THE GOD OF CREATION
Creation implies a Creator, and the Scriptures declare, “God,” the God who is “the great Originator and Initiator” (Pink, Gleanings in Genesis, 10). To say “God” is to understand and confess that “God is” and to understand and confess the Biblical Truth about the God who is, for God has revealed Himself to man in a definitive way only in Scripture. To say “God” therefore is to confess the God that is in Scripture, for there is no other God except the God who is made known in the Holy Writings. To say “God” and to reject Scripture is to be guilty of intellectual and moral schizophrenia; to say “God” and to reject Scripture is to use the word “God” in a meaningless way. For “God” has no meaning apart from Scripture, and the only God that is is the God of the Bible. All other claims are false.
To say “God” is to make an absolute statement that is unchanging and eternal. To say “God” is to speak of the One who proclaims: “I am the First and I am the Last, besides Me there is no God” (Isa. 44:6); “Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me” (Isa. 43:10); and “I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me” (Isa. 45:5). God is the one who asks: “Is there a God besides Me?” And He answers: “Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one” (Isa. 44:8). God declares: “There is none besides me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:6; see vs. 18, 21), and “I am God and there is no other” (v. 22; 46:9). Of God the nation of Israel confessed: “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4; possible translations: “Yahweh our God is one Yahweh”; “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one”; “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone”).
To say “God” is to speak of ultimate “Being,” the “Being” upon which all the created order depends for its existence and sustenance. To say “God” is to make a statement that has more ontological meaning than any other statement; it is to speak a fixed Word that is immutable, the only immutable Word. To say “God” is to speak of the One who exists from eternity to eternity, and who inhabits eternity, He who had no beginning and He who will have no end, the One who is self-existing, the One who says: “I Am” (Ex. 3:14).
To say “God” is to speak of the One who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and the One who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the One who is altogether holy and set apart from sin, and He is worshipped as “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). To say “God” is to address the One who is Sovereign, the One who does as He pleases, when He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases.
To speak of “God” is to speak of the One who is incomprehensible but also knowable, the One who is transcendent but also immanent, the One who hides Himself but also reveals Himself. To speak of “God” is to speak of the God of the Hebrew people (old Israel) and the God of the Church (new Israel), the God of the Bible, and the God who is made known to man in Jesus. To say “God” is to speak of the One the believer calls “Father.”
Confession of God by man involves man’s acceptance of his mannishness, his creatureliness, his finiteness, his weakness, his limitations, his contingence, his dependency—his creation. To confess God is to confess Creation; it is for man to confess his own creation! To confess God is to confess Someone—the One who is superior to man, who is over man, who controls man, who commands man, who sustains man, who rules man; it is to confess the One to whom man is accountable.
To confess God is to realize that I am not alone in the universe, that the darkness of the universe does not imply eternal emptiness, that when I speak Someone does hear, and that when I cry out Someone is there to respond. To confess God is to give the explanation for man’s worth and significance; it is to give meaning and purpose to man’s existence; and it is to give challenge to his life; it is to establish a goal for his future.
To confess God is to establish a foundation upon which to ask and answer fundamental questions (Who am I?, Where did I come from?, Why am I here?, and Where am I going?); it is to establish a perspective that does not begin with man but with Theos, not with philosophy but with theology, not with Athens but with Jerusalem, not with books but with the Biblos, not with reason but with Revelation. Even Plato said we must establish the one before the many.
To say “God” and to confess that “God is” is to accept and confess Creation. For God is the God who creates—“In the beginning God created.” God and Creation cannot be separated; each implies the other. The God of Scripture creates. You cannot believe in God without believing in Creation, nor can you believe in Creation without believing in God.
One may profess to hold one or the other views but either position alone is inconsistent when evaluated in light of Biblical Truth. Twice the Scriptures pronounce: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 14:1; 53:1; see: The Foolishness of Atheism and The Aloneness of Atheism). The fool who rejects God must also reject Creation for God is the God who creates. To reject either God or Creation or to reject both God and Creation is to be a fool, a fool that is not characterized so much by intellectual foolishness as by moral foolishness. The fool's hope is not in argument but in regeneration; his problem has nothing to do with academics but with ethics.
The God of Creation is the God of the Bible,
and there is no other.
and there is no other.
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