Scripture Introduction
John Haldane pioneered work in genetics, and in 1952 received the Darwin Medal from the Royal Society. Other awards he received included the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the 1960 Kimber Award from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was also a socialist and Marxist.
Ronald Knox was a well-known priest and contemporary of Haldane. In addition to his parish work, Knox (a brilliant classists) wrote detective novels, translated the Vulgate and several devotional writings into English, and was a friend of G. K. Chesterton. In 1926, during his regular BBC Radio show, Knox broadcast a pretended live report of a revolution sweeping through London. Some historians believe this was the idea behind H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
Haldane and Knox met on an occasion and began to speak about the origins of the universe. Haldane did not believe in God and said that in a universe containing millions of planets it was inevitable that life would appear by chance on one of them. Knox answered: “Sir, if Scotland Yard found a body in your Saratoga trunk, would you tell them, ‘There are millions of trunks in the world – surely one of them must contain a dead body’? I think they still would want to know who put it there.”
Who put it there indeed? That question is before us as we consider “The Beginning of…the Universe.”
[Read: Genesis 1.1-2; 1.31-2.3; Isaiah 45.14-25. Pray.]
Introduction
One implant used by orthopaedic surgeons to repair severe fractures is placed inside the bone, then must be fixed with screws inserted from the outside. The surgeons cannot see the implant, so they use a portable x-ray machine during surgery to target the drilling for the screws. The process is difficult because after locating the holes, they must rotate the drill, guess the correct angle and drill “blind.” Sometimes the bit passes through the bone and implant; other times it misses, damaging one of the other.
As an engineer, I worked on a gear box to transfer the torque of the motor to a bit 90º rotated. We made the device from plastic, allowing the surgeon to watch the procedure live while he or she drilled through the bone and implant. We searched long for a material which could survive the extremes of orthopaedic surgery, but eventually we finished the design.
The project then went to production and soon the first 100 radiolucent gear boxes were made. They were beautiful! (One of the great rewards in engineering is seeing your design converted into actual products.) All that remained was the final manufacturing step – heat treatment. (When certain materials are cut or shaped, they can absorb significant material stress. Therefore, they are slowly warmed in a controlled environment to relax and dissipate the residual stresses.) One hundred devices went into the oven, and 100 pieces of shattered plastic (like the windshield of a wrecked car) came out. And the question asked was: “Whose fault is this?” Each drill was to sell for around $500 so management began to ask, “Who made the $50,000 mistake?”
I think this illustration helps explain some of the creation controversy. After the first production run, we had a large stack of expensive trash, even though the parts appeared (dimensionally) to match the engineering drawings. We also had sinners who not want responsibility for failure.
Likewise, we spend a pile of money on fossils and geological samples. Some of the bones seem different from animals alive today, and the rocks look old. And do not forget, there are sinful hearts which (according to Romans chapter one) do not want to take responsibility for worship of the Creator: “Maybe there is no God and we can live as we please.”
One other part of the drill story I should tell you. I did not want to be blamed for the problem either! So I telephoned the doctor we worked with and asked him to overnight something to me. The next morning I carried a Fed Ex package to the director of manufacturing and opened it on his desk. Inside was new data which reinterpreted the other “facts.” I did not change the blueprints. I did not fix the broken parts – they were forever ruined. But I had something which forced a new answer onto the broken parts. I had a working prototype. Made to the same blueprints, heat-treated to the same specifications, and, most importantly, used in 40 surgeries and, therefore, submitted to 40 rounds of high-temperature sterilization. Suddenly, eyes opened to what previously had been impossible – a manufacturing flaw!
There is, of course, a way of looking at the universe by which you see rocks a million years old and your neighbor as a mature monkey. But we have data here which opens eyes to a new interpretation of facts that a moment earlier answered to only one conclusion. If we look at the universe apart from its Creator, we will place something where God alone should be. Romans 1.25: “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” Thus the truth about the beginning of the universe corrects the lie, and in so doing, restores our souls and redeems our lives. Note, please, four implications from the truth about the Creator:
1 We Must Know How the Universe Began So that We Align With Its Center (Genesis 1.1)
Note well: the subject of the Bible is God! He is the first person mentioned, and he alone is self-existing and eternal. In the first 34 verses of this book, God is named 35 times. Add the personal pronouns referring to God and he is mentioned 43 times in the first chapter. God creates; more than that, however, he is the central character of the universe.
This is further emphasized by the verb Moses uses. The first two words in Hebrew are (Hebrew Letters). [bereshith bara], “In the beginning, created….” Three details about the verb (Hebrew Letters) [bara]. First, it appears before its subject, “God,” to emphasize the action. Second, this form of the verb (Hebrew Letters) [bara] only describes the work of God. Third, (Hebrew Letters) [bara] never refers to making one thing out of another. When God later uses dirt to make the first man, he does not (Hebrew Letters) [bara] (create), but “forms” (Hebrew Letters) [yatzar]. What does this mean?
Dr. Douglas Kelly, “This Hebrew verb has a uniqueness about it; an absoluteness. It means that the infinite, personal, Triune God of the Bible made something out of nothing (in Latin, ex nihilo), that is, without preexisting material.”
All of this to remind you that there is “something and not nothing” because God “made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them” (Exodus 20.11). Those who suppose that given enough time something is bound to appear out of thin air simply hide their lack of a real answer. Those who know the movie The Sound of Music probably remember the song Maria sang. Her doctrine of God was terrible, but the chorus is correct: “Nothing comes from nothing / Nothing ever could.” Something must be eternal, and God alone has no beginning. He created all that is, from what was not. Why is this important? Here are three implications:
1.1. Otherwise, Might Makes Right
Most Americans define themselves as people with the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Hitler thought differently for the Jews. He said, “You are a lower rung on the ladder of evolution, a threat to the gene pool. For the sake of humanity, and by faith in eugenics, you must be destroyed.”
The south thought differently for people with dark skin. They said, “You are an animal not yet evolved into a person; you have no rights. We will use you as we would a shovel, and when we are through we will dispose of you.”
Our government thinks differently for babies in the mother’s womb: “You are disease, a bother, a hindrance to comfort and career. We may eliminate you.”
Dr. Kelly: “The question of origins is one of the most significant that a person ever faces: where we came from is crucial to understanding who we are and where we are going…. There is no doubt that the Biblical vision of man as God’s creature, whom he made in his own image, has had the most powerful effect on human dignity, on liberty, on the expansion of the rights of the individual, on political systems, on the development of medicine, and on every other area of culture. How different [is the Biblical vision] from the humanistic viewpoint of man as merely an evolved creature…. Such a premise [evolution] has enabled the Marxist totalitarian states conveniently to liquidate millions of their citizens.”
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Therefore, survival of the fittest is not life’s purpose.
1.2. Otherwise, The Bible Is Irrelevant
Frances Schaeffer (a leader in Christian thinking during the 20th century) was once asked how he would present the gospel to a person whom he met on an airplane. He said that if he had one hour, he would spend the first 55 minutes talking about creation in the image of God and where man came from, and the last 5 minutes presenting “the Gospel.” Schaeffer: “Christianity does not begin with accepting Christ as Savior, but with ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ That is the answer to the 20th century and its lostness.”
One proof of Schaeffer’s point is that the doctrines of creation are primary sources for the rest of the Bible. Every New Testament author refers to Genesis 1-11, and chapter 1 is used by Jesus to explain marriage, by the author of Hebrews to explain the Sabbath, by Peter to explain the second coming and final judgment, and by John to explain the deity of Christ. The authors of the Bible believed that “in the beginning, God created….” If that is wrong, the Bible is useless. Those who refuse Biblical teaching about creation always tend toward placing Scripture and Christianity where it will not impact any real-life issues.
1.3. Otherwise, God is Forgotten
Is it a stretch to say that remembering God depends on creation? Listen again to Ecclesiastes 12.1: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” True wisdom begins with the fear of God, and the fear of God begins with the recognition that “It is he who made us, and we are his” (Psalm 100). We cannot remember our Creator if we imagine we have none.
Before we consider another implication of knowing how the universe began, I want to point out three things I have learned about a God-centered understanding of creation. It is: simple, sublime and sufficient.
1.4. Simple
Every child can understand the theology of creation. Our catechism asks, “Who made you?” Answer: “God.” “What else did God make?” “God made all things.” I doubt there is a sentence more profound and significant, while at the same time more simple than Genesis 1.1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
1.5. Sublime
The word “sublime” means: “Of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth. Supreme. Inspiring awe.”
It is sublime in its reach—stretching out to before time.
It is sublime in its power—being willed into existence out of nothing.
It is sublime in its vastness—the beginning of all things.
It is sublime in its audacity—describing what can only be known by God.
1.6. Sufficient
The simplicity of Genesis 1 offends some. Adult sinners tend to despise answers which can be memorized and understood by 3 year olds. But do not be deceived; the simplicity hides a profundity which none can fully plumb. There is depth in the first words of Genesis ample for building a life worth living.
2. We Must Know How the Universe Began So that We Accept Our Role (Genesis 1.2)
After the sweeping cosmological announcement of Genesis 1.1, Moses focuses on a specific spot in the universe. Unfortunately, our English translations obscure that a bit. Verse 2 begins with a conjunction connecting what follows back to verse 1 while directing attention on the earth.
Professor of Old Testament exegesis, H. C. Leopold comments on this detail: “Of the two parts of the universe mentioned, the author abandons ‘the heavens,’ as lying outside of the sphere of the present investigation, for of its creation we need not know or perhaps could not understand its details. Moses limits himself to the second of the two parts by emphatically setting ‘the earth’ first in verse two. This yields a thought which could be captured by translating verse two as “And now, as far as the earth was concerned….” From this point onward the point of approach may be said to be geocentric.”
God is the center of the universe; but now he aims his spotlight on one point of the vast cosmos: earth, center stage for unfolding the greatest story ever told. If we do not believe that God made all things, we will miss the significance of our role in his great plan.
3. We Must Know How the Universe Began So that We Appreciate Creation’s Value (Genesis 1.31)
Genesis 1.31: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”
One of our family hobbies is gardening. Last week Rebekah and I were surveying our plot and talking about how hard it is to outdo the weeds. I commented that it proved the verse, “cursed is the ground; thorns and weeds it will bring forth.” Creation groans under the curse of sin. But God did not make it that way. His creation is “very good.” Only when we understand the beginning of all things can we properly value the world in which we live.
4. We Must Know How the Universe Began So that We Agree To Its Purpose (Isaiah 45.18)
Isaiah 45.18: For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens,… who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!)….”
Note how Isaiah contrasts “empty” with “inhabited.” On the day in which God created the earth, it was not yet formed into an appropriate paradise for God’s creatures. Thus it was unformed and empty. Genesis 1 then describes the days in which God shaped it into a perfect place and filled it with every good thing. The last day he placed into this paradise the crown of his creation: mankind. God would now live with his people, enjoying the Garden together. Of course, the fall destroyed this happy situation, but until we accept its beginning, we will not agree with its purpose: to glorify and enjoy the God who made heaven and earth.
5. Conclusion
Four applications:
5.1. Worship Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Man, aware of being totally deprived of his self-determination hates the beginning and rises up against it in pride.”
People believe the lie of evolution, not for its science, but for its treason: deny the beginning and we are free from worshipping the Creator. The great response of faith, then, is joyful praise. Psalm 95.6: “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!”
5.2. Enjoy
This world is a type of art gallery, displaying the works of the Master Maker. Though life is hard and harsh at times, we fight the good fight of faith by appreciating and delighting in God’s handiwork. Belief stops to smell the roses, recognizing the Father’s hand in their beauty.
5.3. Protect
Our house backs up to a large creek. After a heavy rain the waters rise and rush, swollen by the draining of much property to this central spot. When I visit the creek after a storm I am typically shocked by the amount of trash that has washed in. It is as if people think the earth a giant garbage dump.
This is not our world to destroy. Those who believe the Bible must lead the way in ecology and environmentalism, setting the standard for guarding God’s creation from abuse, misuse and destruction.
5.4. Hope
The earth is the focal point in the first creation because here the eternal touched time, here God walked with man. Yet we have ripped a chasm where there was a union. We separated ourselves from God, despising his love and presence.
The good news is that just as God created the universe, so too he creates new hearts. Hearts that love him instead of rebelling against him. When you hear that God created heaven and earth, you are invited to believe in the new creation in Christ Jesus.
By faith we understand that the world was created from nothing. By faith we also know that he is making all things new, a new heaven and new earth, a place of perfect righteousness. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21.3).
The same Bible that explains who put the universe in its place also explains who saves souls from judgment. Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our maker. Amen.
