CHAPTER IV - THE BEGINNING

Summary

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” These words are the simple and sublime fountain-head of the mighty river of divine revelation. They claim, then, the deepest attention and the most careful study from every thoughtful Christian. In their original order they teach in succession four great truths, a beginning, an act of creation, a Divine Creator, and the reality of a created universe. And they exclude five speculative falsehoods; that nothing can be known of God or the origin of things; that there is nothing but uncreated matter; that there is no God distinct from His creatures; that creation is a series of acts without a beginning; and that there is no real universe; or more briefly, Nihilism, Materialism, Pantheism, Evolutionism, and Negative Idealism.

The Bible, it has often been stated, assumes the existence of God, and does not profess to prove it. But in this first verse a proof, such as alone befits the simplicity and grandeur of the truth, is really implied. The name of God comes third and not first in the message. It is through a beginning, and an act of creation, that we are taught to rise to the knowledge of the Great Creator. These two thoughts are a pathway that leads up to His eternal throne. There is a beginning, and therefore a Beginner, who “is before all things.” There is an act of creation, and therefore a Creator, “by whom all things consist.”