Reflections on Faith

"Through faith we understand that the worlds came into being, and still exist, at the command of God." (Heb. 11.3 Weymouth).

Man is not responsible for the existence of the earth. It revolved in space long before it was leased out to his race. Were it not under the control of a merciful and wise Intelligence, it could be shaken like a paper bag and there would be few men left. The things men have built upon it would quickly disappear, but the earth itself on its strong foundations abides forever. Such is the difference between God and man, the Infinite immortal and the finite mortal.

"In the beginning God created". The words are addressed to the readers of faith. There is no long speculation on spontaneous combustion, no scientific dissertation on a slow and complicated evolution of species from red-hot lava or dead matter, to animate, intelligent existence. In the beginning God! From that great source of invisible power came the visible. Globe vegetation, the animal kingdom and man were God-made. The same power keeps them going, holding the earth in its place. Not the earth only but the whole vast, mysterious universe, the work of his fingers, are upheld by the word of his power.

Beside all this awe-inspiring grandeur what is man, "the microbe seeded on a sixpence" as one of his more jocular students of the skies has been pleased to describe him? The Word of God describes him in rather more gracious terms as "created a little lower than the angels". Faith accepts this statement as defining the true status of man in the ranks of living creatures. Man, made upright in the image of God. God, for the first time in his works of creation, allied to flesh and blood the Divine parent of a human race. Searching for the springs of life the scientist looks first in primeval mud, then to the apes, then to the stars, exalting his evolved creature to a place in the heavens. Faith sees man fallen from his first estate, a little lower than the angels. It is not interested in space but in salvation, the only means by which man and the earth may be restored, reconciled with the Maker of both to their original beauty and harmony.

Science has produced enough power to destroy the earth and its contents. God safeguards the earth from any such calamity. He will save the race whose welfare he has watched through many ages, for whom He has made such bountiful provision. Man must come face to face with his Maker on his own doorstep, not in the heavens nor in the haunted swamps of the dinosaurs, but on the earth where he belongs. The intelligent, responsible human being, minted out of the dust of the earth, beautifully formed and mentally endowed with superior qualities, to rule a flourishing productive planet must attain the ideal of God's purpose.

This is faith's answer to the fears and perplexities of the modern world. The kingdom of God is beauty, peace and perfection. Through much tribulation shall the earth and her peoples enter that kingdom, but enter it they will and must, because God has spoken the word.

The Power which produced order out of chaos, the Voice which commanded light and rebuked the oceans, which put living creatures in every part of the globe, adapting them to their places, will at a fore-known hour rebuke evil. The tumults of man will cease and the earth will enjoy her rest. Because faith understands that He made the earth for his own purposes, that He produced man from its various elements, that He has kept faith with the human race, it accepts with full assurance of faith that he will complete that purpose. "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord".

AOH