Barnes' Notes: Hebrews
Overview
Albert Barnes and James Murphy wrote this verse-by-verse commentary on Hebrews. Published in the 1800s, it is still well-loved and well-read by evangelicals who appreciate Barnes' pastoral insights into the Scripture. It is not a technical work, but provides informative observations on the text, intended to be helpful to those teaching Sunday School. Today, it is ideally suited to anyone teaching or preaching the Word of God, whether a professional minister or layperson.
Top Highlights
“It does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament. The phrase ‘the beginner of faith,’ or the leader on of faith, would express the idea. He is at the head of all those who have furnished an example of confidence in God, for he was himself the most illustrious instance of it.” (Page 292)
“The word ‘our’ is not in the original here, and obscures the sense. The meaning is, he is the first and the last as an example of faith or of confidence in God—occupying in this, as in all other things, the pre-eminence, and being the most complete model that can be placed before us.” (Page 292)
“We do not see the things of eternity. We do not see God, or heaven, or the angels, or the redeemed in glory, or the crowns of victory, or the harps of praise; but we have faith in them, and this leads us to act as if we saw them.” (Page 249)
“The true solution seems to me to be, that it refers to him as incarnate, but still has reference to him as the incarnate Son of God.” (Page 24)
“This is the drift and scope of the epistle—to show that Christians should hold fast their profession, and not apostatize.” (Page 106)
- Title: Barnes' Notes: Hebrews
- Authors: Albert Barnes and James Murphy
- Publisher: Blackie & Son
- Publication Date: 1884–1885
- Pages: 328
Albert Barnes graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, in 1820, and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1823. Barnes was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by the presbytery of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1825, and was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New Jersey (1825–1830), and of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia (1830–1867).
He held a prominent place in the New School branch of the Presbyterians during the Old School-New School Controversy, to which he adhered on the division of the denomination in 1837. In 1836, he had been tried (but not convicted) for heresy, mostly due to the views he expressed in Notes on Romans of the imputation of the sin of Adam, original sin and the atonement; the bitterness stirred up by this trial contributed towards widening the breach between the conservative and the progressive elements in the church. He was an eloquent preacher, but his reputation rests chiefly on his expository works, which are said to have had a larger circulation both in Europe and America than any others of their class. Of the well-known Notes on the New Testament, it is said that more than a million volumes had been issued by 1870. The Notes on Job, the Psalms, Isaiah and Daniel were also popularly distributed. The popularity of these works rested on how Barnes simplified Biblical criticism so that new developments in the field were made accessible to the general public.