Commentary - Hebrews 11:3

Bird's-eye view

Hebrews 11 begins its great catalog of faith, not with a human hero, but with the foundational act of faith that makes all subsequent acts of faith possible. This verse establishes the Christian's starting point for all of reality. By faith, and by faith alone, we understand that the entire cosmos, the whole sweep of history, was framed and fashioned by the spoken word of God. This was not a remodeling project using pre-existing materials. The visible, tangible world we inhabit was called into being out of nothing visible. This doctrine of creation ex nihilo is the ultimate antithesis to every form of materialism and godless evolution. It establishes God as the transcendent Creator, distinct from His creation, and His Word as the ultimate reality upon which our flimsy, visible world depends.

This is not a matter of scientific proof or philosophical deduction; it is a matter of revelation received by faith. Faith is presented here not as a blind leap, but as a faculty of understanding, an organ of spiritual perception. Without it, the world is an incoherent jumble of brute facts. With it, the world is revealed as a theater of God's glory, intelligently designed and purposefully ordered by the very same Word who accomplished our redemption.

Outline

Context In Hebrews

After establishing the supremacy of Christ's person and work in chapters 1-10, the author now turns to the necessary response: faith. Chapter 11 is the practical outworking of the exhortation to "not throw away your confidence" (Heb 10:35) and to "live by faith" (Heb 10:38). Before listing the historical examples of faith from Abel onward, the author lays down the most fundamental premise of all. You cannot have faith in God's historical interventions if you do not first have faith in His primordial, creative act. All the subsequent stories of patriarchs, prophets, and kings depend on this first truth. Their faith was in a God who could act in history precisely because He was the God who created history and the stage on which it unfolds. This verse is the intellectual and spiritual bedrock for the entire chapter, and indeed, for the entire Christian worldview.

Key Issues

The World's True Parentage

Every worldview must answer the question of origins. Where did all this come from? The modern secularist, with a great deal of bravado, asserts that everything came from nothing, for no reason. This is his foundational faith commitment, a far more credulous position than anything the Christian is required to believe. The Christian faith also begins with a declaration about origins, but it is a declaration that is both coherent and glorious. Our world is not an orphan. It has a Father, and He brought it into being through the agency of His powerful Word.

This verse is the Christian's starting block. We do not arrive at this conclusion after a long chain of empirical reasoning. We begin here. Faith is not the caboose on our train of thought; it is the engine. It is the God-given ability to see the world as it actually is: a created thing, a dependent thing, a thing that shouts the glory of its Maker. To refuse this starting point is to commit oneself to explaining a grand and intricate poem without reference to a poet, which is the definition of a fool's errand.

Verse by Verse Commentary

By faith we understand...

The first two words are crucial. The world says, "by seeing we believe," or "by proving we understand." The Bible says the reverse. Faith is not a synonym for wishful thinking or a lack of evidence. In the biblical framework, faith is a way of knowing. It is a noetic faculty, a spiritual sense that enables us to perceive realities that are inaccessible to our physical senses. The verb here is nooumen, we understand, we perceive with the mind. This is not a rejection of reason, but rather the establishment of the necessary precondition for reason to function correctly. Reason is a magnificent tool, but it is like a saw. It is useless unless it has a log to cut. Faith in God's revelation is the log. Without the axiomatic truth of God the Creator, all human reason saws at thin air and ultimately devolves into absurdity.

...that the worlds were prepared by the word of God...

The term for "worlds" here is aionas, which can mean the ages, the entire created order in its spatial and temporal dimensions. It encompasses everything from the farthest galaxy to the smallest quark, and from the beginning of time to its end. And how was this vast and intricate structure brought into being? It was "prepared" or "framed" (katertisthai), a word that implies skillful adjustment, ordering, and purpose. This was not a cosmic accident. It was an act of divine architecture. The instrument used was the "word of God." This immediately throws us back to Genesis 1: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." God's speech is not like our speech. Our words describe reality; God's Word creates reality. And we know from the New Testament that this creative Word is a Person: the Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were made (John 1:3; Col 1:16).

...so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Here is the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo in its clearest New Testament expression. The material universe, everything that is "seen," was not fashioned from some pre-existing visible stuff. The pagan mythologies often had their gods shaping the world out of some primordial chaos or the corpse of another god. Modern materialism, its sophisticated descendant, posits that eternal matter and energy simply rearranged themselves. The Bible rejects all of this. God did not work with existing materials. He spoke, and the materials themselves came into being. The visible world has its origin in the invisible will and power of God. The seen is dependent upon the unseen. The material is derivative of the spiritual. This is the ultimate statement of God's transcendence and sovereignty. He is not part of the system; He is the author of the system. What we see is not the ultimate reality; it is a reflection of the ultimate reality, which is God Himself.

Application

First, this truth must be the foundation of our worship. We do not worship a souped-up creature, a god who is simply the biggest thing within the universe. We worship the God who stands outside the universe and who spoke it into existence. This should produce in us a profound sense of awe and humility. The God we pray to is the one whose mere speech framed the galaxies.

Second, this truth provides the basis for all Christian apologetics. We do not argue for God's existence on neutral ground with the unbeliever, because there is no neutral ground. The very ground he stands on was created by the Word of God. The air he breathes to voice his objections is a gift from the one he denies. We must press the antithesis. Either the personal God of Scripture created everything by His Word, or impersonal chance created everything from nothing for no reason. There is no third way. One is the foundation for all meaning, logic, and beauty; the other is the foundation for nihilism.

Finally, this truth is a profound comfort. The same powerful Word that framed the ages is the Word that upholds the universe moment by moment (Heb 1:3). That same Word became flesh to redeem us (John 1:14). And that same Word has given us promises for our future. If His Word was powerful enough to create the cosmos from nothing, then it is certainly powerful enough to keep you, to sanctify you, and to bring you safely home. Our faith is not in the stability of the visible world, which is fleeting, but in the unshakeable reality of the invisible God and His unfailing Word.