The character of the man in the Bible that stood out like a mountain among all the hills was found in Abraham. He was the spiritual father of all the great men who followed from Moses to Paul. He walked in the promise of God from idolatry to becoming the father of many nations because … He Believed.
Rom 4:18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” ESV
In the Greek this verse reads … kept on believing. When he believed the promise of God that he would become the father of many nations he took the next step, the step that many fail to take in following the promises of God. Abraham trusted in God’s promise that He could bring life out of his sterile body.
Individually God creates in us the new life of Christ so we, as the spiritual offspring of Abraham, are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). Against all human hope Abraham believed in divine hope and we, as the spiritual children of Abraham, believe in simple faith that God is the life we need for all of our problems of death.
William R. Newell reflected on faith in commenting on John Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus: “Satan hates active faith in a believer’s heart, and opposes it with all his power. The world, of course, is unbelieving, and despises those who claim only the righteousness of faith. The example of professing Christians generally is also against the path of simple faith. Among the ‘seven abominations’ that Bunyan said he still found in his heart, was ‘a secret inclining to unbelief.’ Against hope, against reason, against feeling, against opinions of others, against all human possibilities whatsoever, we are to keep on believing.”
In the same book, Bunyan laid out 23 statements contrasting faith and unbelief, the unbelief that destroys our hope. The first two he lists directly address the source of the hope we believe in:
- Faith believeth the Word of God, but unbelief questioneth the certainty of the same.
- Faith believeth the Word, because it is true; but unbelief doubteth thereof, because it is true.
The whole of our hope as the bride of Christ partakes of the same nature of faith in God as did Abraham. In our faith, against all hope we believe in hope.