What does Creation "ex nihilo" mean?

We know it, because God in His wisdom and kindness has given us a book, the Bible, the Holy Scriptures of truth. In this book God tells us many things which we could never have known, if left to find them out for ourselves. The very first ten words in the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) is a truly wonderful statement, the seed-plot of the whole Bible. In those ten words we note the word, created. The dictionary defines the word, create, as meaning, “to bring into being, or form, out of nothing.”

Before a watch-maker can make a watch, he must have two things, first the materials wherewith to make the watch, and then the tools whereby to fashion it. The watch-maker can make a watch, but he cannot create one. A watch-maker cannot make a watch out of nothing. The Bible, however, tells us plainly, that God created the world out of nothing. Here are the Scriptures to prove this.

In these Scriptures we are plainly told six times over, that all of nature came into being out of nothing by the word of God. The cleverest scientist cannot understand this, but the evidence lies before our very eyes, and facts are facts, and have to be faced.

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 heavenly bodies above us and the earth beneath our feet are realities too plain to be missed, even by the most unthinking and degraded of men. What are they? Whence came they? Have they always existed? The first verse supplies the answer. They are not eternal, but had a beginning. Both heavens and earth came into being by the creative act of the eternal God. Three times in the chapter do we read, "God created," and five times another verb is used, meaning to make. To make is to fashion out of existing matter, whereas when we read of God creating, then "through faith we understand … that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb 11:3).

When God first created the world, He did not use stones or water or any thing. Yet, through faith, we know that the world was created by the Word of God, (Heb. 11:3) and the heavens too. (Ps. 33:6). None but God could do this.

It is very evident, therefore, that Hebrew — poor a language as it may be in some respects — is exquisitely precise in these very particulars. No doubt the reason is obvious. It was God's pleasure to reveal His mind as to the outward creation in the Hebrew tongue. And what makes it the more striking is, that Greek — which is such a finely expressive language in most other respects — seems to fail not a little in this. They had no words at all competent to express these shades of meaning. They were driven to other ways of putting the idea. There is always a possibility in every tongue of expressing thought; but this may, in some cases, require a circuitous method. In John 1:3 we have creation alluded to. In the first verse we read: "In the beginning was the Word" — clearly this ascends, as often noticed, before Genesis 1:1. In the one beginning God acted; in the other the Word was, the uncreated expresser of God, before His power was put forth to call anything or one into being — the Word that was with God, and that was God. "The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him." There is a beautiful exactness in the Greek expression, that is not found in the English. Egeneto is not adequately answered either by the Hebrew or the English "made." Properly speaking, it does not mean anything of the sort, but "caused to be." The Word gave to all things existence. This seems to be the best Greek method of expressing creation, if it can be expressed in that tongue by one word. "All things were brought into being by him; they began" — or, rather, "were caused to be" — "by him." Such is the force of the term. But this does not at all match the admirable excellence of the Hebrew tongue, where we have God's own absolute act referred to. Such is the essence of the word "create" and consequently it is invariably attributed to God. We never read of any created being of whom it is predicated, unless in a figure or evident accommodation. It could not be applied to the act of a creature. Not that it always means created out of nothing. It is the word for this, but not for this only. Hence it is applied to the fifth day's work — the first production of animal life for the Adamic world (verse 21), and still more emphatically to the latest task of the sixth day, when God gave being to the chief of this lower creation (verse 27). We ought always to gather the value of a word from its usage; to the use that Scripture makes of it we may wisely, and must implicitly, bow.

Thus, without going farther, this very chapter of Genesis shows that, while the word here translated "create" is proper to describe God's origination of being where there was none before, at the same time it may express a particular act of God's will where there existed materials of which God made use. For instance, where He created the sea-animals, and where He created man in the image of God, it is evident that in neither case does it mean without pre-existent materials. Here we know from the account that such there were. The statements of Scripture are inconsistent, therefore, with the notion that the word create invariably means creating out of nothing. At the same time, while this modification of the word's meaning is allowed, it remains true that, if God would express creation in its full import where there was nothing before, this is the word and none other. Where is the word beside so admirably suited to convey it?

The inspired statement will reward the closest scrutiny. By faith we apprehend that the worlds have been framed by God's word, and that what is seen has not been originated out of things apparent. This leaves ample room for whatever changes can be adequately shown to have followed the original creation of the earth; while it also maintains that what is seen did not derive its being from what appears. That all was made out of nothing is what no Christian would say; but that, where nothing existed, God created all things out of His own will and word is just the truth alike simple and profound; and all other hypotheses are as unwise as they are uncalled for and untrue. Evolution may not openly deny God, but at best it robs Him of His personal action and concern in the wisdom, power, and goodness of His will in every part; and its tendency is manifest to exclude Him altogether in contradiction of His word which attests His deep and direct interest in the whole.

"Nothing" cannot become, because there is nothing to become; but this does not say that God could not speak, and cause to be made, create. J.N.D.

'Nothing' cannot become, because there is nothing to become, but that does not say God could not speak and it be made, i.e., create.

Christ is the truth absolutely — the Scriptures in a written form: there can be no development in these, though there may be in individuals the increasing in the know ledge of the truth, the "growing up to Christ in all things." But whatever is opposed to Scripture is error, and no development of truth at all. It is true that Scripture does not profess to teach science, and as little to teach, what it does teach or narrate, in a scientific way; its language in this respect is generally phenomenal. As connected with nature, science has its use; Scripture is concerned with an infinitely more momentous object and subject, the glory of God where sin is in question; — still any conclusions of science which contradict Divine revelation are necessarily and at once judged by it. If the upholders of science venture to deny the omnipotence of God, or to assert the eternity of matter, God's word, i.e. Divine authority, judges such conclusions as untrue and dishonouring to God. We think it is to be regretted that a Hebrew scholar of no little weight in this country, himself no doubt a Christian man, should deny that in Genesis 1:1 bara means to create out of nothing. It is true that it does not in all cases mean so, but in the above text it certainly means to create in the most absolute sense, i.e. out of nothing, or an argument is thus unintentionally given for the ungodly notion of the eternity of matter. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This alludes to the very origin of matter, not to formation, but to creation. Is it conceivable that nowhere in the Bible is God spoken of as having in the absolute sense created matter? and where should it be asserted that He did so, but in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis? He is the absolute Creator of matter as of life, as also the organiser of nature in its different kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal. These different kingdoms are constituent parts of, so to speak, one imperial whole. The Schoolmen, following Aristotle, state four universal causes of existing things: 1, the Material; 2, the Formal; 3, the Efficient; 4, the Final. The material cause was supposed to be that common substance or nature out of which things are made; the formal, that by which one object is made to differ from others produced out of the same common matter; the efficient, or motive cause, that which originates the motion or change from which the particular thing results; the final, that tendency or end to which the whole process of formation has reference, and in which it is completed. Corresponding with this, there are four words in Hebrew signifying to create, make, or form, and of these Bara refers to the Efficient cause.