Heb 11 - 03 - Christ - Creator of All

Heb 11 - 03 - Christ - Creator of All


Heb 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.


"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made." {John 1:1-3}

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ... Then God said, ‘Let there be ... " {Ge 1:1,3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26}

Before embarking upon the list of past men of faith, the writer starts where we must all start - the creation. By implication, a person must believe in the God of all creation and get that perspective right. He is not a God, but the God, besides whom there is no other. He is the author of all reality and is Himself the ultimate reality, going way above and beyond his creation.

This level of faith is, in some measure, given to all men. All men implicitly know that there is a God who made everything, but they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. By the grace of God, however, the saints of both the old and new covenants had the scales removed from their eyes. Our blindness is healed. None of us sees perfectly, as Jesus did, but we can see well enough for the suppression of the truth to be overcome in us. We have been reborn.

The existence of an invisible reality beyond our immediate senses is apprehended by faith. "Ex nihilo nihil fit" – (nothing is made out of nothing) is not true. It is true only to unbelieving, darkened, rationalizing minds. Human wisdom applies presuppositional logic and devises laws which cannot be broken. Science states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and humanism incorporates that into its manifesto with perfect glee and complete assurance. But there is a First Cause of all that we do see and, since “all we see is all we know” then the First Cause must be invisible to us. There is no hill above the One Who created us from which we can look down and see Him. He is the Hill above all things, and there is no higher vantage point.


We are always looking "up" to try to understand. He looks down in perfect understanding. We are the work of his hands and he is the object of our veneration and fear. But no matter how much we accept these things, our acceptance is entirely due to faith in the God we cannot see, and in his Word. Our faith is reasonable and rational but is not transferable. We share it but we cannot impart it. We can stand in the light, speak of the light, live according to the light - but no one can see the light unless God grants it to him. The natural man has a moral inability that is born of a predisposition not to see.

So when the writer says that "By faith we understand..." he is speaking of that faith which comes from God and which enlightens the soul - regenerative light - new eyes. He is not speaking of that "faith" that the wicked (by which is meant all unbelievers) suppress in unrighteousness. And the writer is, by this small introductory phrase, including his Hebrew audience in some small encouraging way in the roll of the faithful - by at least giving them the benefit of the doubt.