In the Beginning
2006-03-21
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
As the very first words of the Bible, this verse speaks volumes as to who God is. Before there was anything, there was God. But for millennia, people have worshipped various gods. These gods were either fashioned in the image of human beings, or animals, or some other form of people’s imaginations. But what about the reality of the existence of God? Can there be a God or gods that exist and have their being entirely apart from humankind’s imagination? Most of the intellectual world says no, but when one looks at the facts, we come to the conclusion that there is a God. Not only that, but also that one God I speak of is the same God of the Bible.
First, one must believe that the truth of reality is knowable. In a world where people say, “truth is relative,” we have to go back to the basics and think about the absurdity of this statement. If someone says, “truth is relative,” the first question that comes to mind is, “isn’t that a statement claiming an absolute truth about reality?” The ignorance of the person who believes in relative truth is revealed when they say that all truth is relative: according to them, their own point of view is not a relative statement, but an absolute truth. Therefore, the person who believes that all truth is relative makes an emphatic statement of an absolute truth.
For those who do not believe in God, the question remains as from where everything came. With the theory of relativity, we know that space and time are related, and there cannot be one without the other. There is also a general consensus among the scientific world that the universe is expanding, and came from an explosion of matter at a single point of extremely high density some time ago. If the universe had a beginning, then something or someone had to have caused it into being. What criteria would have to be true of this Creator?
This Creator has to exist outside of space and time. The Bible says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalm 90:2). The Creator cannot be like a man, woman, or animal; this Creator does not consist of atoms or matter. Atoms are building blocks for the world and were designed by the Creator.
This Creator must have a super-intellect. He knows all things (1 John 3:20). But also this Creator has to be a super-engineer who created the world with no previous example to follow. The earth itself is a miracle, being exactly the right distance from the sun. If it were just a little closer or a little further away from the sun, the earth would not be habitable for life. Alter gravity in even the extreme slightest amount, the planetary bodies would not keep their orbit. If we take into account all of the prerequisites for life to be possible, a super-engineer is required.
DNA, in its complexity, is the equivalent to millions of written pages, which has all the signs of a Creator. Neither could human beings have evolved, since it is known from various organs, such as the eye, that if it were any less complex than it were, it could not function. Just from knowing anything about the human body, the phrase “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” becomes all too clear (Psalm 139:14). Just some of these basic things draw our attention to the reality of a Creator; the complexity of the human body and psyche alone demands a Creator.
Just from observing the world, we can learn that there has to be something more to it than just molecules. As human beings, we are emotional, and seek out things such as love and justice. It is in the core of our being that we desire love and to be loved. Almost every song in the last fifty years was written about love and the splendor and pain that it can bring. Molecular structures do not suggest anything about this need for love; love is reflective of a Creator. We also long for justice in a world where injustice often seems to reign. The knowledge of right and wrong comes from an innate morality entwined in our being. We might not all agree on what is morally right, but we generally all do agree that there is a morally right. This is reflective of an objective standard in the universe as to what is really right and wrong, and only the Creator can determine what that is. In short, I declare that an impersonal Creator cannot create personality and a stolid Creator cannot create emotion. The same Creator that was the architect of the universe is the same personal Being that placed something of Himself in us that we might reflect His deep personality. That is what it means for us to be in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
Just by scratching the surface in this discussion, we know there must be a Creator. This Creator I will now refer to as God. We know there is only one God from the simplified argument that God is infinite, existing outside space and time, and there cannot be two infinites. From this God, all things were created and have their being. There are two things left to discuss. Several religions believe in this one Creator God. Since these religions teach opposite things at many points, which one is right? Secondly, can we intimately know this infinite God of super-intellect?
The two questions go hand-in-hand. God came to earth in the flesh as the Man Jesus Christ, suffered and died for our sins, rose on the third day, and ascended into heaven. Many religions and philosophies deny that Jesus is God, and deny His death and resurrection and/or Jesus’ ascension. The modern Jewish faith denies all of these things about Jesus. But that Jesus was God in the flesh, paying for humankind’s sin by dying on the Cross, rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven until the Day of Judgment, is well documented prophetically in the Bible. No other religion has this kind of documentation of prophecy, and the modern Jewish faith clearly ignores its own writings when examining Christ’s claims.
Consider all of these Biblical writings, known by scholars of all ideologies to be written centuries before the birth of Jesus.
- Jesus was to be born of a virgin (Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 7:14, fulfilled in Matthew 1:23).
- God stated that “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10; fulfilled in John 19:37).
- Gabriel said to Daniel that at a certain time Jesus would be “cut off, but not for himself,” meaning that Jesus would suffer and die, but for the sake of others. He died for our sins, in our place, so that God’s wrath would be satisfied by His death (Daniel 9:26).
- Isaiah 53 discusses at length how a suffering servant would die for the sins of many.
- Psalm 110 discusses how Jesus will sit at the right hand of the Majesty until the time comes for Him to judge the earth, and that He is a priest for us forever, being our advocate before God since He has paid for our sins by His death (the book of Hebrews elucidates this at great length).
- David prophetically wrote Psalm 22, which is the entire drama of Jesus’ suffering and victory.
These are just a few of the obvious things of what the Bible accurately prophesies about Jesus: why He needed to come (Ezekiel 11:19), how He would come (Isaiah 7:14), when He would come (Daniel 9:26), and where He would come (Micah 5:2). All of these Old Testament writings were written before Christ’s coming.
Our need for Jesus is very real. We were born bent on sin. Sin is just a word that is used for “missing the mark,” for we all have missed God’s perfect standard. We all know that we are sinners when we are honest with ourselves. When Jesus returns to judge the earth, the excuses that work in our society like “nobody’s perfect” or “I’m only human” will not cut it. Only when we trust in Him for forgiveness of sins will we truly be found acceptable before God.
In His great mercy, He is giving all of us an opportunity to turn from sin and trust in Him. This message of Jesus is going out to the ends of the earth so that everybody will have the opportunity. This is your opportunity. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, the time is now. We neither know the day as to when we will pass away, nor will we know the day when Jesus will return to the earth. But we can be certain of our eternal life when we trust that Jesus paid for our sin by His death on the Cross.
I tell you with all sincerity that ever since I came to faith in Jesus, life has never been the same. Things have not been perfect since that time, but life has always had meaning. I knew there was a faith that had to grow and had to be shared. I knew the horrifying reality that many people I knew and cared about did not have Jesus. Some have since died, slipping into eternity, and I have no idea if they ever trusted Christ to save them from the judgment and wrath that exists beyond this life. For this very reason I have chosen to make this my life goal: to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ and share His message of love and eternal security. For those who have read this far and have already trusted Christ, I pose the question to you as much as I pose it to myself: What are we going to do about this? What do we really believe? Our actions will show the purposes of our hearts.