"Maker of Heaven & Earth" Genesis 1:1-11 Pastor Allan Wooters, D.Min.
Today I engage one of the most hotly debated topics of recent history. I am referring to the matter of creation. Far from a merely academic matter, the subject of creation is incredibly important. The Apostles’ Creed declares: “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” That God is the Creator is found in the very first words of Scripture: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” How your response to this singular declaration makes all the difference in your life. It impacts how you see yourself and others, how one looks at the natural world, and what you value in life. But can we believe it? Has science replaced belief in God as Creator? Are we naïve to believe that opening line from Genesis? I will get to the answer to that and much more but let us begin with one of the first ramifications of confessing that God alone is the maker of heaven and earth. For starters, the confession establishes the nature of our universe.
The Confession Establishes the Nature of our Universe
In 1980, the famed astronomer Carl Sagan produced a wildly popular television program entitled Cosmos. There he detailed the scope and beauty of the universe. But it was his opening words where Dr. Sagan proclaimed what the majority of scientists believe about the heavens. Dr. Sagan confidently proclaimed, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” In other words, all that we have is the material. Reality always has been, is, and will be made up of atoms, quarks, and other mysterious entities. Nothing exists beyond what can be measured by science. Nothing non-material exists. No spirituality. No God. And many would add, no hope either!
But Scripture declares the universe is not composed of material realities and nothing else. It declares that there are spiritual entities which are just as real indeed, more real than what is physical. And may I add, many scientists agree with Genesis 1:1. Some of these include: Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Faraday, Maxwell, and others. And many are very outspoken on this. The astronomer Robert Jastrow never failed to call out his unbelieving colleagues on the materialist view of the universe. In his book, God and the Astronomers, Jastrow wrote:
Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.
Following up on this note, Jastrow could not help but have some fun at the expense of assured unbelievers:
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
We have no reason to hide our faith in God! For anyone to say science has explained away the need for a creator is their attempt to bolster either their faith in atheist dogma or engage in elitist propaganda.
When I look at this world and see its power and beauty. When in college biology class I learned of the complexities of just one human cell, or in other places read of the finetuning of this universe that permits anything to exist at all, I am forced to step back and declare, “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist!” God exists! God is real! He is the maker of heaven and earth. But what can we say about this God? Let me get to that and note that the confession embraces the nature of God.
The Confession Embraces the Nature of God
The Apostles’ Creed, fully in agreement with Scripture, is saying that no other being was involved in creation, just God alone. God did not consult anyone. He did not use any material that was lying around to fashion the universe. No! God created everything, literally everything. Now, He did not have to create. He had no need of a creation because God is infinitely self-sufficient. But God spoke and the universe emerged by His sovereign will, period. “But Allan, I don’t see all of that in Genesis 1:1!” You are right! But if you follow the rest of Scripture you do. Consider Nehemiah 9:6, “You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them and the heavenly host bows down before You.”
From both Scripture and creation itself we can say the following truths about God’s nature. First, He is an intelligent designer. What God must know to create this universe is hard to imagine. Just consider what we know about gravity. If gravity were stronger, stars would remain too hot and burn out too quickly to be able to support life. If the force were weaker the stars would remain too cool and there would not be enough heat or light to support life. Examples like this go on and on. All creation reveals the intelligence of God.
Second, God is a perfect planner. The opening two chapters of Genesis shows that God’s creative work was done in ordered steps leading up to the crown of His creation, humankind. We hear all the time in moments of crisis or uncertainty that “God has a plan!” That is true, gloriously true. But it is also true that in creating the heavens and the earth, God has an astounding plan that He is still carrying out.
Thirdly, God is all-powerful. We considered the almighty nature of God in the last message, but I mention this fact here because it refutes the so-called scientific assertion that the universe and all life has come about by chance. The problem with this supposedly intelligent view is that chance is not a thing. It is not a force. It has no power. It is a statistical probability and nothing more. If I flip a coin the chance that it will land heads is fifty percent. However, chance does not make it land one way or the other. Skeptics give to chance God-like powers it seems. What they define as chance is what Scripture declares to be God. For us to believe in God just shows our ignorance but for them to endow chance with a power it could not possible have is a sign of intelligence. Seriously? In light of this, if you think science is about evidence and reason, it is time to think again. Indeed, it is more rational to believe in God than not.
This fact was brought home to me in a story I read about a group of scientists who challenged God to a contest. Of course, the story is fiction, but it makes a real point. Anyway, the contest was to see who could build a better human. God happily accepted their challenge. He appeared at the lab and the battle was on. God took a lump of clay and began to build Adam 3.0. The scientists walked over to the tub of clay and began filling their buckets with the slimy substance. God looked up and said, “Ahem, excuse me my friends but this is my clay; I made it myself. You go and make your own clay then you can create your man.” The contest was over.
Now, I have only touched on a few of the facts about God that His creative activity reveals about Him. But I want to move on to draw out some implications of knowing God as Creator. In a nutshell, the confession informs our life’s goals and hopes.
The Confession Informs our Life’s Goals and Hopes
Martin Heidegger is one of the most significant voices of modern philosophy. He viewed humanity as trapped in the chaos of time. He called this state, “thrownness” with each person feeling a profound anxiety about this state. He said we live with this anxiety because we do not know where we came from or where we are going. Thanks to gender neutrality, some do not even know if they are a he or a she! Anyway, the big point for Heidegger is that experiencing this anxiety causes us to lose all hope. What we must do then, according to Heidegger, is to use the power of human ingenuity to create our own hope. To that I say, “Good luck!”
The biblical view does not ignore the chaos of life to which Heidegger referred. Chaos is seen in Gen 1! But the Bible shows that God triumphs over the chaos either that of creation or our personal lives. To confess that God is Creator is to confess that we are not cosmic accidents, devoid of ultimate value. We came from somewhere significant and we are headed toward a destination of stunning glory.
In The Confessions, St. Augustine stated, “O God, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” Through God we know where we came from and where our life is headed.
Given the creative power of God, He can make a new day for you. At times, things can seem hopeless. We see no way up or out. Our backs are against the proverbial wall. But God can create a new day. He can take the chaos of life, order it, and make it so it becomes “very good.” To put it another way, with God being the Creator means we always, always have hope. You never know what God will do because He can do whatever He pleases.
Since we learn much about God from creation, going into the various branches of science is a good thing for Christians. It is more than okay for Christians to have careers in the sciences, it is right and good. Go into medicine. Be an astronomer, a biologist even study philosophy and specialize in the philosophy of science! But what if you are not into science? That is good too!
Since Scripture teaches, we are created in God’s image, that explains our ability to create. Christians can be involved in the creative arts as a profession, a source of joy or both. Animals do not have this ability by the way. Animals have a measure of intelligence for sure, but pandas do not paint, monkeys cannot write music, and dolphins do not play drums! But humans do. So, we should create art and music and literature and sports where we revel in God’s creative gifts to us and participate with God in creating good, life-enhancing activities.
Finally, the confession shows since God is the Creator, we owe our life to Him. God created us and so we should live for Him. He has given us life and more. In Him, the Bible says, “we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). And more, God offers to create a new future for us when we give our lives to His Son, Jesus Christ. Talk about creating a new day! Here is a whole new life for you made possible by God who not only created you but loves you with an everlasting love. Give your life to Jesus now and enter into the fullness of God’s creative power for you.
For Further Reading
The Case for the Creator, Lee Strobel