Did God create the universe?

Again, there ought to be no doubt among scholars that the word "created" in our tongue corresponds better than any other with the original. With us, as with Israel, the word admits of application to signal callings into existence out of actual material, as in Gen. 1:21, 27, but only with a special ground and emphasis. And never is it used of any other maker than God. But if the aim were to speak of creation in the ultimate, highest, and strictest sense, the Hebrews, like ourselves, had no other word so appropriated. Here the context is decisive. "God created the heavens and the earth," where nothing of the kind existed previously. They were created out of nothing as men speak, perhaps loosely, but not unintelligibly. The heathen might worship, as all did, the heavens, or even the earth; the Jew sinned against the written word if he was ensnared of Satan after their dark example. The first words of God's law told him that those were but creatures; Israel was to hear if others were deaf, and bound to own, serve, and worship the one God, the Creator. The chosen people was quite as ready as any other to worship the creature, as all their history to the Babylonish captivity proves; but there can be no doubt what the Bible supposed, declared, and claimed from its very first verse — God created the universe.

The philosophies, as well as the religions, of antiquity were wholly ignorant of creation. Of God, of the "beginning," they knew nothing. Dreams of evolution were the earliest folly, and, among the Ionic school, Anaximander and Anaximenes followed Thales, each differing, all blind. Anaxagoras let in with mere matter the idea of mind, but no creator. It is useless to name others; even Plato and Aristotle, rivals too, had no real light. They, more or less openly, all held eternal matter at bottom; and though the philosophers boasted, as they still do, of their knowledge and logic, they failed to see that they could not prove it, or even that it is to mere mind unthinkable. To the believer it is the simple yet deep truth, that a beginning was given to everything that exists; if God says it, he perceives that nothing else can be true. For it is impossible to admit an effect without a cause; but reasoning can never rise at best beyond. There must be a First Cause; it can never say, There is. This God alone can and does affirm: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." God brought the whole ordered system into being. The form, nature, and aim, are not here explained: such a detail had no proper place here. That He created all is a primary and momentous truth.

But there is not a word in scripture to warrant the strange and hasty assumption that the universe was brought into being in the six days of Gen. 1:3-31, so often referred to throughout the Bible. Construe the six days as men will, it is out of the power of any on just principles of interpretation to deny that the first day begins with light, and that th e first two verses are marked off in their nature, as well as by their expression, from the work of the six days. Nothing indeed but prepossession can account for the mistake, which the record itself corrects. "In the beginning" has its own proper significance, and is in no way connected with "the days," save as the revealed start of divine creation, and in due time (however probably immense the interval) leading to that measure of time only when the constitution of things was made for Adam, for the race.

And first as to creation. We are reminded that through faith it is "we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which do appear" (11:3). Theories had been conceived by men to account for the origin of creation. But all were astray. We know nothing, and can know nothing, about the origin of creation save what Divine revelation discloses. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." "He spake, and it was done." So wrote the psalmist (Ps. 33:6, 9). "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). So wrote the lawgiver. With these witnesses our writer of the Hebrews agrees. God spake, and brought things into existence. By the fiat of the Almighty created things appeared, but not evolved out of things which existed. Matter is not eternal. For it is of the origin of the universe the sacred writer here treats, and not of the earth emerging subsequently out of chaos, prepared for man's abode. We are to believe what God has told us. Surely this is rational. What creature witnessed the act of creating? What could we know, what could we conceive of the origin of created things, if left to the light of mere human reason, or were dependent on philosophic deduction? The devout mind believes that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Philosophic or scientific research could tell us nothing better, and nothing certain. At best with philosophy, or science, it could be but a "may be," a "perhaps." On revelation we must therefore rest as to the distant past. There is that then which we must take wholly on the Divine record. Will it be irrational to take God's word about the future? At this point we are reminded of the faith of those of old. In them it is seen how it was in exercise all along the line.

The earth's first notable event was surely its birth. We do not refer to the wonderful six days' work, which was more than anything a recovery from a state of ruin, but of God's creative act at the beginning, whenever that may have been. In imagining matter to be eternal, the ancients only proclaimed themselves fools, while professing to be wise. God alone is eternal. It is true that man, now that he has been created, has no end, but GOD has neither beginning nor end. The book of God opens with the divine account of the origin of all things. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." How, when, and why is not stated; the one object of the verse is to tell us WHO created. It is of the first importance for man to understand that not only himself, but his little world and all that is therein, and also that vast system of which his world forms a part, was brought into being by the act of God. This puts both God and man in their true place. Job doubtless felt very small when his Maker challenged him thus: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" (Job 38:4). Unbelief brushes all this aside with scorn, preferring the theories of its own darkness, but "by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. 11:3).

It is by faith we know that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. God called all things into existence. Matter is not eternal; the universe is not a producing cause. God has created all things by Him and for Him, who is the eternal Word (Heb. 1:2; John 1:1). Man is unable by searching to solve the mystery of creation. How ridiculous have been the cosmogonies of ancient nations. The evolution theories are equally absurd.

55 The first fact is, God created the heavens and the earth, that is, the universe. Nothing is said about what then happened.

320 We see, then, that as the Person of Christ was placed in the foreground as the first, the second main subject of the epistle is the righteousness of God revealed upon the principle of faith, so that it is for all, and to be received through faith, and thus appropriated by the soul. What made this righteousness necessary is the universal sinfulness of man, for the wrath of God has been revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who possess the truth in unrighteousness. With regard to the heathen, the apostle gives two reasons for this wrath. First, the testimony of creation (vers. 19, 20); and, secondly, that, knowing God, they did not wish to retain Him in their knowledge but preferred idolatry (v. 21-24). For the invisible things of Him are seen, that is, His eternal power and Godhead, perceived by the things that are made from the creation of the world; so that what can be known of God is manifested among them, and consequently they are without excuse (v. 20). This does not imply that they know God according to His nature, but that they should have known Him as Creator; unless one is blind, a Creator is seen in the creation.

A difficulty has been raised, why, if God created, it was not always. The answer is as simple as complete. Eternal creation, eternal matter, is untrue and impossible, a contradiction for thought, even if we had not the word of God to enlighten us. God of all power, if He pleases, creates: there only is the truth of it. To say that the self-existing One cannot create is to deny that He is the Absolute, that He is God. But that God, omnipotent, omniscient, sovereign and good, can crease when He chooses, flows necessarily from what He is. If He could not display Himself in this way, or even more gloriously, He is not God. If the display of creation or of anything else were always, He would not be free and absolute. His sovereignty is part of Himself (Eph. 1:11). Suppose any display necessary, and you destroy in thought His divine essence and will. Necessity is at bottom an atheistic device to get rid of the true God. Creation, therefore, was perfectly free to God, but not necessary; it was when and as He pleased. And He was pleased to create. Creation exists.

There is no indulgence of human curiosity. We do not know the steps of His work, until we come to the preparation of an abode for man. Nothing can be more admirable than this reserve of God. We are not told the details of what preceded the great week when God made the man and the woman. I am not going to enter into any statement of facts as to this now, but there is no truth in its own place more important than that with which the apostle commences in this chapter, namely, that "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." It is not only that we believe it, but we understand it thereby. There is nothing more simple; at the same time it is just one of those questions that God has answered, and this so as to settle the mind perfectly, and fill the heart with praise. Man never did nor could settle it without the word of God. There is nothing here below so difficult for the natural mind; and for the simple reason that man can never rise above that which is caused. The reason is obvious — because he is caused himself. Therefore is it that men so naturally slip into, or rest on, second causes. He is only one of a series of existing objects, and consequently never can rise above that in his own nature. He may infer that there must be; but he never can say that there is. Reason is ever drawing conclusions; God is, and reveals what is. I may, of course, see what is before my eyes, and may so far have sensible evidence of what exists now; but it is only God who can tell me that He in the beginning caused to be that which now is. God alone who spake it into being can pronounce upon it. This is just what the believer receives, feeds on, and lives accordingly.

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." It is possible that the word "worlds," which is a Hebraistic word, belonging to the Alexandrian Jews particularly, may embrace dispensations; but undoubtedly the material world is included in it. It may mean the worlds governed by dispensations; but still that the idea of the whole universe is in it cannot be fairly contested by competent minds. "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen" — which would not be the case if it was only a dispensation — "were not made of things which do appear."

But the principle of causation, intuitively believed in men's minds, so that he cannot think of beginning to be without it, is established scientifically as necessary to material existence, and the course of nature in what begins, by the infidel himself. He cannot think otherwise. As a scientific induction, then, it is necessary to the first existence of material existence and fixed laws. That is, I have a creative power. It is true that this leads me to self-existence, which, for the very same reason, I cannot understand, because it does exist without being caused. But this is merely saying man cannot understand what is beyond him. Of course he cannot, or he would not be man, that is, a finite creature.