Word of Salvation – Vol. 29 No. 20 – May 1984

 

Created Out Of Nothing!

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde, v.d.m. on Heb. 11:3

(Belgic Confession Art.12a.

Scriptures: Col.1:15-23; Heb.11:1-3

Suggested Hymns: 184; 51; 206; 372; 376; Bow.11

 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Sometime ago “Time” magazine ran an article on the question of the existence of God.  It cited what believers have said and what unbelievers have said.  It quoted people who lived in the past and it stated the views of scholars living today.  It showed how some have tried to prove the existence of God, and it also showed how others have tried to disprove it.

Among those who tried to disprove God’s existence was the distinguished British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, who was surely one of the most famous, outspoken non-Christian thinkers of this century.  He has been listened to, admired and believed by many educated people around the world.  He died 10 years ago, but he is still widely read and often quoted.  The “Time” article quoted some amazing and revealing statements by Bertrand Russell.  He once said that “what science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know.”

But what can science tell us?  In a BBC debate, Russell gave an astounding answer: that the universe is “just there and that’s all.”  He was convinced that “all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.”

Brothers and sisters, when you listen to words like these isn’t it sad, isn’t it despairing?  Here is one of the greatest unbelieving thinkers of our time and the best that he can come up with is that “the universe is just there and that’s all.”  Isn’t that really poor?  Isn’t that cold comfort for anyone who is looking for meaning and purpose and a goal in life?  Is this all that modern thought can offer?  Is that all we can know: just that we’re here and that one day we will die and our best efforts will die with us?  Must we live with this sense of despair for the rest of our days?  Must we live with that cold and empty belief that “what science cannot tell us mankind cannot know”?

All of these questions we may answer with a definite and resounding, “No!”  The Bible takes us beyond science, beyond human knowledge, when it says in our text: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

And notice that it says “by faith”.  Here again the Bible is very contemporary and very up-to-date and speaks to a modern problem.  It is not by proof, scientific evidence or logic that we know the world was created; it is by faith.  It is only by faith, by taking God at His word that we can know any such thing.  “The world was created by the word of God”.  There was no human being there who witnessed it; there was no journalist who reported it, and so we accept it on the authority, the say-so of God Himself.  We can know it only by faith.

The Bible is very honest and very accurate when it comes to these things.  At this point don’t let anybody fool you.  Someone may say: “You believe in creation and all you have is faith.  We believe in evolution and we have scientific evidence.”  Let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.  Every honest scientist will tell you that evolution is still only a theory, not a fact.  To believe in evolution demands a great act of faith; and even then you are putting your trust in the theories of men rather than in the Word of God.  In that sense it takes more faith to believe in evolution than in creation.  Whatever view you adopt about the origin of the universe, whatever view, it is ultimately a step of faith.  “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God…!”

Here we have this wonderful chapter on the heroes of faith.

Here we enter the “hall of fame” of the saints of God.  Here as it were we have those Old Testament characters who graduated with honours in the school of faith.

“By faith Abel…!”
“By faith Enoch…!”
“By faith Noah…!”
“By faith Abraham…”
“By faith Moses…!”

The list ends in chapter 12 which calls Jesus, “the pioneer and perfector of our faith.”  Here is a list of the greats, the “who’s who” of faith and it culminates in Jesus Christ.  But notice how it begins: “By faith we….!”

It puts us in the picture.  It ranks us with the heroes of faith, us who simply believe that Genesis 1 is true, who have the simple faith that the world was created by the word of God.

And what an incentive we have here to take God at His word.  Noah had no evidence to think there would be a flood, but he believed God.  Abraham didn’t know what lay beyond the horizon, but he believed God.  And even though we may have no proof or evidence this passage challenges us simply to believe God as to how this universe came into being; and that takes faith.

But what is faith?  Verse 1 gives us the answer: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Firstly, then, faith is the assurance (or the confidence) of things hoped for.  It has reference to the future.  When we have faith we are confident that certain things will happen: we are assured that our hopes will be fulfilled; that our expectations will materialize.

And perhaps the best example of this kind of faith is a young couple on their wedding day.  They are confident that their hopes will be fulfilled.  They are sure that in their marriage their dreams will come true.  If they didn’t have that kind of faith I doubt very much whether there would be a wedding at all.

But faith is not necessarily directed to the future alone.  Faith is also “the conviction of things not seen.”  Now these unseen things can be past, present or future.  In other words when I have faith I have a conviction about the reality of things I cannot see.  The couple who are getting married have this kind of conviction too.  With the naked eye you can’t see commitment or love or devotion, but you have the faith that these unseen things are there in the other person.

As Christians who have faith, we have convictions about the reality of unseen things: heaven, angels, God and the creation of the world.  We didn’t see it happen, but we have faith that it did happen.  “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God…!”

And now we must ask what it means that the world was created by the word of God.  Well, what does it mean?  As we answer this I believe we will see something of the majesty and the greatness of what God did in creating.

First of all, the writer of our text must have been thinking of the phrase that occurs again and again in Genesis 1.  In fact that little phrase introduces what happened on each day of creation.  There are those three little introductory words: “And God said…!”

“And God said….” – and there was light.

“And God said….” – and there was sea and sky.

“And God said….” – and there was dry land.

And finally God said: “Let us make man.”

Here we see the majestic ease with which God brought the universe into being.  All He had to do was say the word and it was done.

Psalm 33 puts it so well:
            “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
             And by the breath of His mouth all their host
             For He spoke and it was done;
             He commanded and it stood fast.”

Here is a power and a creativity that we cannot even begin to imagine.  We have to plan and toil and sweat to make even quite ordinary things, but we have a God and all He had to do was say the word and there it was: light, sea, sky, earth, animals…. the world.  “The world was created by the word of God.”  But there’s probably also a deeper meaning here that we shouldn’t miss.  Whether it’s the intention of this particular text is hard to say, but it certainly is the teaching of the Bible as a whole.  As we read in the Belgic Confession: “We believe that the Father by the Word, that is, by His Son… created heaven and earth and all creatures.”

This is really a massive thought that boggles the mind.  The Son of God whom we know so well as Jesus Christ, who was born at Bethlehem who taught on the shores of Lake Galilee, who died on the cross, who rose again on Easter morning, it was by or through Him that the entire universe was brought into being.  Did you ever think of that?  Can you fathom that?  I hope you can’t because I don’t think you’re meant to.

And yet this is what the Bible consistently teaches:

Hebrews 1:2 – “In these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world…!”

John 1:3 – “All things came into being through Him (The Son); and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

Col.1:16 – “For in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…… all things were created through Him and for Him.”

And now if you put all of these truths together it was by His Son, through His Son and also for His Son that the Father created the worlds.

Now I’ve got to admit, I don’t understand this, I really don’t.  Was the Father the Architect and the Son the Builder?  Was one the Designer and the other the Manufacturer?  I don’t know, but one thing I do know and it’s that this profound truth gives me a lot of comfort.  For when I look around me at the complexities of the universe and at the fine microscopic details of creation, then I know it’s all there through Him who also became my Redeemer and my Saviour, Jesus Christ.  One Christian scholar put it very well: “For a man redeemed by Christ, the universe has no ultimate terrors; he knows that his Redeemer is also Creator, ruler and goal of all.” (F.F.  Bruce on Col.1:16).

This brings us to the second half of the verse which is my final point: “that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”  Or, as the N.I.V. has it: “that what is seen was not made out of what is visible.”  And surely it all boils down to this that the universe was made out of nothing.  It’s not as though the material was made out of the spiritual.  It’s s not that matter is eternal and always existed side by side with God.

The truth is simply this: that the world and the solar system and the stars and the galaxies at one time did not exist.  They just weren’t there.  Can you stretch your mind enough to imagine that?  Can you imagine a complete emptiness, nothing in it?

How far back in time that was I don’t know.  It was even before there was such a thing as time.  All there was, was God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And out of this nothingness God called the universe into being.  Where once there was a vast emptiness and a total vacuum, there is now the complex beauty of the universe.

Today that entire universe is still held together by the Son.  “He upholds the universe by his word of power” (Heb.1:2).  Or as Paul says: “He is before all things and in Him all things hold together” (Col.1:17).  In Him all things cohere.  Again it is my Lord Jesus Christ who suffered and died and rose again for me who now holds the reins of creation in His hand and never lets them slip.  This too, brothers and sisters, is an article of our faith.  However things may seem, Jesus Christ is supreme.

All is chaos now, people say.  But is it really?  Shouldn’t we compare our world to a tapestry?  Underneath there’s no pattern to it and it looks a real mess, but its upper-side shows beauty and design.  Or we could think of a busy international airport.  Its planes are constantly coming and going.  They make us dizzy and we expect a collision at any moment.  But we don’t really have to hold our breath, because the men in the control tower direct every take-off and every landing.

Likewise all creatures in all their movements throughout history are held together.  History is going somewhere.  The universe is cosmos, not chaos.  It’s all in the powerful hand of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you believe that?

And have you made your peace with Him?

Amen.