Tag: Creation

The Don: “I See Macbeth, but Where’s Shakespeare?”

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“The Russians, I am told, report that they have not found God in outer space…

Looking for God—or Heaven—by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters or Stratford as one of the places. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as FalstafFor Lady Macbeth. Nor is he diffused through the play like a gas.

If there were an idiot who thought plays existed on their own, without an author (not to mention actors, producer, manager, stage-hands and what not), our belief in Shakespeare would not be much affected by his saying, quite truly, that he had studied all the plays and never found Shakespeare in them.” —C.S. Lewis, “The Seeing Eye”

The August Theologian: Pleasing Pleasures

“If physical objects give you pleasure, praise God for them and return love to their Maker lest, in the things that please you, you displease him.” —Augustine, Confessions

No Adam, No Christ

We need salvation. How does salvation come to bear upon our need? Racial solidarity in Adam is the pattern according to which salvation is wrought and applied. By Adam sin-condemnation-death, by Christ righteousness-justification-life. A way of thinking that makes us aloof to solidarity with Adam makes us inhabile [not fit or qualified] to the solidarity by which salvation comes. Thus the relevance of the Adamic administration to what is most basic, on the one hand, and most necessary, on the other, in our human situation. —John Murray, The Adamic Administration

Creating Word, Sustaining Word, Redeeming Word (Colossians 1–20)

Jesus created the spheres and circles of the universe and set them spinning. From the macro-cosmos of Jupiter its 53 named moons, the Sloan Great wall of galaxies, and the colossal star UY Scuti, to the micro-cosmos of uranium 235, protons, and quarks—all things visible and invisible—all were made through Jesus.

Further, Jesus is no deistic spinner of the watches He has made. He is no grand designer of perpetual motion machines. The universe was not an epic pitch of the omnipotent one, wherein he wound up and let go. Jesus not only creates, he sustains. By His word creation is—always, at all points of its is-dom. It came into being by His word and is sustained in being by His word (Hebrews 1:3). You walk around on, breath in, and are made of nuclear energy. Micro-cosmos, capable of undoing you a million times over, are not simply held together by His hand, they are by His hand. They don’t have an independent existence. Jesus doesn’t simply do maintenance on the stars. He does stars at every point of their existence.

Jesus doesn’t complete the watch to set it in motion independently of Him. He motions it at all times. Man makes a generator because he is limited. He can’t produce electricity. Man isn’t more intelligent than God because he can make a hands off machine. God is unlimited in wisdom and power, such that, nothing works without Him; including you and your generator. God never has too many irons in the fire.

But what are all these ticks and tocks ticking and tocking towards? Has an alarm been set? Is a consummatory suppertime comming? Yes; one day this old creation will grow up, mature, and be born anew—a new creation, and then, the marriage supper of the Lamb. The cosmos isn’t an experiment. Men toy with magic and science and find power that undoes them. Jesus created and sustains that He might be preeminent in the redemption of all things by the blood of the cross. The Word delivers no impromptu speech. Every word—creating words, sustaining words, redeeming words—every word is scripted, with the basic plot outlined in the Scriptures.

All Concerns the Tabernacle and the Tabernacle Concerns All (Exodus 30)

When you’re going on vacation the final bits of packing might seem haphazard and chaotic, but two things could be happening.

1. Things really are a mess. You’ve run through the house last minute gathering up tidbits you either forgot to pack or now think you might need and just throw them in.

2. There has been a strategic ordering and packing up of things and you’ve simply come to remaining smaller items that could only be packed last and for which there was no room in any other bag.

God didn’t pack the tabernacle instructions like you might pack for vacation. Everything has been highly organized. Chapter 25 concerned the furniture of the tabernacle, chapter 26 the tent itself, chapter 27 the courtyard, chapter 28 the priest’s garments, and chapter 29 the priest’s consecration. Now it’s time to pack some remaining items. Remember that the chapter divisions are inserted by man. These chapter divisions have been very good in seeing some natural divisions, but we must remember that they’re divisions within a section all concerning the tabernacle. The smaller items that make up chapter 30 don’t cohere together the way the items in chapter 28 do, but they do cohere with chapter 29 the way that chapter 25 does.

How do these all things go together? The way everything in chapters 25–31 go together. All these chapters are about the tabernacle. All these chapters are packed into the same place, or rather, are about the same place.

Even if a neighbor looked in on a crazily packed family car and asked what all that randomness was about, they could reply, “Vacation.” It’s not unrelated randomness. It is all about vacation.

This chapter is neither unrelated or random. All concerns the tabernacle.

When Israel would sojourn through the wilderness, all of these things wold be packed together and carried by the Levites. All of these things relate to the tent. The tabernacle is diverse, but not because it speaks of a great many different things, but of the great depth and diversity of a single thing, Christ and His redemption—that thing which binds not only the tabernacle together, but everything together. All concerns the tabernacle, and the tabernacle concerns all. Jesus’ redemption is so big that it not only unites all the tabernacle, it also is uniting all creation as a tabernacle.

The Apologist: Evolution a Theory with Many Unroofs

[E]ven if I were still and agnostic, as once I was, I would not accept the concept of evolution from the molecule to man in unbroken line. My rejection of this does not turn upon my being Christian, but comes rather because I think this concept is weak and certainly has not been proven (in any sense of the word proven). It is a theory with may unproofs.  —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

The Apologist: There Are Only a Few Possible Answers and Only One Intelligent Answer

Man is shut up to relatively few answers. I think we often fail to understand that the deeper we go into study at this point, the simpler the alternatives become. In almost any profound question, the number of final possibilities is very few indeed. Here there are four: (1) Once there was absolutely nothing and now there is something, (2) Everything began with an impersonal something, (3) Everything began with a personal something, and (4) There is and always has been a dualism. —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time

The Apologist: God Isn’t a Romantic Shouting “You Complete Me”

If this were not so, we would have had a God who needed to create in order to love and communicate. In such a case, God would have needed the universe as much as the universe needed God. But God did not need to create; God does not need the universe as the universe needs him. Why? Because we have a full and true Trinity. The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other, and loved each other, before the creation of the world. —Francis Schaeffer, He is There and He Is Not Silent

Symphonic Cacophony (Exodus 8:16–32)

Organized chaos, symphonic cacophony, constructive destruction: that is what the wonders of judgment that befall Egypt are. Creation is unraveling for the purpose of new creation. Judgment is falling for salvation.

If you’re a buck private on the front line, things might seem chaotic, but for the general who can see the whole war, there’s order to the madness. When Joshua attacked Ai the second time he divided his forces, sending a division behind the city to ambush it. Once Joshua came against the city with the remaining troops, Israel fled as in the previous battle, pretending defeat. The men of Ai thought this was a good kind of chaos and pursued. The Israelite ambushers then set fire to Ai. Now the men of Ai were in chaos. Organized chaos. Israel’s pretend chaos was the plan. Ai’s genuine chaos was the plan.

We know the story. We know the strategy. We know that from the chaos of the cross new creation burst forth. Every millimeter of chaos is ordered. Not one particle of violence falls to the ground unintended. Something beyond laser-guided accuracy sends forth every bolt of lightning. Earthquakes rattles this earth with a precision that would make a brain surgeon envious. Our God is so big, He is Lord over the smallest details. The chaos stirs up a lot of dust, but not one mote floats through the air unguided.

Skyscraper implosions are amazing. Organized chaos, for the purpose of rebuilding. God implodes stars, and with atomic accuracy for purposes beyond us. But His greatest marvel is redemption. From the chaos of the judgment of the plagues come redemption and  new creation. From the chaos of the judgment of the cross come redemption and new creation.

The Penning Pastor: The Most Unlearned Saint Knows More about the Stars than the Most Stellar Unregenerate Astronomer

But the book of creation is designed for the instruction of all believers. If they are not qualified to be astronomers or anatomists, yet from a view of the heavens, the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the atom, which he hath created, they learn to conceive of his condescension, power, and faithfulness. Though they are unacquainted with the theory of light and colours, they can see in the rainbow a token of God’s covenant love. Perhaps they have no idea of the magnitude or distance of the sun; but it reminds them ofJesus the Sun of Righteousness, the source of light and life to their souls. The Lord has established a wonderful analogy between the natural and the spiritual world. This is a secret only known to them that fear him ; but they contemplate it with pleasure; and almost every object they see, when they are in a right frame of mind, either leads their thoughts to Jesus, or tends to illustrate some scriptural truth or promise. This is the best method of studying the book of Nature ; and for this purpose it is always open and plain to those who love the Bible, no that he who runs may read. –John Newton, Works, Vol. 1