Faith, Hope, And Love

Faith is the object of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11.1).  Faith is the embodiment of hope.  It is this embodiment of hope whereby one comes to believe that something is true.  Faith is the assent to the truth.  There are two kinds of truth, propositional truth and ontological truth.  Propostional truth is a correspondence of states (implicit truth), while ontological truth is the facts themselves (explicit truth).  So faith is acquired by hope, and hope by becoming enlightened to the implicit, unseen truth.

The bible speaks of a saving faith where we have come to understand that what Jesus Christ said was true.  This came about through the recognition that we have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.  We understood that, there is none who does right.  As we heard His word, it radiated light onto our deeds and we saw that they were evil. John 3:18,19,36).  When we became educed to the fact that what he says is true.  We had to make a choice, whether to believe whether he can save us or not (Romans 10.17).  We had to decide whether we have any hope in Him or not—we decide if he is who he claims he is, the ULTIMATE TRUTH (John 14.6).  Then we arrived in a place where we put our hope in Him, and came to the conviction that He really is who he claims to be--that he alone has the power to save us.  He becomes the embodiment of our faith (although we did not see Him).  He becomes the source of our hope has we come to believe without a shadow of doubt that he has passed from Death to eternal life (John 11.35,36).  Faith brings us here, but it is grace that keeps us here (Ephesians 2.8, Romans 5.1-2).

We come to see that Love has saved us and will save us (1 John 4.7-12).  His work transforms us.  We begin to love Him, because he loves us (1 John 3:16).  This is the kind of love where one gives his life for another without consideration of himself.  Our love testifies to the Truth, as did the love of His Followers who saw Him alive forever more, who never recanted their testimonies (1 Corinthians 13, 15, Revelations 1.18).

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