NOTES for Heb 11:1
Today we understand faith in very different ways. Most often the matter is a firm confidence in the truth of something, whether a theory, concept, views, or convictions. Even faith in God today, for many sincerely religious people, is reduced to confidence that God exists and that He is exactly as the sacred books of the corresponding religion describe Him. Meanwhile, the author of the letter is speaking about something else.
He speaks about the realization of what we expect according to our faith, and about proof of the existence of invisible things, "assurance of things unseen," as the Synodal translation renders it. It turns out that faith begins with a certain confidence, and with confidence based on experience; the corresponding Greek word literally means "proof," something whose existence can be verified precisely by experience. This, however, is no surprise: real faith, which presupposes real communion with God, is impossible without experience.
Of course, trust is no less important here, both toward God and toward oneself - naturally, toward one's true self, toward one's heart, which becomes the spiritual organ that makes real communion with God possible. But trust opens precisely the possibility of real, experientially lived communion with God, who just as really and tangibly enters a person's life, renewing it. And the renewal of life changes it both inwardly and outwardly, often quite radically, as is evident from the examples given by the author of the letter.
Yet all such changes are a divine-human process; they are impossible without the active and conscious participation in them of the person led by God. This is how the realization of what is expected, of which the author speaks, takes place. Faith now turns out to be not only convictions or confidence in God's being; it becomes, on the one hand, a process, and on the other, a spiritual path. A process connected with the realization of God's plans, and a path of spiritual becoming walked by the person participating in God's plans. This process and this path are true faith - the very faith that leads to salvation.