What
does it mean “to believe”?
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“Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as
righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Nothing was said out loud!
No words were spoken.
Abram made an invisible, personal choice. He believed!
This belief was a decision on Abraham’s part, and his belief resulted
in God declaring him to be righteous. Abram’s faith was mental. It was
silent, invisible, yet real. The Word “Believe”The Hebrew word “believe” is in the Hebrew hithpael stem. This means that it is causative. God caused Abram to believe. God gave Abraham the faith to believe. The faith that Abram exercised was not a work of his flesh. It was not produced by his humanness. What does this word “believe” mean? This is the first time in the Bible that it is used in this way. Since Genesis is a seed book (the book of beginnings), the meaning of the word here should give us the pattern for what it means, “to believe” today. This verse clearly explains the kind of faith that justifies us. The Hebrew language is a
picture language. Words in the
Hebrew come from pictures, like hieroglyphics in Egypt. For example, the Hebrew word for
“grace” is chessed. The
word comes from a picture of a shepherd who is walking through a flock of
sheep. A little lamb is having
trouble finding his way. The
shepherd reaches down and grab the little lamb by the front feet with one
hand and by the back feet with the other hand and throws him over his shoulder
and carries that little lamb right over the rough spots. So the word chessed, the
Hebrew word for grace, means, “to carry.” If you think about the word grace, that is what it
means. God in the person of
Jesus Christ carries us. Chessed
comes over into the Greek as charis, and it means grace. The Hebrew word chasah
is the picture of a wolf
chasing a rabbit. The rabbit
gets into the cleft of the rock so the wolf can’t get him. The wolf can’t climb into those
little places. It means, “to
take shelter” and as it is used in the Bible, it means, “to take shelter in
the Lord.” A word for strength is qaway
– a rope that cannot be broken. A string that is wrapped around the hand
will easily break. But when put together with other strings, it becomes a
rope that cannot easily be broken. “Yet those who wait for
the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like
eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary”
(Isa. 40:31). Then there’s yachal –
to trust when you’re hurting.
Batach – trust in the Lord with all your heart. It literally means to slam your
troubles on the Lord. Isn’t that
interesting? Pictures in the
mind! But what about the
Hebrew word, “believe”? The
Hebrew word is aman. That
is what we tag onto the end of our prayers when we close them. We say, “In
Jesus name, Amen,” which means, “I believe it.” Believe means “to lean upon.” Picture a person leaning upon a secure object, an object
that can hold them up. This is the meaning of the word believe. Abram, upon
hearing the promise of God, responded by mentally leaning upon the Lord. He placed the weight of his faith
upon the Lord. He had confidence
in the Lord. That’s what it
means! He leaned upon God! Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer said it like
this, “Abram amaned the Lord.” There are other Hebrew
words that come from this one. There is the word amun, which is the
adjective, faithfulness; amunah in the feminine is steadfastness; ameth
– is truth or what is believed. There is another
characteristic of this word that should be mentioned. The word aman is
a transitive verb. That means it
has to have an object. If you
use this word, you must have an object to lean upon. Abram had to have something he
believed in. This word cannot
stand alone. One can’t believe
in belief! In this case, the
object becomes crucial. What
does Abram believe in? That’s
the issue! Can the object that
Abraham was leaning upon sustain his faith? Does the object have the ability to do what the faith
believes it can do? Notice the object of
Abram’s faith here. He believed in
the Lord. That word “LORD,”
when in all caps, is the personal name for God. It is the name
“Jehovah.” Jehovah is taken from
a Hebrew being verb “I Am.” It means, “I exist.” The name implies that
Jehovah always was what He is now and forever shall continue to be. There never was a time that He did
not exist. We know
that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus Christ of the New
Testament. So Abraham actually believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Abram’s wife was barren, and he was an old
man, but he believed what God said. God said that He would give him a child, that He would
bless him, that he would make of him a great nation, and that through him all
the nations of the earth would be blessed. And Abram believed it! In Abram’s mind, when he leaned on the Lord, it was just as
though the deal was done. It was
just as though Jehovah God had already done everything that He said He was
going to do. Abraham placed His
confidence in the Lord. He expressed a state of mind that became sure of its
object and relied firmly on it.
Abram responded to the promise of God by trusting in Him. Righteousness How did God respond to
Abram’s faith? “And He (God) accounted it (Abram’s faith) to him (Abram) as
righteousness” (Gen. 15:6b). The word “accounted” is
an accounting term. It means to
“credit to one’s account.” When
one credits an amount to their checking account, the money is placed on the
plus side of the ledger. God credited righteousness to Abram’s account. He wrote in on the ledger of Abram’s
account +R. “Abram, I
declare you to be right - forever right - before me, based on your faith.” Righteousness is the
Hebrew word tsedikah. It
literally means “to be set apart.”
We do not have the words necessary to adequately explain God’s
righteousness. God is totally
set apart from man. He has
erected for Himself a righteous standard that is far above ours. God is the author of righteousness.
He is absolutely right in a maximum way. In Him there is no darkness at all, no contamination. He is light! He is absolute righteousness. This is the righteousness that God
demands! Psalm 11:7 says, “The
Lord is righteous; He loves righteousness.” Psalm 97:2 says, “Righteousness and justice are the
foundation of His throne.” Man’s righteousness falls far short of God’s. Abram was born a
sinner! God chose him out of the
Ur of the Chaldeas (modern day Iraq).
His father, Terah, named him Abram, which means father of the high
place. The “high places” were pagan temples. Abram had grown up worshipping idols. He needed a righteousness that he
could never earn. When Abram believed in
the Lord, God declared Abram to be right before Him. Abraham was instantly adjusted to
God’s righteous standard.
Likewise, we adjust ourselves to the righteous standard of God today
by our faith in Jesus Christ. We
receive a righteousness that we have not earned exactly like Abram, because
of our faith. What About Today We can trace what the
word “believe” means all the way back to this Hebrew word aman. It came over into the New
Testament as the Greek word pistis, “faith.” Pistis is a noun. The adjective is pistas, that’s
“faithfulness.” The verb is pisteuo,
and it is also a transitive verb that needs an object. We must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the Septuagint - the
Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament - the Hebrew word aman was
translated as the Greek word pistuo. So the New Testament word “to
believe” means exactly what the Old Testament word “aman” means - to trust or
to lean upon. It is this word that we find in these following passages. “Therefore having been justified by faith (pistis), we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “For by grace are you saved through faith (pistis) and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man
should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9). “Believe (pistuo) on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall
be saved” (Acts 16:31). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son
that whosoever believes (pistuo)” (John 3:16). In order to receive
righteousness from God today, we are to trust Jesus Christ. We are to believe
in Him exactly the same way that Abraham believed in Him. God will give
you the faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, right now! |
What kind of faith gives us
life from God? |