There is a difference between true faith and belief in doctrines about God, even if they are sound doctrines. John Bunyan was advised by Mr. Gifford, his pastor and spiritual mentor, that people needed to be delivered from false tests of sound doctrine.
He told us to pay special heed not to accept any truth just upon blind trust. Instead to cry mightily to God so that God would convince us of the reality of it and immerse us in it by his own Spirit in the holy Word. “For,” he said, “when temptation comes strongly upon you if you have not received these things with evidence from Heaven, you will soon find that you do to have that help and strength to resist that you thought you had” (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, #117).
The composer of Psalm 73, a wisdom/didactic psalm, give us an early testimony to this experience of true faith. The psalmist struggled with an issue of theodicy, the problem of good people suffering in this life. We hear his testimony about how experiencing God is the foundation of what real faith is. Let’s look at the flow of thought.
Opening to the psalmist’s story (1-3).
Verse 1: The speaker opens with his conclusion, a confession about how God is good to those who are pure in heart.
Verses 2-3: He gives a retrospective observation of what he had struggled with, how he nearly lost his foothold – a metaphor, perhaps referring to beliefs he had been taught about God (v. 2). Why? Because he had envied wicked people who prosper (3). This psalm presents the real-life problem of why good people sometimes suffer and bad people do not.
His initial experience: the unjust lives of the wicked compared to his (4-14)
Verses 4-12: He describes how wicked people become arrogant when they prosper and how they mock the notion of a God who knows and cares.
Verses 13-14: In contrast to the wicked, he began to think that keeping his heart pure had only left him stricken and punished; that is, being pure was worse than without benefit.
Interruption: a post-experience reflective comment (15-16)
At that time, had he spoken his despairing conclusion, it would have been an act of treachery to “the generation of your sons” – probably an idiom for faithful followers. But, at that time, on his own, he could not make sense of what he saw. Why did his perspective change?
Turning point in the speaker’s story (17).
This is the turning point in the speaker’s account. He entered the holy place of God –probably the temple. He does not describe his religious experience. He simply lets us know that he sought God, and that everything changed.
Reflection on his religious experience (18-27)
The speaker now addresses God while teaching the general audience through his testimony. He shares the new perspective he gained, a faith perspective.
Verses 18-20: He realized that the apparent success of the wicked is ephemeral.
Verses 21-22: He realized how uncomprehending and ignorant he had been.
Verses 22-27: Most importantly, he realized that God would be eternally faithful to him. Here the psalmist pushes beyond what one can see about justice in this life to a confidence in God’s grip on him forever. God’s justice and faithful will prevail past the time in which his own flesh will fail, an outcome that stands in contrast to those who are unfaithful.
Verse 28: The speaker makes his confession of faith – he has taken refuge in God – with the attendant result of telling people of all the doings of God, even as he gives this testimony.
The composer of Psalm 73 did not come up with a philosophical answer to why the wicked sometimes prosper while the righteous suffer. Rather, he came to the perspective of genuine faith. In the experience of seeking God (entering the Holy place/temple), he realized that this life’s experience of apparent injustice is a fleeting dream. For him, the real substance of life was knowing that God had an eternal hold on him and that he had taken refuge in a good God. That is the biblical understanding of faith. For us, it is knowing that God is sufficient. For God, it establishes a right relationship, “Abraham entrusted himself to the LORD and He counted it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
“Faith” [Heb: ’amunah and Greek: pistis] basically means “entrustment.” That is, a person rests upon that which has a convicting or proofing essence about it; it is trustworthy. In this context, it rests on the character and behavior of God whom the psalmist experienced in the temple. The convicting evidence of God’s Presence is why the psalmist [we] know that God holds on to us even after this body fails.
The psalmist’s post-religious experience of faith reminds me of Hebrews 11:1. (See posts, “Faith and the Most Real,” Sept. 13, 2023 and a follow-up on April 23, 2025.) A modern translation of Hebrews 11:1 is:
“Now faith (πίστις, pistis) is confidence (ὑπόστασις, hypostasis) in what we hope for and assurance (ἔλεγχος. elengchos) about what we do not see.” (NIV).
The second and third key terms (in Greek) are rendered above in a personal and subjective sense, which makes sense in the context of faith and hope; however, these words project something more foundational than a person's psychological state. “Faith/entrustment” is grounded on more than belief. The word hypostasis expresses “essence,” “real being,” and elengchos expresses “evidence of truth,” “the proving,” “verification.” These are terms about what is most real. Showing the parallelism of phrases here, although a little awkward in English, a more accurate translation would be:
Now this is faith:
regarding
what we look to in the future [it is] essence/reality,
regarding
matters not seen [it is] verification.
Paraphrased for smoother English, and picking up the author’s thought in context:
Now this is faith: the reality of what we look to in the future [the promises of God] and the verification of matters not yet seen [of the promises of God].
Application:
Psalm
73 gives us insight into true biblical faith, which is much more than belief in
sound doctrines about God and even feelings about God. It is defined well in Hebrews 11:1; faith is experientially grounded on the Most Real. It is why Mr.
Gifford told John Bunyan to cry out to God for such certainty. It is what happened in John Wesley’s
heart-warming experience when he moved from belief to faith:
I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. (Journal, May 242, 1738)
To reclaim a word that has been perverted in American politics, it is what was once called “evangelical” faith. It is what happened to me while attending a worship service on May 2, 1972. In the overwhelming Presence of God, I said, “Jesus, I am ruining my life. I give it to you.” Like the psalmist testified, “I have made the Lord God my refuge” (Ps 73:28).
