Faith Looks Forward to Unfulfilled Divine Promises

N. T. Wright speaking on genuine faith as resurrection faith:

The main point of 'faith' in [Hebrews 11], as has often been emphasized, is that it looks forward to what has been promised but not yet granted. Noah was warned about things yet to come. Abraham set out for a place he had been promised but had not yet seen. The main antithesis the writer is making is not between an 'upstairs' or 'spiritual' world in the hellenistic sense and a 'downstairs' or 'material' world, but between the present world and the future one, the promised new world which will be God's gift from heaven.

—The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 458.