The profoundest thought that can come into the human mind is that God exists, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The Apostle Paul considers it to be a cardinal principle of religious belief that a person subscribe to the existence and reality of God. All bona fide religion is based upon this prime fact, and the evidence of His existence is manifest in many infallible proofs.
We are introduced, initially, to the Self-Existent God in the first book of the Bible as recorded in the Mosaic description: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This stupendous declaration testifying to the creative power of God, a power that is limitless because it is eternal, leaves us overawed and overwhelmed at the magnitude of created things.
The Genesis account of the order of creation is confirmed by the highest scientific opinion as being absolutely correct:
- Dry land.
- Grass.
- Herb yielding seed.
- Fruit tree yielding fruit.
- Lights in the firmament.
- Abundance of moving creatures in the sea.
- Fowl that may fly.
- Great whales.
- The beast of the earth.
- Cattle.
- Man.
The above list can be arranged in nearly forty million different combinations, and is indeed great witness to the complete trust worthiness of God’s Word, and demonstrates the living reality of God.
It is against the background of Bible truth that Dr. Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, in his book “Honest to God” is seen as anything but honest, in attempting to discredit the Bible concept of God, and substituting a meaningless, speculative definition of God that amounts to nothing more than vain human philosophy.
The Scriptures contain incontrovertible evidence concerning the reality of God, revealing His character, and recording His dealings with man. The Bible claims to be the only authoritative declaration of God’s Word, and that claim has never been nullified or proved false.
God declared Himself to Israel in terms that left them in no illusion as to His supremacy and reality: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.- God was talking to them in the language of their very experience.
Science has no direct knowledge of a beginning, and yet the Bible gives a step by step account of the creation.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
“And God said, Let there be light”—and the result—”and there was light.”
“And God made the firmament.”
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth”—and the result—”and it was so.”
“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.”
The Bible portrays God as supreme and one, and able to command and execute. This concept is a and the Apostles encourage us to believe in God as being real and living: “. . . he that hath seen me hath seen the Father”, and “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made”.
The Law given by God to the Israelites was full of realism and purpose, reflecting the Divine attributes, and demanding obedience for their proper application and ultimate advantage. This Law is kept by the Jews to this day, ample proof that a law was given to the Israelites, and that it was given by God. The Psalmist says: “For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.”
Paul, in his great address to the Athenians on Mars Hill quotes from the last line of the poem “Phaenomena” by the Greek poet Aratus: “For we his offspring are.” He then continues to expound the reality and unity of God, supplying from the Scripture what their inscribed altar did not convey: “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.- In the acknowledged home of academic learning, philosophy, and pagan worship Paul explains the God of the Scriptures to them: “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. . . . And the time of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent.”
The scientist Charles Jurisch devotes his book “How firm a Foundation” to evidences from science that prove the truth of the Bible. His analysis is under the headings of mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, biology, anthropology, archaeology, history, geology, geography, and comparative theology. In the biological section the writer in answer to Job’s question to Eliphaz, “What is man?” gives the reply taken from the first book of the Bible: “God formed man from the dust of the ground.- He points out that the solid parts of our bodies are mainly made up from the “dust of the earth”. We are children of the soil, sustained by the substances in the soil, and when we die we return to the soil. All this proves the truth of the Scriptures and the reality of God.
Physics is a branch of science, and its object is to make thorough investigations of things that are material, and, because of their findings, some of the great names in physics have been men with Christian beliefs —Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Sir William Thompson, Lord Kelvin, Sir Ambrose Fleming and the like.
The Psalmist says: “He maketh lightnings for the rain,” and Charles Jurisch writes, “The direct asociation of rain and the water suspended in the atmosphere with thunder and lightning has been recognised scientifically only in recent times. That the electrical discharge which takes place in the air brings about rain is now generally understood, but that was not known in former times.” Wonderful testimony, indeed, of the reality of God.
In the section of the book dealing with astronomy the writer refers to the “Sweet Influences of Pleiades” ( Job 38. 31) and shows that the time of rising of that constellation was associated with the return of Spring. He points out that the “Pleiades no longer rise shortly before the sun at the beginning of Spring. The point of the ecliptic which rises heliacally (i.e. shortly before sunrise) in Spring is now about 60 degrees distant from the Pleiades, and if we enquire how long ago it was that the Pleiades did rise heliacally at the beginning of or during the first month of Spring, we shall find that this was the case about 2000 and !500 B.C. The critics, however, decline to allow for the book of Job any earlier date than 500 B.C.—a time when the Pleiades were separated from the sweet influences of Spring by nearly a month”.
The spherical shape of the earth was known in Bible times as revealed by Isaiah: “It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.” This was Isaiah’s portrayal of the earth-globe suspended in ether filled space. The globular shape of the world is also conveyed in the Mosaic description: “Stars, even all the host of heaven . . . which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.”
In dealing with geology Jurisch quotes from Job: “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord bath wrought this?” In other words Job is saying: “Study geological formations and you will find that God’s hand created them.”
In the book of Job we have a description of mining operations that could be applied to our own day:
“Surely there is a vein for silver,
And a place for gold which they refine.
Iron is taken from the earth,
And copper is smelted from the ore.
Men put an end to darkness,
And search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness.
They open shafts in a valley away from where men live;
Its stones are the place of sapphires, and it has dust of gold.
Man puts his hand to the flinty rock, He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. (R.S.V.)
Daniel, writing under inspiration from God, gives a preview of history, anticipating four world empires that would represent man’s dominion, then to be superseded by a fifth, the Kingdom of God, a universal Theocracy. The four kingdoms, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome have occupied the world scene and passed into oblivion, and it is certain that the fifth, God’s Kingdom, will be established at the appointed time. Dr. Robinson’s radical and aberrated definition of God has a measure of ecclesiastical acquiescence long anticipated by the Bible writers. The Apostle Paul was conversant with the “mystery of iniquity” that operated in his day, and he expressly defines apostate believers: “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away”, and “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”, and “doctrines of devils”.
Even Sir Mark Oliphant was prompted to make the absurd assertion that scientists are better qualified to interpret and understand God than the church. Neither the church around us nor metaphysical mumbo jumbo of science so called can explain God to us. The Bible alone can do that for us, and it is to its wonderful pages that we turn for the hope and asurance that we need in a chaotic world.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay