ORIGINS

1--Genesis1:1--ORIGINS

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1).

The first verse of the Bible begins where it should begin: with the issue of origins. For, as a number of philosophers have correctly noted, "The first question that rightly should be asked is, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'"

By addressing this premiere and ultimate question of origin or beginning at the beginning, the Bible immediately offers evidence of its credentials as the supreme source book of knowledge about reality. Though not all readers of that book will agree with its answers, the discerning reader and thinker is still impressed that it immediately focuses on the right questions. For before one can discover the truth about any issue, it is imperative that the right questions be asked about that issue. Right answers cannot come from wrong questions. The Bible asks the right questions--and gives the right or true answers. And the question of origins is the right question to ask at the beginning of any discourse on reality.

There are other answers given to this ultimate question, of course, but the answer given by the Bible stands in stark contrast to the widely believed alternative answer so prevalent in our world today, that of evolution. For that view contradicts every aspect of the biblical answer, claiming that there is no underlying source for all that exists, that nature is the ultimate foundation for all that exists. In direct contrast, the Bible bluntly speaks against this view, stating plainly that all that exists exists because it was created by deliberate choice and act of will by an infinite Creator and God.

"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being" (Rev. 4:11).

"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him" (Col. 1:16).

The difference between these two conflicting and contradictory viewpoints could not be greater. One, evolution, has no foundation for any ultimate meaning, significance, or value in our existence, since all is a product of chance and forces of nature, plus it is contradicted by the very nature it says is the ultimate essence of existence itself:

"What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" (Rom. 1:19,20).

The other view, the biblical view, however, has a real foundation for real life, not just existence. It offers real meaning, significance, and value because the One on whom our existence depends is the ultimate reality of all these things and more. This supreme Being is real and he gives real meaning to all who must live in the heavens and the earth which he created specifically for us to live in:

"He who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited--he says: 'I am the Lord, and there is no other'" (Isaiah 45:18).

Thus one concept of reality has no hope for a true, meaningful existence because it has no foundation on which to base such hope. But the biblical view does offer such a hope because its foundation is the eternal, all-powerful God--powerful enough to create our world and us and to sustain both physically and spiritually. He is the One who is "sustaining all things by his powerful word" (Heb. 1:3).

This God is real and the hope he offers us in the book he wrote to inform us about this hope he offers in his Son, Jesus Christ, is real: real life, real truth, real hope.

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (Rom. 5:5).

Here we see the total failure of any man-made concept of reality, especially any solely materialistic such concept such as evolution. For man is more than a physical animal; he has been created with a soul that is created for its Creator and any concept of reality that denies this is woefully lacking in understanding of the true nature of things. It is not by accident that the first verse in all of the Bible mentions that God created not only the earth but the heavens as well. Man is not a creature only of the earth but also of heaven and he cannot truly live with an outlook that cuts out this crucial part of his existence--he can only exist, not live.

Thus the Bible at the very beginning begins where it should, telling us our origin and the origin of everything else. We all began with God's creating the heavens and the earth. We did not create ourselves, which is a contradiction in both logic and reality.

"Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and not we ourselves, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture" (Psalm 100:3).

This is our origin--and this is the beginning of the message of the Bible.