Creation

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 29, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 38.

How great are Thy works, O Jehovah! Thy thoughts are very deep.” We see much more of the work of creation, than we are inclined to make a subject of study. Yet when we are moved to search out God’s revealed works, how mighty, how beautiful, how sublime they are. If given to speculation concerning the eternal mysteries of creation, the finite mind becomes entangled and lost in the eternal wonders of the infinite.

We see the grass, the flower, the tree, and its fruit,—they become our foods. This we see and know. From the seed to the fruit is the mystery, and this God knows. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.”

“The days utter speech; And nights show knowledge; In every tongue their voice is heard, And us they teach.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” Here is the unity and association of the Father and Son, “before the world was.” Can we fathom the thought? can we unfold the mystery? Nay! let us rather rejoice and be glad in the things which God has revealed to us in His Word.

These are truly very great and sublime, and we may safely accept them in faith as an earnest of the things unrevealed. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Here are the mightiest ten words in

the Scripture. They cover the longest period of time, and declare the most stupendous work that men’s minds can not conceive.

In the “ages of ages” of the long-ago, in God’s chronology of eternities, was the “beginning” of creation. Our minds may often revert to the time chronology of six thousand years as the “beginning,” but the Scriptures do not put it so, and we ought not to build speculative theories upon assumption.

Gen. 1:1 declares creation. “He spake, and it was.” Ps. 33:9. Scripture mentions no time; it simply declares the fact of creation. That may have been instantaneous, or have covered ages. Gen. 1:2 is tersely descriptive of the earth’s aspect when created, its formlessness, and the work of God’s Spirit to bring order out of chaos. How long after it was created did the earth remain in darkness and covered with water? The Scripture does not say. But it does say that the “Spirit of God moved”—“brooded”—upon it, to bring forth the aspect and conditions now known to us. 2 Peter 3:5-7. The gloom of the early creation is so graphically described by the words, “and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The Hebrew word here translated “deep” is used with the Hebraic meaning of all that it implies,—of the formless, chaotic condition of the earth as it would appear to the observer could it have so been viewed, and as infallibly described by the inspired writer. The Greek equivalent of this term is “abyss,” translated in the New Testament as “bottomless pit.” This term was used by the ancients—both the Hebrew and the Greek—to describe regions desolate, chaotic, and unoccupied; and unmeasured, or unmeasurable; consequently of unknown depths; of waters or chasms.

The Spirit of God moved (Heb., “was brooding upon,” bringing forth), and when the work was completed, had brought forth the world as we now see it.

Darkness was upon the face of the deep; waters covered the earth; God said, “Let there be light;” the darkness began to dissipate, and there was light. Then He divided the waters, part of them went up in “clouds of mists,” and the residue settled back within the boundaries fixed for them in the “beginning.” Ps. 104:8, 9; Gen. 1:9. And “God called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He seas; and God saw that it was good.”

Then God made the grass, herbs, trees, and flowers,—all vegetable life,—and planted them in the ground, from whence they came forth for the use and sustenance of man. Then by command were the stars, moon, and sun made manifest to the earth, and they were to divide the night and day, and for signs, and seasons, and for days, and years, and to divide light from darkness, and all this was pronounced good, and it was the first day. Then came the creative life in the water, and in the creatures that fly above the earth. Then said the Lord, Let the earth bring them forth, each after his kind. Then came the crowning work of creation—man—made in the image of God both as to physical form and moral nature. Gen. 1:26; Isa. 9:6; John 1:1-10; Heb. 1:1-6; Luke 1:31-33.

Thus we learn that Christ was with the Father before the creation; that He is the Creator; that all things were created by Him; that after the heavens and the earth were created, He brought forth the present order of things in all their beauty and usefulness, for the good of all His creatures, and His own glory, and nothing He did is in vain. He gave us the septenary cycle of our week, marking the end thereof by His holy Sabbath; for in six days God made His whole creation fit for man, then gave him the Sabbath as a memorial of all creation throughout all the ages of eternity.

“The earth is Jehovah’s, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the floods. “Who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah? And who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, And hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from Jehovah, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. THIS is the generation of them that seek after Him. That seek Thy face, even Jacob.”

BRYN MAWR.