Transcribed from the Words of Life Radio Program
It is great to be together again as we look into the Word of God. The title for the lesson is “His Love Endures Forever.” And our theme text is taken from Psalm 136 verses 5 and 6. Please listen to the Word of God.
“Who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
Who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.”
On and on it goes in Psalm 136 with the refrain “His love endures forever.”
We’ll investigate briefly distinctive elements of God and of His creation that we should know as Bible-believing Christians.
Controversy about the biblical teaching of creation by God is nothing new. For example, by the time of the writing of the New Testament, in the first century AD, the Greeks held that the world is eternal, meaning that there was no initial moment of beginning of creation. Many Modern people have also lost confidence in any purpose or goodness of creation.
In stark contrast, the biblical understanding of God and His creation, stands against both these ancient and modern views. That is the God of the Bible, who is without equal or opposition, spoke, merely spoke the world, indeed the entire universe into existence, therefore, there was a beginning, and it was for His own good purposes. God’s own good purposes.
We should not be surprised or discouraged by the multiple controversies and debates about God, about His goodness, and His creative power and purpose. Nor should we expect these type debates to cease in this life. Most people are not people of genuine faith in the God of the Bible or the Bible itself.
A conservative biblical theologian offers eight which in this 2-part series we’ll investigate the first four distinctive elements of God and of His creation that we as bible-believing Christians should know and affirm. We’ll briefly look into each of these together.
#1 God created the Universe “out of nothing.” This is not a theory, not a guess, not a human opinion. As Bible believing Christians the Bible affirms this truth. For example, in Romans chapter 4 verse 17 which says, “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” New American Standard Version translates “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.”
Also, in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3 it states, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Therefore, Scripture affirms that God created everything in the beginning without pre-existing materials. We should understand that both unbelieving ancient and modern peoples believe only in the concept of “out of nothing, comes nothing.”
Nevertheless, as bible-believing Christians we affirm that God created everything “out of nothing,” in the beginning, which is a mystery to us, miraculous yet we accept by faith in the Word of God; without the need to explain how God did this. Obviously, supernaturally. Only an all-powerful God can create “out of nothing.” So, we need only believe in an all-powerful God.
The Genesis account, however, also makes clear that though God created directly, and immediately “out of nothing”: He also created later by using “raw materials” which He had already created.
For example, in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 it says, “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground…” Thereby, Scripture reveals that God used both methods creating “out of nothing” and creating out of materials that he had earlier called into existence. That He had created.
#2 God alone is eternal; creation began in time. We should understand that time and space are elements of God’s creation. God is apart from time and space. God is not ‘in’ either; nor is God bound by either time or space. Time itself is an element of creation that came into being at the initial moment of creation according to most Christian theologians. This is affirmed biblically and poetically in: Psalm 90 verse 2 “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” This truth has significant implications. Certainly not the least of these is that since time is an element of creation itself there was no “before” the events of (Genesis chapter 1 verse 1) in the sense of time.
Whether the earth is relatively young or extremely old, which is another lesson, the fact that it had a beginning, now widely accepted by modern science along the line of the “Big Bang Theory” means then that only God is eternal “from everlasting to everlasting.” Another implication, for believers, is that since God is pre-existent, fully self-sufficient, infinitely powerful and eternal then only God is worthy of worship. All other subjects of worship amount to idolatry because everything else has had a beginning and has existed only for a finite period of time. Only the God of the Bible is uniquely qualified for our worship.
#3 God is distinct from His creation. This element of God correlates to the previous two points. Since God alone is eternal and all-powerful in that. He called the universe into existence “out of nothing,” Then logically there is a fundamental difference between Creator and His Creation.
A biblical scholar writes these words: “God and the world are not on a continuum, nor is the world an extension of the essence of God. Prior to creation, God was the sum total of reality.” This is also affirmed in Scripture and also poetically in: Psalm 102 verses 25 through 27 “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them, and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”
Therefore, God transcends His apart from His creation; He is above and beyond distinctive that is “wholly other” than from His creation, yet He continues to relate to what He has created.
#4 God did not create out of His necessity. That is God did not need to create anything. That is because God is utterly complete within Himself; God is independent of everything; God is dependent on nothing; His creation does not add anything to Him. God did not create out of any sense of lacking. From all eternity God has been and continues to be a perfect fellowship of: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has always perfectly possessed all excellencies in Himself. Stated another way: Had God chosen never to create it would not have detracted from His inherent glory one iota. Nothing internal nor external necessitated creation. A theologian writes: “God did not create in order to bring Himself to completion. Nor did He create because He was driven to do so by external compulsion.”
Which then begs the question: “So why did God create?” A biblical scholar writes: “The answer to this question is that the creation of the world, in fact the universe, is a completely gratuitous (meaning free, as a gift) act from God. We and everything else exists by God’s grace and good pleasure. His goodness is a gift. Creation is an expression of God’s steadfast love, which will endure into eternity.”
This truth is also implied in Scripture poetically again in Psalm 136 verses 5 and 6 “Who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endues forever. Who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever.” And on and on in Psalm 136, His love endures forever.
Also more explicitly consider in the New Testament Book of Acts chapter 17 verses 24 through 26 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”
In part two of this series, of the distinctive elements of God and of His creation, that we should know, and we affirm as Bible believing Christians we’ll continue studying together regarding:
#5 God did not have to create our particular world; it exists purely by his will and good pleasure.
#6 God, in fact, created a world that is consistent with His nature and character.
#7 God is and remains sovereign over the world.
#8 God continues to be actively involved in the world.
And so, stay tuned for part two to come soon. Our final point in this lesson if we are willing to accept it. As Bible-believing Christians we know that our world originally came completely from God. As a result, we should understand that the order, the design, in nature is precisely what God wants it to be – even mathematically precise. How is that?
For example, when Copernicus, mathematician, and astronomer (lived from 1473 to 1543), proposed that the planets go around the sun instead of around the earth, he actually had no empirical evidence (meaning being verifiable by observation, investigation, or experiment) for his new hypothesis. Before, I said before, the invention of telescopes, observations of the planets fit an earth-centered system just as well as a sun-centered system. However, the sole factor favoring a sun-centered system for Copernicus was that it was mathematically simpler; it didn’t require as many adjustments in the equations, mathematical equations. Since Copernicus, was a Christian, he was convinced that God had created the world mathematically precise, in perfect order, his getting better formulas was good enough for him, mathematical formulas was good enough for him to propose a heliocentric (meaning sun-centered) system for all the planets to orbit.
Of course, when telescopes were invented, it turned out that Copernicus was correct. What’s the point? Copernicus living at the threshold of a scientific revolution, was persuaded not by the science available to him at the time, but instead he was motivated by his Christian faith in a God of order evidenced in the precise natural order He had created. That God had created.
We today also should be motivated by our Christian faith in God our Creator as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Faith in the Scriptures, faith in God. Above and beyond science. Because science is good but there is also bad science. But God is always good and always right and the scriptures are the Word of God.
David Johnson is minister of Sellersburg Church of Christ in Sellersburg, IN.