Billions of people in our world are asking, is there a God, and if so who is he or what is he. Is there one or are there many? If you have grown up in the church, you probably haven’t been exposed to these questions very often, probably never had to wrestle with the thoughts, but the majority of the world still does. If we want to reach a lost world and be relevant, we need to know how to answer these kinds of questions with an argument that makes sense to unbelievers.
My hope in this series is that we can come to a good understanding of who the God of the Bible is so that we can share this truth with others, and help those who doubt or wonder. But here’s what we can’t do. We can’t just tell people this is who God is because the Bible says so. That works if you believe the Bible to be true, and the actual word of God. But for the general population this is like saying Sasquatch is real because I read it in the National Enquirer. The Bible is only sacred to those who believe it.
So as we explore who God is, obviously we will be using the Bible as our guide, but we will also look at how science and philosophy also lead us to the conclusions in the Bible.
Now the first thing we see if we are looking at the Bible is that God is the creator of all things. That is a very bold statement in itself and there are even Christians who are having trouble taking this all literally. Our culture, and science specifically refutes this claim saying it isn’t possible based on the scientific evidence. But the scientific evidence is no more valid than the Biblical evidence.
Here’s what it says in the very first sentence of the Bible, in Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Literally before anything was known, or existed, God made firmness (all physical matter) and a container for it - space. This isn’t just planet earth, and a place we like to call heaven. It basically means there was nothing but the consciousness of God. He created the nothingness that we call space (the invisible container) for all things physical. One cannot exist without the other.
Now the next thing he had to do so that any of the living things he created could survive and perceive this matter, was light. Notice what it says in verse 2, this firmness of matter was without form and empty. There was darkness in the abyss. Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are visible. I think this could be a good argument for the description of invisible atoms that make up all matter. Let me explain.
In this passage it says that the Spirit of God was essentially vibrating over the face of the waters. Scholars are quite sure this refers to water vapour which at the right temperature is also invisible. You can see the water vapours in your breath when it’s cold out, but not as you breathe them out right now. The word face means presence as in “In the face of danger”.
So everything is still invisible and without form, if we were looking at it, just a huge abyss of darkness with the elements existing but not visible to the naked eye. God’s consciousness or Spirit is hovering or moving through the midst of this. Suddenly he creates illumination. Now if we look at the Hebrew words used here, we are actually talking about the creation of time.
It is literally the illumination of the concept of day and the opposite of day. Why is this so crucial to understand? Because matter cannot exist outside of time and space. This illumination is the ability to perceive that something exists and then does not exist. God and consciousness does not have this quality (it has no beginning or end) so it was necessary for him to energize the matter in order that it could be perceived to exist in space and time.
So follow me here. All the particles for matter exist but in no form, water molecules exist, and now because of the introduction of time, there is the ability to know something exists in space and time. Space, matter, and time have now come to exist and without all three, none of the others can exist. Physics can prove this.
So now all the components necessary for things to exist in space and time are present in this vast abyss of heaven, and the Spirit of God begins to vibrate over it all and says let there be light. Many believe that this is also the beginning of energy. Energy is in the form of waves of movement and light. Science has proved that energy cannot create itself out of nothing and cannot be destroyed, only changed. With this vibration and light energy, things start to emerge out of the nothingness start to organize. The Spirit or breath of God has energized particles into things, just like it gave life to the dust that would become the first human.
Notice too that now all three members of the Godhead have participated. The Father is the source of all things in v. 1, the Spirit energizes all things in v. 2, and the Word, the light of the world, the Son, is the revealer of all things in v. 3. And the universe that this triune God created is also a triune universe made up of space, matter, and time.
Now done for the day God comes to the next day (don’t worry about whether these are literal 24 hour days yet) and he says let an expanse be in the middle of the water vapours dividing between the waters and the waters, huh? Now this word expanse literally means the firmament, and more specifically the visible arch of the sky or thin stretched out space. Obviously this is referring to the earth’s atmosphere.
If you look at the earth from outer space you will see this arch around the earth which divides the earth’s atmosphere from the rest of space. The water above the earth’s atmosphere and the water within earth’s atmosphere. So now there is water under the expanse (arch in the sky) and that above the expanse. And God called the expanse heavens, a word referring to air. Of course it makes sense that before God could create the actual earth he would have to make an atmosphere to sustain it.
I can’t get into it here, but all of this perfect creation would create ideal conditions on the earth with a uniform temperature, perfect humidity and no wind or storms. But you’ll have to research that for yourself.
And it is after that, we hear of the creation of the actual earth. He in essence tells all these molecules of matter now what to do. To the water he says gather together to make actual bodies of water and let dry land appear. He called the dry land earth and the collection of waters seas. We finally have some organization to the matter, with all the components needed for biological life, and God brings plants into existence and these plants produce seeds so they can reproduce on their own forever.
So now let’s speed up a bit. The next phase of creation is the stars the sun and the moon. These luminaries rule or command the literal earthly night and day. We know now that the earth is spinning and we also know because of the mention of seasons, that it is tilted on its axis. The light now comes from these luminaries. God is the creator of light, the sun moon and stars are the mediators of light.
Then he creates all the animals, fish, birds and reptiles all having a living consciousness. Literally these are living, breathing creatures. God blesses them all with the ability to recreate themselves in the same form they are. God literally creates reproduction in creatures right here with a blessing or word. Consciousness cannot just begin to appear on its own. We can create many biological things but no one has ever been able to evolve consciousness from nothing, it has to come from somewhere, and God is the best possibility.
What about dinosaurs, so many sceptics ask? Well first of all many species have become extinct, so they are no different than any other extinct species. Why are they not mentioned in the Bible? Well there are lots of species not mentioned in the Bible. But we also know that the word for whale or sea creature is also the Hebrew word used for dragon, which could conceivably be the description for dinosaurs that our ancestors saw before they became extinct. There are many references to dragons in the Bible, they simply did not have the same word we do for dinosaurs.
Finally there are humans. And the humans are to rule over the creatures because God gave humans one thing he did not give animals. God’s image. Now we know that God is not talking about a physical image here. What this “image” literally means is the ability to reason and carry out the will of God, including a moral conscience and so on. It is also an eternal nature that animals do not share with humans as we see in Ecclesiastes 3:21. Notice he talks to humans but not to any other part of His creation. So this image also contains the ability to have language. And he again blessed them with the ability to recreate themselves. And clearly the DNA of all living things was now programmed.
A big question now is, when did all this happen? Any scientist will tell you that reliable historical records are actually more reliable that any technology we have today to measure the age of inanimate things.
Science can only measure the present. For instance, using carbon dating, dinosaur fossils have tested from anywhere between several million years to 22 years. Highly unreliable but we take it for granted that these methods are accurate. All they are doing is estimating a rate of dissipation in specific elements like carbon.
According to biblical chronology, humans came on the scene between 10,000 and 4000 BC. Without any reason to refute the literal 6 days taken to create the universe, and the world were only a few days at most before humans came on the scene. There is no solid evidence from science proving that the earth is older than the Bible says. That is a belief based on our desire to make all the pieces of evolution fit. I can give you 15 questions to ask evolutionists that they will not be able to answer.
Did man evolve from apes? It is actually scientifically impossible. No species can evolve into another species. Even Darwin admitted that his theory was flawed because no one has ever found an intermediate fossil between ape and man. (show chart slide) Those drawings we have all seen in science books and charts are just art, there is no evidence of any of those in between creatures.
We have very old fossils of many species but never one that shows the evolution of one species into another. These would be even newer fossils so one would think if they existed we would have found them by now. Of course there is adaptation and survival of the fittest that can happen genetically over time. Darwin based his theory on bird’s beaks noting that over time the shape and length of the beak changed for different food sources. Even Charles Darwin himself conceded that “To suppose the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”
We all know that if we have a certain animal and we want to alter the characteristics of that animal we can do modification through breeding, but we can’t breed anything into a new species. No matter how hard we try, two horses will never conceive a cow. And two chimpanzees will never conceive a human. And if this theory was correct, no primates would exist, they would have been eradicated by the higher evolved species.
So there’s the fascinating story from the Bible, and it is more believable in my opinion, than any other scientific theory out there. Even the big bang can be accounted for by the biblical account, because it doesn’t say exactly how he caused everything to be and how light came about and so on. But did he really create everything? How do you prove it?
Well how do you prove any scientific or philosophical theory? By disproving other possible explanations. Let’s say I have theory that says gravity makes things go up into the air. Well, after several experiments and observations, I can prove that that is not true and that gravity causes things to go down. No one has ever been able to disprove that. Well, no one has ever been able to disprove anything in the Bible either.
Where something hasn’t been disproved we can believe whatever theory we want. For instance, is addiction hereditary because sometimes it runs in families? Well nobody has ever proved that it isn’t environmental factors, and no one has disproved that it is genetic, so you can believe either one or both. One or both may or may not be true, but no person can claim with certainty that either one is true, we can only say what we believe.
Here’s what I think. I think the Bible is true simply because so many people in this world want it not to be. Is there any theory that has caused people to react so violently? What harm does believing that God created the world do to anyone? No one reacts so strongly to the claim of evolution which has at least as many holes in it as creation. Why is it so important for people to prove that the Bible isn’t true?
Well God tells us, and it’s shown in the murder of Jesus. In the book of John Jesus calls himself the light of the world, it claims that he was there at the beginning of creation, and it says that people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil, literally hurtful, morally wrong, mischievous. The existence of God makes us feel guilty because we are guilty, but we don’t have to feel guilty because the same Bible says that Jesus took away our guilt if we believe, because he so loved the world.
People want to have control and believe that we are the gods of our own life. The first sin was the enticement to be like God knowing good and evil. Satan wants us to believe that we are in control, that there is no other power greater than us so that we will continue to kill and steal and so on to fulfill our own desires. The Bible says he wants us dead, he wants us suffering and so on, he wants us living for ourselves so that he isn’t alone in hell after Jesus comes back.
We are blinded. 2 Cor 4:4 says: “The God of this age (referring to Satan) has blinded the eyes of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image or reflection of God”.
Not only does believing the Bible make us feel guilty, it also makes us afraid. Because if he did create us, what does that imply? That he can uncreate us. This fear makes little sense to a saved person because we look forward to an eternity with God after this life. But if we think he can cause us not to exist anymore, we might have a hard time wanting to believe the Bible.
It also means that he would have the ultimate blueprint for success in human life, which again would take control away from us. Unbelievers and frankly many believers, don’t believe that this loss of freedom that we think comes from following Jesus and the Bible, can actually benefit us. We would rather go down in our own flames than thrive by following what God says. As long as we are free to do and think what we want in this life, I don’t care about anything else.
You see God also lets us know from the beginning after sin came into the world, that creation is permanently polluted and there is nothing we humans can do to clean it up. Haven’t we been trying to since we came to the earth? I would think if we had the solution for the world’s problems, after several thousand years we probably would have come up with it. So we would have to admit that God has the only solution, and we aren’t as great as we think we are. And when we look at his ultimate solution in the Bible, it doesn’t look so goo dif you don’t believe.
God promises to fix it all. He promises to get rid of all the bad things in the world and recreate a perfect eternal copy. 2 Pe 4:13, Rev 21:1, Mt 24:35.
That’s the good news, but again the bad news is that only the people who believe in Him and want to be with him get to be there. There’s another reason not to believe, because then maybe we need to get right with God again. The next part of this series after Thanksgiving is “God the Judge”. Thank God He is just, but the one after that will be God the Saviour, and we see that all of it creation, judgment, and salvation are all about His great love for mankind.
He created out of love, he judges out of love so that people can one day live in peace with each other and Him, but he also saves us from the judgment out of love. But because he is so loving, He gives us a choice. Believe or don’t believe.
But today’s message is a basic necessity. If we don’t believe He is creator, we can’t believe any of the other stuff, it won’t make sense. So the question I would ask an unbeliever who refuses God as the creator, is why they choose not to believe it. Is it just because it doesn’t make sense? Neither does the theory of evolution, and we can show them that it’s as much of a stretch as our belief in creation, if not more.
What is the worse thing that can happen if you believe? That will get to the root of it if they even continue the conversation.
Can we prove the Bible? Can we prove that God created everything? No, but neither can anyone disprove it, so if it’s true, why not believe? In the end if you believe God is creator, judge, and saviour there is nothing bad that can come from it, help people understand that.
Ok, but there’s one other thing you will always get when discussing this topic. If God is loving and he is the creator, why did he create things so that all these horrible things can even happen?
The simple answer is he didn’t create it this way, and didn’t want it to go this way. Remember he said after everything was finished, “it is very good”? It was man who said I don’t want to live by your rules even though you made this perfect place for us. Doesn’t that sound like some kids and their parents? The kid doesn’t want to live by the parents rules while they are “under my roof”. Why do we give the kids that we create rules, because we don’t like them?
It’s like the teenager who breaks out with acne when they eat chocolate, but they are not willing to give up the chocolate to make the suffering go away. The suffering we see in the world is nothing but the painful sores of wanting to be in charge and not live according to God’s plan. They are a result of our free will. We want God to provide a cure, but we’re not willing to give up what causes the problem in the first place.
Well why did God create us with free will then? Because he loves us, would you not want free will? Can you be forced to love someone? God wants to love us and be loved by us, but he can’t force it or it He wouldn’t be loving. We want to live for the ones we love, for most people that’s ourselves and our loved ones first, and if he is our creator with the blueprint for our best, would we not want to follow His ways.
But even so, He still loves us so much that even when we continually reject Him he makes a way for us to come to him and promises us the great inheritance of a perfect creation once again. He is just delaying this because he wants more people to be there and if we haven’t accepted the cleansing of Jesus, we can’t be there because we will bring the pollution of now into that place. But it says nothing impure will ever be there again.
With the covering of Jesus we are made pure even in this life though in these bodies we will always be sinful. Sin lives in our flesh. But the Holy Spirit lives in our soul when we put our faith in Christ, and He promises that we will shed these bodies and become perfect as Jesus is perfect when this life is over, so that we can participate in that perfect creation once again. And this time it will stay perfect forever.
Does any of this prove that God exists? No. But if we look around open to the possibility, I think it’s hard to come to any other conclusion. This will get addressed more when we talk about God as Saviour. There is very much evidence that Jesus existed and that everything said about him is true. That would in essence confirm the existence of God.
I know this has been deep and kind of technical, but it is vitally important that we understand it so that we have a basis for our faith that we can share with others who don’t believe. You will never convince someone of God’s existence or any of the claims of the Bible, but you can be equipped to provide a rational, valid argument for what you believe. 1 Pe 3:15 tells us to always be prepared to give a valid argument that will defend your reason for the hope that is in you because of Christ.
Apologia is the word and it is where we get apologetics from. Every Christian should have at least some training in apologetics, to give a reasoned answer, if we want the world to know Jesus. I have some resources listed in the bulletin if you would like to research the reasons for your beliefs in more depth.
Two weeks from today we will continue this series and be looking at an even more unpopular concept of God, that of Judge.
Closing benediction together Rev 4:11
