Part 4''
The How, Why, and When of Creation, Part 2
Now as we noted all through this series, evolution is impossible because nobody times nothing equaling everything is impossible. It's not only impossible, it's ridiculous. And there are no transitional forms, and genetics makes devolution, not evolution. An alteration in genetics can only be negative; it can only fulfill the entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, and lessen, and it can't make anything greater. There isn't any kind of genetic code that can make a transition. Any living thing is subject to the genetics that it has and nothing beyond that. As we have seen, honest geology cannot support an old world, or an evolving world. The fossil record doesn't prove age, it proves cataclysm, and so it goes.
And I'm only giving you that just because I'm asking science to be honest in this situation. But with all of that background, let's go to Genesis 1 and let's get the straight story here.
How did the universe come to be what it is now? Here's how: verse 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrews had no word for universe. They had a phrase for universe, and the phrase for universe that the Hebrews used was the heavens and the earth; it simply means the universe. In the beginning God created, br , ex nihilo , out of nothing, the universe. With no prior existing matter, and no prior existing energy, God created the entire universe.
Now, God had no origin. That's why in Exodus 3:14 , He says, “I am that I am.” He's the eternal one. He, the eternal one, was not always the creator, but at some point in eternity, He became the creator.
Now, we asked the question last time, how did He create? And we answered it, by His word. Verse 3, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light.'” Verse 6, “And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.'” And verse 9, “And then God said, ‘Let the waters...'” and so it goes. And God created by simply speaking it into existence. That's how He created.
And when did He create? He created in six days about six thousand years ago, maybe a little more than that, but something certainly under ten thousand and closer to six thousand.
Now, the question I didn't answer last time was why He created. And, of course, the first answer is because He wanted to. And that's the best and truest answer. And the next question is why did He want to? And the answer to that question is pretty obvious; He wanted to because He intended to display His glory, and creation gave Him another opportunity to put His glory on display to heavenly angels as well as to mankind, who would come to appreciate His great creative power.
In Revelation 4:11 it says, “Worthy art Thou, our Lord, and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou didst create all things and because of Thy will they existed and were created.” I told you He did it because He wanted to. He did it because He wanted to do it. And He desired to do it for the very reason that eternally in His presence He will be praised and glorified for this immense display of creative power, which puts His majesty and His nature on display. In Isaiah 43 verse 7, Isaiah 43 verse 20 He says, “I did it for My glory...I did it for My glory.”
And within this creation He made man. And to take it one step beyond, He not only did it to display His glorious great massive intelligence, massive power, massive wisdom, massive love of beauty and complexity, and yet order and systematization He's displaying so much about His nature in the creation. But also in the creation He was given the opportunity by virtue of the creation of man to display something He would have not otherwise be able to display, and that is His grace and His mercy. And so He did it to put His glory on display, the glory of His creation, and the glory of His redemption.
You could also say that He did it in order to provide a bride for His Son. I've told you before – and I used to think that I had never read this anywhere, and I just, it just hit me when I was studying the Scripture that God one day said to the Son that He loved Him with a perfect love, and said, “I love You so much I want to give You a gift, and so I'm going to create and I'm going to redeem out of humanity a bride for You. And I'm going to bring that bride to glory, and that bride will be clothed in righteousness and holiness forever, and that bride will bear Your image, and that bride will worship You and adore You and serve You forever and ever. And that's My love gift to You as a Son.” This glorious plan of God to give to His beloved, the second member of the trinity, an expression of love, of eternal, divine love by granting to Him a redeemed humanity who would reflect His glory, and serve Him and praise Him forever. What an immense thought. What a glorious thought. And that's bound up in the purpose of God in creation.
Well, I hadn't read that anywhere until I discovered – a little discouraging – a twelfth century writer, Richard of St. Victor in his classic De Trinitate ; he captures the gist of this tremendous truth. He teaches that the infinite God the Father so loved God the equally infinite Son that He brought into being ex nihilo a finite material world, to be peopled with creatures in the likeness of His Son in order that as the Son's bride they could share in the beatitude of the divine life in a way appropriate to finite creatures in God's personal image. To provide a beautiful bride for His Son, the eternal Father created an entire universe, and in it a world which previously had no existence whatsoever, as the nursery and the home in which the bride would be reared. Such a stupendous gift from the Father to the Son required an absolute creation out of nothing. That's what he taught, and he was right.