************ Sermon on Belgic Confession Article 12a ************
Doctrine: Creation
By: Rev. Adrian Dieleman
This sermon was preached on June 28, 1998
B.C. 12(a)
Genesis 1:1-2:9
"The Creation of All Things"
I God Created Everything
A There comes a time in every person's life when they start to wonder about origins. Most parents will probably recognize the following conversation as sounding like one in their own home:
"Mommy, who made the sky and the trees?"
"God made the sky and the trees. God made everything."
"Mommy, did God make me too?"
"Yes, darling, God made you too."
As Christians, we are very clear on the matter of origins. In answer to the question of origins, none of us say to our son or daughter,
"Well kid, you are an accident of nature. One of your ancestors slithered or crawled out of the primordial (pr môr'd l) ooze some 20 million years ago. And 6 million years ago another of your ancestors was hanging by its tail in a jungle somewhere ..."
As Christians, I say, we are very clear on the matter of origins. We turn to the first verse of Genesis 1 and say, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." In line with this and with the church of all ages, the Belgic Confession of Faith says,
We believe that the Father
created heaven and earth and all other creatures from nothing,
when it seemed good to him,
by his Word--
that is to say,
by his Son.
As Christian believers, we don't believe in accidental beginnings. In a world that has been made by God, that is sustained and governed by God (cf Art 12, Paragraph 3), there are no accidents and everything is ordered and planned.
B We further believe that God has made everything "from nothing." We have a Latin phrase for this: creatio ex nihilio. As with all other doctrines, this one too is based upon Scripture.
(Rom 4:17) (RSV) God ... gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
(Heb 11:3) By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
And, from one of the apocryphal books we hear this:
(2 Maccabees 7:29) I beg you, child, look at the sky and the earth; see all that is in them and realize that God made them out of nothing, and that man comes into being in the same way.
We can also point to "bara" ( ), the Hebrew word which means "to create." "Bara" means that through God's command something comes into being that has not existed before. So the psalmist, for instance, says
(Ps 148:5) Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.
Creatio ex nihilio. Do you realize what this means? It means there was a time when there was nothing – except for God Himself. We can't even say there was a time when the universe was empty. Rather, we must say there was a time when there was no universe. In other words, neither Creation nor its building blocks of electrons, protons, and neutrons is eternal; none of these have always existed. They did not exist until the beginning Genesis 1 speaks of, when they were called into being by God.
How different God is from man. When man makes, for instance, a skyscraper he uses steel, concrete, and glass formed from gravel, iron ore, coal, lime, clay, and sand. When a child makes a barn he uses his legos or bits and pieces of wood. But when God made the heavens and the earth, He made them out of nothing. At one moment there was nothing, absolutely nothing, except God. The next moment, by the Word of God, there were billions upon trillions upon more trillions of the leptons and quarks that make up the electrons, protons and neutrons of atoms. At one moment there was nothing, absolutely nothing, except God. The next moment, by the Word of God, there was space and time. At one moment there was nothing, absolutely nothing, except God. The next moment, by the Word of God, the entire universe sprang into being. At one moment there was nothing, absolutely nothing, except God. The next moment, by the Word of God, there were the forces between atomic and subatomic particles which explain gravity, chemical reactions, planetary motion, the trajectory of a curveball, the birth of a star, and the burning of the sun. What a God; what an amazing, wonder-working God that can do all of this.
C We further believe that God has made everything out of nothing, "when it seemed good to him." The Confession of Faith here follows a long and honorable tradition within the church which refuses to specify the date or time of Creation. The Confession refuses to condemn or to approve of those who insist the earth is 6,000± years old. Even in the 16th century, when the Confession of Faith was written, it was realized that the Bible does not address the time/date of origins. Since that time the churches of the Reformed faith have refused to bind the minds and consciences of individual believers telling them they have to believe in a 6,000± year old earth and seven 24-hour-days of Creation – that is a matter of individual conscience. However, what is not a matter of individual conscience is that "the Father created heaven and earth and all other creatures from nothing." About that there is no room for discussion.
D We further believe that God has made everything out of nothing, when it seemed good to him, "by his Word--that is to say, by his Son." This is a teaching we find often in the pages of Scripture:
(Jn 1:3) Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
(Col 1:16-17) For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (17) He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(cf John 1:10; 1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2)
E We further believe that God "has given all creatures, their being, form, and appearance, and their various functions." Genesis 1 tells us that God made sea creatures, fish, birds, livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals "each according to its kind." This is a natural law that God has put into His Creation. There is no mingling or confusion among different species. Each was made and each reproduces according to its kind. This, of course, rules out any possibility of evolution – where one species evolves into a higher species.
F Many today scoff at this notion, that there is a God Who has made everything from nothing, each according to its kind. A number of years ago TIME Magazine (May 14, 1990) featured an interview with Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. In this article he argues that humankind is an afterthought, a cosmic accident and certainly not the Creation of a mighty God. He further believes in the evolutionary ladder, in which one species evolves into another that is more sophisticated. He believes there will come a time when even humankind will evolve into another, better life form. To hold this viewpoint is to disagree with the assertion that God makes creatures "each according to its kind" without any mingling or confusion among the species.
Along this line you need to know of a remarkable campaign launched this Spring to accelerate the teaching of evolution in our nation's public schools. The National Academy of Sciences is sending 40,000 copies of a new guidebook to encourage teachers to hold firm against those who are anti-evolution. "Evolution is the central organizing principle that biologists use to understand the world" states the NAS. If that is the case, these biologists are anti-Christian, anti-Creed, anti-Bible, and anti-God.
I came across an illustration this past week which so clearly portrays the evolutionary viewpoint:
Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music--though invisible to them--above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see.
Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player.
Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth.
But the pianist continued to play.
The evolutionist is like the piano mice. He can say and theorize what he wants about the universe and its origins, he can deny the Creation activity of God, yet he can never succeed in driving God Himself away.
II To Serve its Creator
A We can ask the question "why?" Why has God created heaven and earth and all other creatures? What is the Creation's purpose and function? The answer can be summed up in one word: service. The word appears 4 times in Article 12. Everything was created for service.
In many places the concept of "service" has hit upon hard times today. At most service stations you end up serving yourself. The bureaucracy in Washington D.C. and Sacramento is filled with public servants who seem to do anything but serve the public. More than one economist has said we are being reduced to a service economy in which all that we do is flip each other's hamburgers, press each other pants, and cut each other's hair. I have been very frustrated by the level of service available here in Visalia. For instance, the Cable TV people took almost 3 months to hook up our cable; the Post Office has lost my mail, wrecked my mail, and makes me wait in long lines; and, someone in the court system forgot to notify us about a change of date when one of our family got a traffic ticket.
B The Confession tells us that God has created everything for service. We notice, first of all, that everything has been created to serve God:
He has given all creatures
their being, form, and appearance,
and their various functions
for serving their Creator.
This includes man too (Paragraph 3). In its first question and answer the Westminster Larger Catechism says:
1 Q. What is the chief and highest end of man?
A. Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him for ever.
As with everything else we believe, this too is solidly rooted in Scripture:
(Rom 11:36) For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
(1 Cor 10:31) So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Throughout history this teaching has either been ridiculed or ignored. Most people from ancient times to the present think that man's highest goal is his own welfare, happiness, and pleasure. Man lives for himself, these people tell us. All things were created for man's pleasure. But the Christian knows better – he or she knows that we live for the glory of God.
C Secondly, we also notice that all creatures great and small are sustained and governed by God for a definite purpose:
that they may serve man,
in order that man may serve God.
The Creation, in other words, exists for man – but not for man's pleasure and abuse. Its purpose is to help man to better serve God. Of course, this too is based upon Scripture. Remember what God said to man in the garden:
(Gen 1:29-30) "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. (30) And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. (cf Gen 9:2-3)
This teaching too has been subject to much ridicule. The more extreme animal rights activists, the Greenpeace Movement, the Sierra Club, and others strongly deny this. They abhor man's domination of Creation. Their philosophy is one of peaceful coexistence, rather than rule and dominion. Now, they are correct in telling us that we must do a better job in looking after the Creation, that we must avoid pollution, that we must not waste non-renewable resources. Yet, they are wrong when they say we cannot use the Creation and its resources for our benefit. But, our use of Creation must be done in such a fashion that we can better praise and serve God.
I earlier mentioned a TIME interview with Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard paleontologist. He outright rejects the view that humankind is at the top, that all of Creation is directed toward us so we can better serve God. He says
"the world is a pretty miserable place for many people. If we can reconstruct the history of life as being somehow inherently directed toward us, it is a very comforting thought. It is an old one too. It is embodied right in Genesis 1. We are not willing to give it up easily."
To believe what we believe he dismisses as being "oxymoronic."
D The Bible nowhere tells us about God's creation of the spirit world inhabited today by angels and demons. We are not sure if they were made before or during one of the 7 days of Creation. Whenever they were made by God, it should not surprise us that they too were made for service. Says Guido de Brés,
He also created the angels good,
that they might be his messengers
and serve his elect.
Conclusion
What do we as God's children believe? With the church of all ages, we say
We believe that the Father
created heaven and earth and all other creatures
from nothing,
when it seemed good to him,
by his Word--
that is to say,
by his Son.
We further believe
He has given all creatures
their being, form, and appearance,
and their various functions
for serving their Creator.