Author: Robin D. Fish
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.
We have discovered that life rides on information. Even the simplest life forms contain an incredible amount of information. The recent study of the nature of information has made very clear that information presupposes a source. Information cannot arise out of random processes, it must be given – or revealed. This Bible study will examine the Informer, the Revealer of the information of life, God. The specific complexity of life’s molecules demands an information source, and God has revealed Himself to us as that Revealer.
Scripture speaks of God as a revealer throughout. His self-revelation began with the Garden of Eden when God would walk and talk with Adam. In Genesis 2:16-17, God begins to reveal information. Unfortunately man chose to ignore that information and fell into sin. Again, in Genesis 3:15, God reveals something – namely His plan of salvation! In Genesis alone we read of God revealing to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The revelations are not mysterious riddles to unravel, but clear, concise information. They reflect God as an Information source and a careful planner who is able to accomplish what He plans to do.
Throughout the Old Testament the sign of the prophet was the announcement “Thus saith the Lord!” Time after time God reveals information about men and their doings and about the events of the future, which He shall bring to pass. He is the Informer, the Revealer. So called modern scholars may argue and dispute, suggesting that the events were written about after the fact and simply made to sound as though they were prophecy. Such an opinion is unbelief, and contradicts the very texts they study – and the whole of Scripture.
Turn to 2 Peter 1:20-21. What does this passage have to say about the prophecies that many would discredit today?
These passages have little to do with the information contained within the genetic code of each life form, but they do show that God has information no one else could have, and that He reveals it. They show that God is the information source. Religion is viewed by many as blind faith in mysteries. Clearly it is not. God deals in data information, and encourages us not to wander in idle credulity, but to seek the information and to test it (see John 5:39 and I John 4:1).
God nowhere reveals the code of life, or unravels all of His plans in creation for us. There are, however, places in Scripture where God does take credit for planning life in its wonderful variety, and reflects knowledge about creation that man did not have or understand until recently. Turn to Psalm 8:8 for an example. It was this verse, speaking of “paths of the seas” that inspired Matthew F. Maury to investigate the possibility. He is quoted as saying, “If God says that there are paths in the seas, then there are paths in the seas.” He was looking for those “paths” and he discovered the ocean currents (i.e. the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic Current, etc.).
Nowhere, perhaps, is there a storehouse of evidence of the planning of God in nature as in Job chapters 38-41. Here God speaks of many things we take for granted, things which science interprets as natural phenomena. But God speaks of them as designed, planned, and executed by Him. Turn to Job 38 and read of the planning of God. Compare what you know from science to what is revealed here. Look at chapter 38, verse 16. We now know that there are, in fact, springs in the oceans, both hot and cold. Only in the last century has man discovered the recesses of the deep, the great trenches in the ocean floor.
Once man knew very little about snow and hail. Man knew it fell, but he had no understanding of the processes surrounding their formation. Now science knows how and why hail, for example, is formed. Could that be what God was referring to as “the storehouses” of snow and hail in 38:22? Or read verse 24; refraction of light is as old as the rainbow, but man learned how to accomplish it and understood why bending light separated out the colors only later. We are still learning about the spectrum of light, both visible and invisible, and here in Job, centuries before man learned to use the prism, God has revealed it. The jet streams of the upper atmosphere and the ways wind will invariably bend and turn could well be what God was speaking of when he spoke of the way the east wind “scattered” on the earth.
Chapter 38:28-30 speaks of the mysteries of water. How do these words indicate, that God even pays attention to such details as the dew point? Even the nature of ice is discussed. Man has taken it for granted for millennia, but just recently has discovered how marvelous and unique it is. Water expands as it becomes colder than 39° F, so it rises. That is why lakes freeze from the top. If water behaved like most substance, it would contract as it froze, become denser than the liquid around it, and sink. That would cause our lakes to freeze from the bottom up, and there would be no fish alive for ice fishing or spring opening day of fishing. God asks Job if he understands ice, which imprisons the surface of the deep.
Chapter 39 speaks of the nature of several animals. Science has shown us that these observations are true, but how could Job have known them all? Most animals either lie down or stand up to birth their young. How could Job have known about the kneeling of the mountain goats (39:3)? Among birds, the ostrich is an oddity. Most birds have clever ways of protecting their eggs. The ostrich lays them in the dust for the sun to warm them until they hatch. It is unlikely that Job knew, but if he did, God reminded him Who had built that into the ostrich.
Where can you find a better description of the nature of the horse than 39:19-25? Man has used these characteristics of the horse for work and for war for thousands of years. Here God tells us that He designed them into the horse. Long before man understood how a hawk soared on thermals in the air, God knew. In 39:25, God even challenges Job’s understanding of this point. Recent studies have taught scientists how acute the eyes of the hawk are. God revealed that knowledge first here in 39:29.
In chapters 40 and 41, God describes two creatures, the behemoth (which means “great creature”) and the leviathan. When you read these descriptions, what do they remind you of? Suggestions that they describe a hippopotamus and a crocodile seem silly when faced with the size (and details) of the behemoth, and the incredible strength and ferocity of the leviathan. Is it a coincidence that behemoth means “great (or giant) creature” and dinosaur means “giant lizard?” These are detailed descriptions of the size, the strength and the character of these two creatures. It is revealed by the designer.
These passages reflect a thoroughgoing knowledge of life in its many forms, and even of the nature of our world. Modern science has discovered that life rides on molecules full of information. Information theory, which studies the nature of information, says that information never arises from random processes. To have information, you must have an intelligence to impart that information. Here the Scriptures show us God’s complete mastery of things, even beyond the mastery of men (both then and now). In the light of both science and Scriptures, we have reason to believe that God is the source, the revealer of the information of life – both of the genetic code upon which physical life rides, and the knowledge of salvation through Jesus Christ upon which eternal life rides.
Read and Discuss Romans 1:19-20 in light of this study.
Close with a prayer of thanksgiving for the God’s marvelous revealing, given that we may know Him as our Creator and Redeemer.
Footnotes:
1990 Bible Science Newsletter.
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