Larry Parker
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The Hebrew word translated “faith” actually incorporates two types of faith: saving faith and healing faith. If we understand the difference, we will understand what biblical faith is. To put it in a nutshell, faith is confidence in Christ or knowledge of what God will do—nothing more, nothing less.
I believe the death of my son and the lessons I learned make me uniquely qualified to address this issue. That tragedy drove me to the Bible to find out what real faith is, what presumption is, and how to tell the difference. I purposely set aside all denominational biases, assumptions and traditions of men, and systematically studied (and continue to study) God’s Word. I learned how some teachers put spin on the scriptures to make them say what they want them to say.
Faith is the most misunderstood word among Christians today. We are told to have it, use it, increase it, build it, speak it, and stand on it, but what is faith? To find the answer, I turned to my Geek lexicon for help. In the New Testament, the word “faith“ is taken from the Greek word pistis. It is a small word that has a two-fold meaning:
1. Reliance (or confidence) in Christ for salvation.
2. Conviction of the truthfulness of God—knowing without doubt that God will do what He says.
Some have called these two aspects of faith “saving faith” and “healing faith”; or, ambiguously, “faith” and “the gift of faith.” I prefer to refer to them as “confidence faith” and “knowing faith.” Let’s look at Hebrews 11:1 to find out if the Bible’s definition supports this.
For years, I used the King James Version of the Bible, just like millions of other believers, and in this translation, the verse reads: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Initially, the use of the word “substance” here was confusing to me. I wondered, “That doesn’t seem to line up with the definition of the Greek word pistis, which means ‘confidence faith’ and ‘knowing faith.’” I looked up the word “substance” in my Greek lexicon and discovered that it is actually a mistranslation of the Greek word hupostasis (hoop-os’-tas-is), which primarily means “confidence [in a] person (in this case, Jesus).” In support of that conclusion, I found several examples in the New Testament where the same Greek word, hupostasis, is translated as “person,” “confident,” or “confidence”:
Lest if some Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we (not to mention you!) should be ashamed of this confident [hupostasis] boasting. (2 Corinthians 9:4)
What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence [hupostasis] of boasting. (2 Corinthians 11:17)
For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence [hupostasis] steadfast to the end. (Hebrews 3:14)
…the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person [hupostasis]… (Hebrews 1:3)
I began to look in other translations to see how they handled this verse. I found that, especially among the newer translations, many scholars made wording decisions much more in line with my Greek lexicon. The translators of Weymouth’s, for example, replaced the word “substance” with “confident assurance”: “Now faith is a confident assurance of that for which we hope, a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.” The NIV replaced “substance” with “being sure of.” The Jewish New Testament: “confident.” The Revised Standard: “assurance.”
These newer translations agree with the two-fold definition of faith as “confidence faith” (“confident assurance”) and “knowing faith” (“conviction of… reality”). When verses actually refer to possessions or material things (substance), as we understand these words, the Greek word is huparchonth (hoop-ar’-khon-tah), such as we find in Luke 8:3: “provide for Him from their substance [huparchonth].” I’m convinced that if the person who penned the book of Hebrews had meant faith to be a substance (as we use the word today), he would have used the word huparchonth.
As a result, I came to the conclusion that confidence in Christ is the “substance” the writer of Hebrews is talking about. The translation of Colossians 2:17 (NKJV) reinforces this conclusion when it says, “the substance is of Christ.” By reading “confidence in Christ” for “substance,” we find agreement between the Greek word pistis and the explanation in Hebrews 11.
The second half of Hebrews 11 says, “the evidence of things not seen.” Only when God tells us what He is doing or is going to do can we know without doubt and therefore have the evidence of things we do not see. The evidence is the fact that God tells us—clearly, by His Spirit—that we can have what we ask for. In other words, the “evidence” is God’s own confirmation. With these facts in mind, I would suggest that Hebrews 11:1 could be translated: “Now faith is a confidence in Christ for things hoped for, and [knowing without doubt] the evidence of things not seen.” Once again, we see that Hebrews 11 confirms the definition of the Greek word pistis.
Therefore, faith is a two-fold word that means:
· Confidence faith—We have confidence in Jesus for all things. We believe that He has saved us and will return to fulfill our hope to meet Him in the air and be with Him in heaven.
· Knowing faith—We know without a doubt what God will do when He tells us His plans. The act of the Holy Spirit telling us is the evidence of things unseen.
Think of the Greek word pistis as a purse in God’s hands, with two “faith” coins inside: the “confidence faith” coin and the “knowing faith” coin. We can never help ourselves to what is in God’s purse. However, the coin of confidence faith is always offered to us. In 2 Corinthians 6:2, Paul tells us,“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” When we ask Jesus into our hearts, God opens His purse (pistis) and gives us the coin of confidence faith. At His choosing, the Holy Spirit may or may not give us the coin of knowing faith, as well. We cannot reach into the purse and help ourselves! Any attempt we make to claim “healing faith” without the Holy Spirit giving us a word—telling us to do so—is presumption. Whenever we are taught to “claim” a healing on our own initiative, we are being encouraged to reach into—and steal from—God’s purse. Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a man rob God?” (I know this verse is primarily referring to tithes and offerings, but I believe it is appropriate to today’s presumptuous teachings, as well.)
Another, more familiar way of describing the two types of faith is “saving faith” and “healing” or “miracle working” faith. Saving faith (confidence faith) is not the same as healing faith (knowing faith). They are two different coins. It is important to understand that God gives us saving faith when we decide to accept His Son as our Savior, but He does not give us healing faith until He decides we should have it. Again, we decide to accept Christ and are given saving faith, but the Holy Spirit decides when we should be given healing faith.
Faith Is Like a Homonym
While the Greek word pistis means a combination of confidence faith and knowing faith, quite frequently, only one of the two distinct definitions is meant at any given time. Consequently, in some ways, the word acts like a homonym. A homonym is a word that is spelled and pronounced the same way but has different meanings. For example: I couldn’t bear to see that bear coming at me; and I jumped in a pool of water after playing a game of pool. If we know we are dealing with a homonym, we understand that, in order to understand which meaning is intended, we must look at the way the word is used. Conversely, if you do not know that a word is a homonym, it can lead to error. Say someone asks you, “Do you have faith for healing?” You need to know whether he or she asking, “Do you believe God can heal you?” (confidence faith) or “Do you believe God will heal you?” (knowing faith). It’s important to know the difference.
“Faith” Teachers Emphasize Substance
“Faith” teachers use the word hupostasis to say that you can claim anything—healing, possessions, riches—because “faith is a substance.” In this, they put a heavy emphasis on the word “substance” and misuse Hebrews 11. For example, Charles Capps says:
Substance is the raw material, or the thing that would cause the manifestation.
Faith that is the substance of things hoped for is always now faith. The substance of things hoped for is always now.
You can say it several different ways. If faith is not now, it’s not faith. If it’s not faith that is present tense, it’s not the substance of things hoped for.”24
This misuse of the word “substance” causes Capps to give an explanation that is totally wrong. Faith is not a substance in that it is something solid you can put in your hands. I heard one preacher correctly explain it as a “firm foundation.” I like this definition because confidence in Christ is truly the firm foundation of things we hope for. From the definition of pistis and the explanation found in Hebrews 11, we know that faith is confidence in Christ and knowledge of what God will do. It is something with which you can agree with God, in your mind and spirit, not something you can take hold of physically.
I cannot overemphasize the fact that “faith” teachers misuse the definition of faith. It is this fundamental mistake that leads them to teach that you receive healing faith—knowing faith—when you are saved. They instruct their followers to exercise this faith, first for small healings like colds, then for major sicknesses. In this, they put healing in their followers’ hands rather than in God’s. That is why people flock to their teaching because it gives them—the people—control. Satan has fooled them! He knows we want to control our own lives and he uses truth, spun into inaccuracy, to deceive us to believe that we can.
The truth is that only when God gives you knowing faith can you claim a healing. (The correct word to use would be “announce” or “report.”)
To make it clearer, only when God says He is going to heal can you say, “God will heal me.” If He hasn’t yet healed you, it would only be correct to say, “I have asked God to heal me.” It is only when God has healed (all symptoms are gone) that you can say, “I am healed.” “Faith” teachers believe that you receive healing faith with salvation and therefore can find verses in the Bible that speak to your needs and claim them as your own. I ask them, “Where, in the Bible, does it say that we should claim something we don’t yet have?” They cannot answer that question because there are no such verses!
At the risk of being redundant, it is only when the Holy Spirit tells you what He will do that you have knowing faith. If you don’t have this kind of faith, it is wrong to believe you are going to get what you have asked for.
(Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the “Name It and Claim It” teaching is that many people think they hear God’s confirmation when, in fact, they are really listening to their own hearts. But that is a different issue.) The absence of knowing faith is what makes the “faith” of the “faith teachers” presumption instead.
Logos and Rhema
In the New Testament, logos and rhema are two Greek words that are translated “word.” Let’s read what Dr. Charles Farah says about them.
There are two Greek words which should throw a little light on the difference between “faith” and “presumption.” One is the word rhema; the other is the word logos. Both of these words are translated in the New Testament as “word.” Karl Barth speaks of this difference as the “the word of God to you, which is rhema, and the word of God, logos, which is universal.”
Romans 10:17, which is so freely quoted, says, “So faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” In Greek it is “the rhema of Christ,” which is the word of God to you. Let me illustrate what this means. How many of you became Christians the very first time that you heard the gospel? I dare say you heard it many times before you repented and believed. There was one moment in your life when God spoke a word to you and sank into your spirit. The logos became a rhema.
The Bible, the Ten Commandments, the gospels are all logos—the universal word of God to all men. Jesus Christ is the final logos to all men everywhere. He never changes, He is the same. But before the logos can do us any good, it must become rhema. Some of you may have read the Bible yet it never meant a thing to you. It was logos. Then one day it came alive—it was to you, rhema.”25
“Faith” teachers say you can make God’s logos a rhema by claiming it. If you confess a word over and over, it will become rhema. In reality, this isn’t possible. It must be the Holy Spirit who changes logos to rhema for you. Kenneth Copeland, one of the most prolific teachers of presumption, says, “But we have to do it on purpose. We have to enforce it with the confession of our mouths, because the more we say it with our mouths and hear it with our ears, the more it gets down into our spirits.”26
One of the biggest problems with some “faith” teachers is that they falsely “give” their followers the power to turn logos into rhema for their own purposes. They claim that they can pick any word from the scriptures and speak it until it becomes manifested in their lives. In this, they effectively treat the whole Bible as rhema. Rick Renner, a Christian leader and teacher from Oklahoma, was called to bring the gospel to Russia several years ago. This man of God has since established one of the largest churches in Moscow. Renner, who studied Greek in college, wrote a book called Sparkling Gems From the Greek. In it, he defines rhema as “a specific, quickened word from the Scriptures, placed into our hearts and hands by the Holy Spirit.”27
The Holy Spirit told Naaman (through the prophet Elisha), “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean” (2 Kings 5:10). It was a specific word, a rhema, to Naaman—the Holy Spirit’s revealed will for his life. That does not mean that if anyone dipped in the Jordan seven times, he or she would be healed! If I had leprosy, it would be foolish of me to quote 2 Kings 5:10 in an effort to make it rhema for me. No matter how many times I followed its instructions, I would not be healed. When we attempt to make God’s logo become rhema on our own, we are abusing the Word of God. To properly divide the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15), we must recognize that all scriptures are logos until the Holy Spirit changes them to become specific rhema to us.
Who Is Lord?
When “faith” teachers tell their followers to claim their healing when they have not actually received it, they are unwittingly telling them to break the ninth commandment: “to bear false witness.” In fact, in this, they are departing from the faith. Paul tells the Colossians 3:9, “Do not lie to one another.” In his first letter to Timothy (4:1,2) he even goes so far as to say, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron” (emphasis mine).
When teachers advise you to claim a scripture in the Bible and turn it from logos into rhema, they are telling you to do what only God Himself can do. They are teaching you to put yourself in the place of God, incorrectly dividing Jeremiah 2:31. Our Heavenly Father asks, through the mouth of the prophet, “Why do My people say, ‘We are lords’?” Their error reflects back to Satan’s sin, “I will ascend into heaven” (Isaiah 14:13,14). Such teachers are teaching that you—not Jesus—can be lord of your life. They are encouraging you to save (heal), rather than deny yourself (leave your healing up to Jesus—the exact opposite of what Jesus taught.
This fact alone should let you know that what they are teaching is false.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24,25).
Kenneth Copeland tells us: “You must believe that you are healed before you see the results in your body. You cannot wait until your body looks and feels healed before you believe it.”28 This is nothing but spin! Jesus is our example. Nowhere does He (or anyone else in the Bible) tell someone that they should believe they are healed before they see the manifestation. This is an invention of the “faith” teachers.
The way they teach it is as though God were saying, “If you say you’re healed often enough, even when you still have the symptoms of your illness, and I’m convinced you really believe it, then I will heal you.” For those who try this formula and fail, these teachers usually say, “You didn’t hang in there. You didn’t confess your healing long enough.” Or, “It was because you limited God with your unbelief.”
God is not always limited by a lack of belief. More than once, I have heard testimonies of people whom God has healed, even when they did not believe He would do so. When Jesus came down from the Mount of Transfiguration, He healed a man’s son from demonic possession, even when the father had doubts. The man said, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus did not say, “I cannot heal him until you have no doubts.” He healed the child anyway. It is presumption—which is a way of tempting God—that will limit Him on your behalf. In Psalms 78:41, “Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (emphasis added).
On his Sunday morning program “Love Worth Finding,” Adrian Rogers hit the nail on the head when he said, “Are you willing to let God be God?” His message that day was, “When Faith Seems to Fail.” 29 He reminded us of the “others” of Hebrews 11:36–39 who endured suffering rather than deliverance: “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.” Rogers pointed out that mature faith bows to the sovereign purposes of God. Then he asked, “Are you willing to have an ‘if not’ clause in your faith?” In other words, are we willing to have faith, even if we don’t get our own way? He clearly understands that faith is confidence in God, even when God says “no” to our requests.
I feel sure that today’s so-called “faith” teachers would disagree with Rogers (who has now gone on to his well-deserved reward in heaven) and claim that if you have an “if not” clause in your prayer, you would be praying in unbelief. However, isn’t that what Jesus prayed? “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless [if not] not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).
Giving Credit Where Credit Isn’t Due
Most of the followers of “faith” teachers are God-fearing people who want to do what the Bible teaches. When God heals them because of His mercy—even if they are “claiming” their healing in violation of the scriptures—they mistakenly testify that their healing came as a result of doing what they have been told by their instructors. “Faith” teachers then use such testimonies as an example of how their teaching works. Take, for example, a healing featured on The 700 Club.30
In 1999, a woman named Catherine Reese began to experience a weakness and numbness in her body. She started having headaches and problems seeing. Eventually, she became blind in her right eye and the left one began hemorrhaging. Her doctor said that one of two things could be the problem. She had either multiple sclerosis or a brain tumor. The next step was to undergo a CAT scan and MRI to determine which it was.
Concerned about the drastic diagnosis, she turned to God’s Word for comfort. When the distraught women picked up her Bible, it fell open to Psalms 118:17, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.” She decided to place her faith “in agreement with God’s Word” and asked her husband, Steven, to pray for her.
The following is their story as related on “The 700 Club”:
Catherine: He [Steven] laid his hands on my head and… just praying, speaking life, and while he was doing that—you’ve heard people talk about the audible voice of God, well, I heard the voice of God, but I heard it in my heart, and it told me, very distinctly, to go to the top of the mountain. So I sat up, you know, I told Steven, I said, you know, I ... I think God just told me to go to the top of the mountain, and he said, “Well then, we’ll go, we’re coming to the top of the mountain.”
Steven: And I just believed that… hum… at that time we were ultra sensitive to, to what He [God] was calling us to do.
Catherine: So we just asked Philip, our middle son, to go for a walk with us. With Philip on one side and Steven on the other… and it takes me a little while to get up there because I’m weak, you know. I’ve had this weakness and I tire very easily so I had to stop, but they walked me all the way to the top of the mountain, that we’re on here, and I asked them, “Can you just leave me alone for a few moments?”
And I just looked out over this vast valley that God has placed us on top of and I just looked up and I said, “Lord, I’ll come home if you want me to. But I want to stay. My husband’s a minister, I want to stay and support him and raise my children… so I’m going to trust you. And I stood up and I held my hands up and I said, “By His stripes we are healed. In the name of Jesus, I claim that healing in the name of Jesus.” And I said Jesus twice and the second time I said Jesus… the hand of God, that you cannot see but you can only feel, just touched me. It was like being electrocuted, but not being burned… just hot. And then as quickly as that heat came into me, cool came right back through, cool breeze almost, I can only explain it as just fresh breeze of cool air just washed the warmth out. And then this love just poured into me.
Steven: When we got back to Catherine and she shouted out that, uh, she starting to tell us just what had just happened. I remember saying, “I know, I know because in my spirit I knew I didn’t even have to hear everything she was telling me because I already knew.
Catherine: But I was still blind in my right eye, but I know I had been healed because with that pouring of love, all my energy just came right back and I felt like I had felt when I was twenty-two years old.
As soon as she could, Catherine went in for a CAT scan. It showed up negative! Then she had an MRI. Her doctor told her, “That’s the most beautiful MRI I have ever seen.” Catherine finishes her story:
Easter morning had arrived. I’m in my sister’s home Sunday morning and my niece had brought a beautiful balloon and had attached it to my bed and I looked up… covered my left, and my right eye was perfect and, you know, the first thing I did was hit the floor and just praised Him. Praised Him!
I have printed in italics the words in the story that the “faith” teachers would use to tell you Catherine was healed by following their teaching. They would say:
1. She was healed because she spoke life into her situation.
2. She was healed because she spoke the Word: “by His stripes we are healed.”
3. She was healed because she claimed her healing.
They could say this, but they would be wrong. She was not healed for any of those reasons. Catherine was healed because God gave her knowing faith that He would heal her, as well as where the healing would take place. Catherine received a rhema from God. He spoke to her through the Word that she would not die from this particular sickness. She did not leaf through the Bible to find a verse that would help. When she opened it, it fell open to what God wanted her to see. God—not Catherine—made His logos a rhema.
God spoke to Catherine again when He told her to go to the top of the mountain. That’s when He gave her knowing faith that He would heal her. She was willing to allow God to have His way, even though it was possible she might die (she was willing to have an “if not” clause in her prayer). She then claimed her healing because she had received knowing faith. God is not hung up over words and healed her, even though she only knew to claim it rather than just ask. The important thing here is that she was not presumptuous. She “claimed” (or, rather, believed for) her healing only after she had received knowing faith from God.
When I contacted Steven and Catherine Reese for their permission to include their powerful testimony in this book, Steven told me how the Lord led them, by faith, into a new ministry. In his own words, Steven says:
Perhaps the real story behind our testimony is the aftermath of that “faith” experience. God “slammed” us into founding a ministry that takes care of the poor of Appalachia. We left the world economy and totally, completely, without reservation, looked to God for all our needs to be met and began serving others with a $10.00 grocery store gift certificate and working from a small pick-up truck.
Within three months, we were in a 22,000-square-foot building, given to us for $1.00 per month. We did not know what it was for. We put our two desks and two chairs into the building and called it Shelter Rock. We were working as missionaries for families still living on dirt floors and in conditions that are very similar to those of Third World countries.
Fast-forward three-and-a-half years. Using the same faith, based on revealed scripture, the 22,000-square-foot building now has trucks in and out of the loading docks every day. Provision is being shipped via tractor trailer containers to missionaries in the Dakotas who care for the Indians, to Haiti, Guatemala, Africa, and North Korea. God has distributed over 3,000 tons of life provision and clothing, and conducted five medical clinics and fifteen large venue crusades to over 65,000 people with the love of Christ.
Everything—Catherine’s healing, our measure of faith, all of it—was to bring praise to His glory and as a light in the world, hope to the dying, and eternal life to those who ask.
Steven and Catherine Reese’s confidence faith, as Steven puts it, “based on revealed scripture,” had grown to the point where God was able to use them to instigate a new ministry to the Appalachian poor, which has now spread across the globe. That is what real faith—without presumption—can do.
God’s Mercy
There are people who are healed without knowing how it came about simply because of God’s mercy. When they hear about “naming and claiming” a healing, they believe that that is what they did. They come to the “faith” teachers’ meetings and support the misguided leader with their testimony. If you will question them, I believe you will find that, somewhere along the line, because of God’s love and mercy, they were given knowing faith from God. It is even possible that He healed them without giving them the faith for it. They just didn’t know how to articulate how they were healed. Nevertheless, “faith” teachers use such testimonies to reinforce their misguided doctrine.
“Faith” teachers also take credit for what the body does naturally. God has made us with an amazing ability to heal ourselves. When you cut yourself, the body’s defenses go to the wound to kill invading germs and restore the breach. When you get a cold, your body will cure itself in the process of time. I believe that, many times, “faith” healings actually occur as the result of natural processes. Nevertheless, the “faith” teacher either gets or takes the credit for having taught the person to receive a healing from God.
Acceptance of presumptuous teaching has caused many of the children of God to backslide (from trusting in Him to control their lives). Now is the time for us to return to our dependence on the Lord. That is what He tells us to do: “Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jeremiah 3:22). May our answer be as theirs was: “Indeed we do come to You, for You are the LORD our God.”
How Do We Have Faith?
How and when can we have faith, defined as confidence in Christ and knowledge of what God will do? “Name It and Claim It” teachers do not recognize that “saving faith” and “healing faith” are two very different coins. Rick Husband, however, knew the difference. Rick was the late Columbia shuttle commander who perished with his crew on February 1, 2003, when his spacecraft disintegrated while returning to earth. I believe he was referring to confidence faith when he said, “Faith doesn’t give us the power to change things. It gives us the ability to cope with the tough things that come our way.31
Salvation is our choice, but healing is God’s choice. We receive confidence faith from our Heavenly Father when we decide to accept His Son, Jesus, as Savior and be Lord of our lives. We receive knowing faith for healing and other miracles when the Holy Spirit decides if—or when—we should have it. We receive confidence faith by hearing the gospel and knowing faith by hearing God’s voice. We act on our confidence faith by trusting God for everything. That’s what the Reeses did, and their act of confidence faith resulted in a worldwide ministry to the poor. We do not have to act on knowing faith because what God says He will do, He will do!
Posts: 22 | From: Barstow, California | Registered: Nov 2008
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