Hebrews 11:3

3. Through faith As instrument, or means. We Lunemann justly notes, that while this example commences the series with the creation, it does not form one example in the line of elders; for it is we who entertain this faith, and not the elders alone, though, perhaps, the we is inclusive of the elders. The proper reasons why our author begins with this instance are: 1. That it is at the chronological beginning of the series, namely, at the very creation itself; and, 2. It exemplifies the last clause of the definition; it shows how faith is demonstration of the unseen, of the supermundane. What this faith is, we know, for we all entertain it.

We understand The Greek verb expresses action of the higher, or intuitive, faculties of man, the spirit; that is, we intuitize. This intuitive faculty sees the invisible truth by direct looking at it, as the eye sees a visible object. See note on 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

Were framed Were brought to completion from crude conditions. The word does not designate absolute creation from nothing, but an adjusting of parts and a construction of a symmetrical whole.

By the word of God By the divine command, as in the first chapter of Genesis a figurative expression for the divine energy in action. There is here no reference to the personal Word, nor to the mediation of the Son in the creation, as in Hebrews 1:2, but an affirmation that God is maker.

So that Rather, to the end that. God’s word, or active energy, framed… the worlds purposely, so that the visible sprung not from things appearing.

Things which are seen The completed system of definite things making up the visible world. Or, as the singular is used in the Greek, το βλεπωμενον , literally, the seen, the visible, it means the whole system taken as a complex unit.

Things that do appear The difference between the seen, or the visible, and the appear, or apparent, is, that the former is considered as perceived by only the one sense of sight, the latter by any sense or perceptive power; and if by any perceptive power, divine as well as human, then the non-apparent would be about equivalent to the non-existent; for what omniscience cannot perceive must be non-existent. It is disputed whether the not connects with made, so as to say that the visible was not made, or did not come from the apparents, or with appear, so as to say that the visible came from the non-apparents. Though the order of the Greek words suggests the former, yet Stuart and Delitzsch ably maintain, by good Greek precedents, the latter. And rendering it the visible system was made from non-apparents, the non-apparents Delitzsch holds to be the creative divine powers and forces. In that case the meaning would be, that creation is by omnipotence out of nothing. Stuart, however, ingeniously suggests, that to say that the world was made “out of nothing,” seems to imply that nothing was a something out of which it was made, and he concludes that our author expresses the thought correctly when he says, that the visible was not made out of perceptible antecedents, or, in other words, previous materials. But, note, 1. The force of the word framed, meaning constructed, put together, indicates that our author is describing formation of worlds, not origination of their substance. He is speaking of shaping materials into organisms, not bringing the materials into existence from non-existence. 2. The Greek word for made signifies to begin to exist, to become, to take existence; but to begin to exist as a framed system. We have, then, the rendering: the worlds were framed so that the visible system came into existence from non-apparents. It is, then, of the organizing of the visible system that our writer is speaking. And what are the non-apparents from which it took organic existence? 3. If we rightly understand, they are the primitive elements the chaos of Genesis. Philosophers are generally agreed that the atoms of which things consist, and the worlds were framed, are themselves imperceptible to any human sense. They are, individually, so minute that no eye and no magnifying power can reach them. Nobody ever saw the atom, though every body believes its existence. We see it by the eye, not of sense, but of intuitive reason. That is, by faith we intuitize that the worlds were organized, so that the visible system took organic form from imperceptible elements.