Chapter 1: How does God reveal Himself through creation?
Let me begin this week with a biblical word association test. You know how these work. I say a word and you say the first word that comes to mind. Ready? Revelation. Now, if you're not a Christian, Revelation might prompt you to think of all kinds of things. I remember a friend of mine getting a suitcase for her 21st birthday, which had the manufacturer's name embossed on it, Revelation.
So, I could imagine somebody might, remembering that, think suitcase. Or somebody with a guilty conscience might think hide. Or, if you're a Christian, you might think of all kinds of things.
Chapter 2: What role do scientists play in understanding the existence of God?
You might think of Jesus. You might think of the book of Revelation. The word millennium might come to mind. But if you study the Bible for any length of time and know anything about theology, you know that Revelation is a word that describes the way in which God has made himself known to us. And he's done that right from the very beginning. I mean the beginning. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.
In the beginning, God... I wonder if you've felt, as I have in recent years, that while scientists want to explore the nature of the cosmos, there are some scientists in particular who seem to want to get right back to the beginning of things, to the alpha point, and then go over the border of that alpha point in order to prove that there is absolutely nothing there.
And their deep motivation actually is to deny the existence of God.
Chapter 3: What does the Bible say about the nature of creation?
And, of course, not all scientists have that kind of disposition. But some of them are, like I remember as a youngster, Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut, going up into space and coming back down and saying, I went there to the edge of the universe, which, of course, he didn't, and there was no God.
You know, if that ever did happen, I think we might be justified in saying, we Christians have been telling you that for centuries. We've been telling you that when you get to the edge of the cosmos, you will find nothing because God has created all things out of nothing. And after all, the eternal God is not going to be subject to your little scientific experimentations.
No, the age-old question that philosophers have always asked and scientists still seek to penetrate, why is there something and not nothing, is a question that's answered right in the very first chapter of the Bible, right in the very first verse. It is because God has revealed himself in creation. The uncreated God has made all things.
And if you think about it, that inevitably means that everything that God has made reveals him. If something is created by a creator, then that created thing reveals the creator, just as the work of a great artist reveals himself.
Chapter 4: How do our perceptions of creation change through faith?
just as art experts can tell you, I see the characteristic signs of this great artist in this particular painting. And so the Scriptures teach us, if we have eyes to see, then we will recognize that everything in the universe bears this stamp, made by God and revealing Him.
Paul puts it like this in Romans 1, verse 19, God's invisible attributes have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. John Calvin puts it, I think, delightfully when he says this, The acts of creation were like God putting on his outside clothes in order that we might see who he is, what he is like, and what he has done.
It's in this way that the invisible God makes his invisible attributes known to us invisible things. And that's revelation. But we're blind to it because of our sin. And our eyes are opened to it by the grace of Jesus Christ. That's why the hymn writer Anna Laetitia Waring once wrote, something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of recognizing God in all things?
You know, as Christians, we certainly don't know everything. But the great thing is we know something about everything. We know that it's been made by God. We know that we're living in his world. And we know that we are secure with him.