it because my faith is in what has been done in Christ and what is promised to me in my baptism into Christ.

    However I have come to the conclusion that the faith was not that Jesus would heal them, but that he had the power to do so. This is demonstrated most clearly in the faith of the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:5-12. He did not know if Jesus would heal his servant, but the faith he had was that Jesus had the power to simply speak the words and the servant would be healed. He even relates this in a very personal way using an example of his own absolute authority over his servants to show the ease with which Jesus could command the sickness with his creating word. It is this simple unequivocal hope in the power of Jesus, that he had heard of and perhaps seen before himself demonstrated by Jesus, that is said by Jesus to be of a kind that he had not found in all of Israel. The sign of his power had already been given. And confidence in the demonstrations of that power was given to the centurion by God.

    It comes back to the point that God does not work through exclusively the spirit realm, rather he meets us in the senses that he created and fills them with the spiritual.

    For more in that vein see Luther and the Tree and The Christ is Still Incarnate.

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