And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of Man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him! (Matthew 8:26, 27)

The disciples were amazed when Jesus calmed the storm simply by speaking to it. The gospel of John referring to Him as the Word says, "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." (1:3) Describing the creation process Genesis says, "And God said... and there was..." The psalmist wrote, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." (33:6) This is what has become known as the doctrine of ex nihilo, which means "out of nothing." While its inspiration may be in question, the apocrypha agrees. "I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise." (2 Maccabees 7:28)

Romans 4:17 links the resurrection of the dead to creation. "God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." In comforting grief-stricken Martha, Jesus proclaimed to her, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25) Earlier He made the extraordinary statement, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." (John 10: 17, 18) Not only is He the resurrection because He raises others to life, He is the resurrection because He raised Himself to life. That is so profound one must echo the disciples' words, "What manner of Man is this!"

Colossians ties three things together. 1. Salvation, 2. Creation, and 3. Resurection.

Colossians 1:
13. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son:
14. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
15. Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature:
16. For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him:
17. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.
18. And He is the Head of the body, the church: Who is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence."

In Matthew 27:22 Pilot asks the question each of us must ask, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?"

All true, and all the focus of deep, thoughtful and grateful meditation.

All no less true if the acts of creation were done long ago, or over a long period, than if creation were recent and instantaneous.

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All no less true if the acts of creation were done long ago,

Agreed! We do not know, without a doubt, exactly WHEN creation took place. All we know is what Genesis tells us. We don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden before sinning -- probably long enough for the first absolute bliss to wear off, and for Eve to feel quite comfortable being away from Adam's side.

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or over a long period,

Ah!! but this one DOES make a difference. If creation took a long period, then, either the Bible story is a lie, or it is truth. "evening and morning were the first day"; "evening and morning were the second day";.....and so on. Evening and morning then and now were 24 hour periods. How do I know? Because on the 4th day "God created two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.....and God saw that it was good, And there was evening and there was morning -- the fourth day" Genesis 1:16-19.

The language is exactly -- word for word -- the same as used for the previous 3 days.

God had already created the vegetation -- seed bearing plants and trees -- and for them to now be subjected to a thousand years of sunlight they would be burned up, and if any happened to survive, and they were subjected to 1000 years of moonlight they would be burned up. These were 24 hour periods.

Then we come to the seventh day. Here were are told what God did -- "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing, so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done."

A couple of thousand years down the track we find God on Mt Sinai giving the 10 commandments -- and in them was the fourth commandment requiring the people to keep the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. They had already had a practical lesson in what was required -- in the falling of the manna on five days with a double portion on the sixth day and nothing was said about this being a thousand-year-day!

Right through the history of the Israelites the battle was on their failure to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.

When Jesus came to this earth, He kept the seventh-day of the week as the Sabbath -- not some long-drawn-out-time. As the Creator, He knew what He was doing.

God bless,

Beryl

The debate over the length of creation is important, although secondary, to the issue of ex nihilo. I agree with the points made by Beryl regarding the Ten Commandments, manna and the faithfulness of God's Word. However before we get to the issue of the six-day creation week, we must somehow grasp ex nihilo and the God that makes it possible.

If God made everything out of nothing the question becomes what was this nothingness that it was able to be transformed into something. What was there before God created? Scientifically, empty space is something. Or does scientific reasoning fail when we try to back beyond God's first creation?

Ex nihilo makes one thing perfectly clear. God did not need the help of evolution to create the universe. Given what the Bible teaches about the power of Christ, we have no reason to doubt the Biblical record unless we also doubt the power of Christ to resurrect the dead - including Himself.

If the Bible were perfectly clear and unambiguous there would not be umpteen dozens of christian religions! Yet some still claim to be the sole repository of Truth!

mel

A few points:

1. I agree with your analysis of the texts, Beryl, but it is all off topic for this particular thread. The thread is about the wonder and power of creation as evidence for the wonder and power of Jesus. My comment was that a longer creation would still serve that purpose. The arguments about evenings and mornings and how literal that chapter is have been done extensively here before. (Please note that I always enjoy your thoughtful and sensible comments - my point here is not meant to dismiss your contribution but to engage with it.)

2. The Big Bang and evolution are also ex nihilo. Scientists very explicitly believe that there was nothing - not even space - before the big bang. 'Ex nihilo' is not actually a point of difference between the belief systems. The difference boils down to time frames and mechanisms.

Agreed, absolutely, that God did not 'need the help of evolution' to create the universe. He could have done it 5 minutes ago from nothing, as I've repeatedly stipulated. The question then remains of why He chose to put in place massive amounts of evidence suggesting it's older and has developed over time, if that is not the case. And the evidence does suggest that, and require a huge amount of explaining away to see it differently.

The Big Bang says in the beginning there was nothing and everything that now exists evolved from that - nothing.

Christianity says in the beginning was the Word and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Science says we must reject Christianity's explanation because it depends upon a deity which we cannot prove.

Which is more logical? A deity we do not understand created everything ex nihilo or creation created itself by random acts ex nililo?

I am not convinced the Earth looks that old. I understand the scientific arguments which date the rocks. However I am not convinced the fossil record shows what conventional science claims. Nor have I seen a good answer to why the fossil record even exists as it does if plate-tectonics and erosion have been active for millions of years. I see a lot of circular reasoning in conventional science that fails to convince me to accept its basic assumptions.

BUT! I understand that "God" had no beginning. Is that right? I think his nature is to create and always has been. Would you agree? We can observe certain laws of nature which are rather cosistent. We can assume that God normally uses those rules in his creation. It seems to have been proved that there is a relationship between mass and energy. So what do we actually mean when we speak of God creating out of "nothing"? The available pictures on the internet of the universe are breathtaking. Totally beyond our understanding!

mel

The lack of clarity of the Bible, or of any other text, is not necessarily the reason for many interpretations of it.

I think we have to consider the fact that people have different motives for wanting a text to read a certain way. A good example of this happens in court when two opposing attorney's see a clear law in two very different ways because of their motives. They're working for two different sides and consequently want very different results.

Also, not everyone has the same aptitude for comprehending the meaning of language. This is easily shown in any test of people's abilities to comprehend what they are reading.

Thirdly, there's the fact that not everyone is paying attention to all the of the text, a very important factor in arriving at the truth of what the text is saying. If we only consider parts, and not the whole, of a text, we certainly can't hope to arrive at a correct understanding of what it is saying.

And fourthly, many people do not have the Holy Spirit guiding them in the study of the text.

Also, looking at the denominations historically, we notice that some of them stopped accepting new truth after their leaders died.

None of this is to say that the Bible is always clear. We have plenty of disagreements over the meaning of the text even within our own church.

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Agreed, absolutely, that God did not 'need the help of evolution' to create the universe. He could have done it 5 minutes ago from nothing, as I've repeatedly stipulated. The question then remains of why He chose to put in place massive amounts of evidence suggesting it's older and has developed over time, if that is not the case. And the evidence does suggest that, and require a huge amount of explaining away to see it differently.

Thanks, Shane and Bravus, for your courteous answers pointing out that I was off subject -- and, no, I don't have a scientific bone in my body!! However, I would like to comment on this old earth theory. I know there is a lot of comment on it, but to someone who is not a scientist's bootlace, the answer seems just so simple.

If God was to turn the planet Mars (or Jupiter, or any of the others) into a beautiful world, as He did with the earth, would they not be founded on a basic "world" that was most probably brought into existence at the same time as all the worlds in our particular galaxy, and therefore have VERY VERY VERY OLD rocks, etc?

When we look at the text (Genesis 1:1) it simply tells us that "In the beginning" (which could have been anytime back in eternity) God created the heavens and the earth.

I have always believed that this is how the earth (as a ball) contained these old, old, stones, etc. God created them in His original creation -- otherwise why are there so many uninhabited "worlds" in our galaxy -- and maybe in many of the other galaxies. All of the worlds, and stars, etc in our galaxy continue to spin around in perfect harmony, as I believe they do in other galaxies. We know from EGW that there are other inhabited worlds -- but not in this galaxy.

My theory (for what it is worth) is that somewhere back in eternity God created the entire solar system (a "God version" of the Big Bang theory?) and then began, one by one to make them beautiful, and inhabited by people. As an unscientific person, this is the only way that I can make sense of how the universe is held in place by gravitation, because if a "new world" was created separately, wouldn't that upset the gravitational pull of the other planets in the universe?

When Lucifer got a "big head" and decided that he should have a say in all this planning, God chose to work on a planet far away from any other planet, so that, should man sin, the results could be contained on a little planet far away from any of the other sinless inhabited planets.

Most unscientific, but, that is what I believe. Any problems?

God bless,

Beryl