ructed by the word of God, and that even to this
point of assurance: that the visible universe as a whole came not into
being out of things that do appear."

The author began in the previous verse to unroll his magnificent record
of the elders. But from the beginning men found themselves in the
presence of a mystery of the past before they received any promise as to
the future. It is the mystery of creation. It has pressed heavily on men
in all ages. The Apostle himself has felt its power, and speaks of it as
a question which his readers and himself have faced. How do we know that
the development of the ages had a beginning? If it had a beginning, how
did it begin? The Apostle replies that we know it by faith. The
revelation which we have received from God addresses itself to our moral
perception and our confidence in God's moral nature. We have been taught
that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and that
"God said, Let there be light."[256] Faith demands this revelation. Is
faith trust? That trust in God is our proof that the framework of the
world was put together by His creative wisdom and power. Is faith the
inner life of righteousness? Morality requires that our own
consciousness of personality and freedom should be derived from a Divine
personality as the Originator of all things. Is faith communion with
God? Those who pray know that prayer is an absolute necessity of their
spiritual nature, and prayer lifts its voice to a living Father. Faith
demonstrates to him who has it, though not to others, that the universe
has come to its present form, not by an eternal evolution of matter, but
by the action of God's creative energy.

The somewhat peculiar form of the clause seems certainly to suggest that
the Apostle ascribes the origin of the universe, not only to a personal
Creator, but to that personal Creator acting through the ideas of His
own mind. "The visible came into being, not out of things that appear."
We catch ourselves waiting till he finishes the sentence with the words,
"but out of things that do not appear." Most expositors fight shy of the
inference and explain it away by alleging that the negative has been
misplaced.[257] But is it not true that the universe is the
manifestation of thought in the unity of the Divine purpose? This is the
very notion required to complete the Apostle's statement concerning
faith as a proof. If faith demonstrates, it acts on principles. If God
is per