Reading Schedule: Genesis 1:1-6:8; Isaiah 42:5-43:11; John 1

The Bible begins with a brief account of Creation, which humbles us every time we read it – and read it we must. No earthly logic or scientific experiment will prove or disprove the Creation. We receive the account in the way our Creator God intends us to receive it – by faith. We are right to ask questions, though (according to Hebraic ways of thinking) they may be only answered in part or may raise other questions. Our questions reach out to a heavenly logic far higher than our earthbound logic. As we study and pray on the matter we find that the Holy Spirit increases our faith in our Creator more than gives us scientific formulae (though, of course, valid scientific enquiry is in harmony with biblical truth).

Such faith can be the beginning of our walk with God, expanding into faith for all he is and all he does. This is what David discovered, leading him to pen Psalm 19. Meditation on the Creation builds confidence in Creator God for all things – from the great to the small, from upholding the order of the universe to helping with the hidden sins of the heart.

Only by Faith

There is a logic known only to our Creator which requires us to trust him in all things. This trust was what Job learned through inexplicable suffering. "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" was God's question in response to Job's questions (Job 38:4).

This is why the writer to the Hebrews lists faith in God the Creator as the first principle of all faith – "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made by things which are visible" (Heb 11:3). It is also why Paul strongly warns that those who deny the Creator will also be vulnerable to a gradual decline into all manner of sins and wickedness (Rom 1).

Towards Marvellous Things

There is a clear parallel between John 1 and Genesis 1, both commencing with the words, "In the beginning". If our minds and our hearts are prepared through meditation on the Creation, faith is built for Creator God to do marvellous things beyond our human logic. If he created all that we see, then he can also intervene in the physical laws of the universe – and in our lives - in any creative way he chooses. He is also able to come down into our midst in bodily form, from the heavens that were there before the first atom in this physical universe was formed. The Creator entered his own creation when the Son of God became the Son of Man.

Meditate upon these things once more this week.

Author: Clifford Denton