Author: Paul A. Bartz
Note: Creation Moments exists to provide Biblically sound materials to the Church in the area of Bible and science relationships. This Bible study may be reproduced for group use.
The argument from design is the most basic argument for a Creator. In fact, God Himself makes use of this argument in Scripture. It is not as though God feels that He must argue with man to make His point. Rather, He knows that He has given man enough intelligence that even the most stubborn unbelief will have difficulty explaining away His design in the creation.
Read Hebrews 3:4. Do you know of anyone, including evolutionists, who think that a house could be built by the accidental falling together of trees, stone, and other materials? If a house were photographed on Mars, what would be the logical conclusion? What is simpler, a house or a person? God here points out how obvious it is to common sense that the world could not have gotten here by chance. And inasmuch as God’s line of evidence here is built on repeated human experience, it can be called scientific.
Read Acts 14:16-17. These words were spoken by either St. Paul or Barnabas at Lystra when the crowds wanted to worship them as gods after they healed a lame man. What is the witness which God left for Himself in the creation as stated here? How many different cycles and systems can you name which are involved in the order and constancy of the rains and the seasons? How is the precision with which they interrelate an evidence of design? To what purpose do they all interrelate with one another? On this basis is it unreasonable to suggest that the creation centers on the service of man?
Read Psalm 148:8 in conjunction with Acts 14:16-17. In light of Psalm 148:8 can we say that the weather and the seasons operate without God’s attention? What is God’s purpose in paying such detailed attention to every aspect of the creation?
Many other verses like the above may also be examined in connection with God’s own declaration of the evidence of His intelligent planning of the creation. We suggest that you also examine Job 36:26-30, Job 37:10-13 and Acts 17:24-28. What information do these verses add to our understanding?
Read Romans 1:19-20. Here again the argument from design is presented, but with some additional information. Which two attributes of God are clearly mentioned here? How may these two attributes of God be learned, according to this text? Granting that one has learned these, one might also then see His wisdom in the intricate interrelationships in nature. But can we know of His specific love for us and His earnest desire to forgive us from the things in nature for Jesus’ sake? Isn’t it more accurate to say that we can be led to want to know more about Him – what His attitude toward us is – through the witness to His existence and power in the creation?
We traditionally call the things we can know about God from nature the natural knowledge of God. The Gospel of His acceptance of us through the blood of Christ cannot be known from nature – we learn of that only in His revealed Word – and so we call this saving knowledge the revealed knowledge of God.
Read Ephesians 2:10. We see here that the Biblical teaching on creation goes far beyond what is revealed by nature. We are remade into new creations in Christ, through Whom we were first created (John 1). Having sinned, we need to be remade for a new purpose. Note that the first time we were made we had nothing to do with it; our own efforts were not at all involved. The same is true of our being made new creations in Christ.
What is the purpose of our being made new creatures in Christ, according to this text? But because of our weaknesses, we see that God’s forgiving grace and forgiveness which makes us new creations is not a once-in-a-lifetime arrangement. Each day we need to go to our Father in the Name of Jesus’ Christ with our sins and be assured once again of His love and forgiveness. Our sins, which ruined our first creation, need not ruin our second creation!
Close this Bible study with a reading of Psalm 65.
Footnotes:
1989 Bible Science Newsletter.
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