God Is Good
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Join me tonight please in Genesis 1.
What is a catechism?
cat•e•chism \ˈka-tə-ˌki-zəm\ noun
1502
1: oral instruction
2: a manual for catechizing specifically: a summary of religious doctrine often in the form of questions and answers
Let me encourage you not to become intimidated by the word. Don’t allow the different is bad principle take over what God can and is doing through this process!
Review Catechisms
As we look at this 5th Q&A, we come to Genesis 1.
Perhaps you feel like I do, that God has been putting a lot of emphasis recently on the subject of Creation. But it is important to get the basics.
ILL: Kindergarten boy in recent basketball game - “Coach, is dunking allowed in this league?”
Sure! But let’s get the basics down first.
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Illustration: I am reminded of the story of the discussion at church camp for children where one of the counselors was leading a discussion on the purpose God has for all of his creation.
They began to find good reasons for the clouds and trees and rocks and rivers and animals and just about everything else in nature.
Finally, one of the children asked, "If God has a good purpose for everything, then why did He create poison ivy?" This made the discussion leader gulp and, as he struggled with the question, one of the other children piped up, "The reason God made poison ivy is that He wanted us to know that there are certain things we should keep our cotton-pickin' hands off of!"
Illustration: In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson marvels at what makes up human life.
No one really knows, but there may be as many as a million types of protein in the human body, and each one is a little miracle. By all the laws of probability proteins shouldn't exist. To make a protein you need to assemble amino acids…in a particular order, in much the same way that you assemble letters in a particular order to spell a word. [For example, to make collagen,] you need to arrange 1,055 amino acids in precisely the right sequence….
The chances of a 1,055-sequence molecule like collagen spontaneously self-assembling are, frankly, nil. It just isn't going to happen. To grasp what a long shot its existence is, visualize a standard Las Vegas slot machine but broadened greatly - to about ninety feet, to be precise - to accommodate 1,055 spinning wheels instead of the usual three or four, and with twenty symbols on each wheel (one for each common amino acid). How long would you have to pull the handle before all 1,055 symbols came up in the right order? Effectively forever. Even if you reduced the number of spinning wheels to two hundred, which is actually a more typical number of amino acids for a protein, the odds against all two hundred coming up in a prescribed sequence are 1 in 10260 (that is 1 followed by 260 zeros). That in itself is a larger number than all the atoms in the universe.
Yet we are talking about several hundred thousand types of protein, perhaps a million, each unique and each, as far as we know, vital to the maintenance of a sound and happy you. (Citation: Bill Bryson, "The Rise of Life", A Short History of Nearly Everything, pp. 288-289.)
John Calvin
God has given us, throughout the whole frame-work of this world, clear evidences of his eternal wisdom, goodness, and power; and though he is in himself invisible, he in a manner becomes visible to us in his works.
The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Correctly then is this world called the mirror of divinity; not that there is sufficient clearness for man to gain a full knowledge of God, by looking at the world, but that he has thus so far revealed himself, that the ignorance of the ungodly is without excuse.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Now the faithful, to whom he has given eyes, see sparks of his glory, as it were, glittering in every created thing. The world was no doubt made, that it might be the theatre of the divine glory.
R. Kent Hughes
Sometimes I begin my personal time of prayer and devotion by reflecting on the mind-boggling size of the universe—that our own little galaxy has a hundred thousand million stars, that there are a hundred thousand million more galaxies each with a hundred thousand million stars, that our galaxy and each of those galaxies is a hundred light years across, and that there are three million light years between each of those galaxies. Absolutely phenomenal and amazing.
The opening line of the Old Testament says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Now when it juxtaposes two words—heavens and earth—two opposites, it means he created everything. So you could really read that as, “In the beginning God created the cosmos.” And then he said it was good, but he said even more than that. He said it was very good.
When we come to the New Testament and the fuller revelation of Jesus Christ, we learn that the cosmos is created by Christ himself. So the opening line of the Gospel of John says,
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
And so what we have there is the cosmic Christ, the Creator of all things. In fact, the apostle Paul brings both together in 1 Corinthians 8:6 when he says that our existence is due to the one God and Father and the one Lord Jesus Christ.
6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
All our existence depends on them.
But not only does creation speak of the Father and Son, but we find in Gen. 1 the Spirit’s work...
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
A trinitarian view of God is not a new idea. The trinitarian nature of God has always been.
And then you come to that incredible, lyrical song , which speaks of Jesus:
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
He is the Creator of all things, and all that He created was good.
But why? Why was everything good. Everything was good, because everything was created by God, and God is good.
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Further, because he is the Creator of all things, everything is under his loving, benevolent care.
We must also keep in mind that as human beings, the apex of creation, we were made in the image of God.
But as regenerate people, we also have the image of Christ. Which means that we can rest in his goodness, in his great creation power, as he controls all of life, and we can flourish under him.