Calvin on Heb 11.1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Heb. 11:1.

John Calvin’s commentary, “Whoever made this verse the beginning of chapter eleven did wrong in breaking up the continuity of our text. As the apostle has said, his purpose is to show the need for patience. He has already quoted the testimony of Habakkuk, that the righteous shall live by faith. Now, he shows further that faith can be separated from patience no more than from itself. His argument goes as follows: We shall never attain the goal of salvation, unless we learn patience; because the prophet teaches that the righteous shall live by faith. But faith calls us to a destiny which is far off. Therefore, there is no faith without patience. Hence, the syllogism includes the minor proposition: faith is the substance of things hoped for. It is wrong to think that here we have a full definition of faith. The apostle does not speak of the whole of faith, but of that aspect of it which fits his present purpose; namely, that it is always bound up with patience.

Now let us consider his words. He calls faith the hypostasis of the things hoped for. We of course know that we hope for things not in our hands and still hidden from us, or at least for things we expect to enjoy at some other time. The apostle teaches us here the same thing that Paul does in Rom. 8:24, where the latter says that we hope for what we do not see, by which he implies that we must wait for it with patience. Thus, the apostle warns us that we must exercise faith in God not for things present but for things about whose fulfillment we are in suspense. And this paradox is not without its beauty. Faith, he says, is the hypostasis, that is the prop, or the place we have, on which we may plant our foot; but the prop for what? I answer, For things not in our possession, things which are not under our foot, which are in fact even beyond the grasp of our minds.

The same applies to the second clause, where he speaks of the evidence, or demonstration, of things not seen. But demonstration has to do with things that are seen; it is used commonly with regard to things open to our senses. Thus faith and demonstration apparently do not go together. And yet they do go together very well; for the Spirit of God demonstrates to us the things hidden to us and quite beyond the kind of knowledge which depends upon the senses. We are promised eternal life, but we are dead; we are told of a blessed resurrection, but we are in a state of corruption; we are pronounced righteous, and yet we are dwelling places of sin; we hear that we are happy, and yet we are buried under countless miseries; we are promised riches of every kind of good, but are exceedingly hungry and full of thirst; God cries that he will come to us quickly, and yet to our own cry he seems to be deaf. What would become of us if we were not upheld by hope and if our minds did not escape the darkness of this world through the bright light of God’s Word and his Spirit? Faith, therefore, is said rightly to be the reality (subsistentia) of the things we affirm in hope, and the evidence of the things we do not see. It does not displease me that Augustine sometimes translates evidence as “conviction,” because it is true to the apostle’s meaning. But I prefer to render it as “demonstration,” because this is less forced.”

Joseph Haroutunian and Louise Pettibone Smith, Calvin: Commentaries (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958), 253–254.