In the last two issues of Beacon Lights, Rev. Harbach has been focusing our attention in “Truth vs. Error” on various subjects relating to the Christian and his earthly pilgrimage. This month’s contribution is the third on this subject and will be continued in the next several issues.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Could you possibly conceive of a more beautiful, concise and fitting statement prefacing, not only the Bible, but also the whole of existence? It is simply incomparable! It is absolutely unique in its expression. No other religion, no philosophy at all has such a sublime introductory statement. It must be our starting-point. Here is the basis of all thought, action, plan, design, aim and aspiration.

A perfect statement, but it is spoiled when one says something like this: All well and good, but isn’t it more logical first to set about determining whether there is a God? Then our next step would be to systematically arrange the evidences of His existence in order to fortify ourselves against the attacks of atheism. But you must see that this procedure is utterly wrong since it assumes that there is a place to begin before the beginning. For God is always first. Here He first reveals himself in the fulness of His being. That is as it must be. God cannot be prefaced. He prefaces all things. He introduces himself. For there is none else. God alone is God. He who inhabits eternity made all things. Before the creation there was nothing but God. Physically and materially there was neither light nor darkness, neither sound nor silence. These things would come into being, because God who is essentially light and in whom is no darkness at all, would create them on the first day. He sat in His eternal dwelling-place not in solitude and silence, for He, the triune, covenant God, in three co-equal persons of the Godhead, conversed in a communion of love. He broke the silence of the universe with His, Let there be light! Now, on the stage of the world He shows His eternal power and Godhead.

So, God is always first. He is first as to His word and its divine inspiration. For the word came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as moved (carried along) by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:21. He is first in salvation, for the Son of God as the Lamb was foreordained before the foundation of the world. 1 Peter 1:20. He is first in the New Creation: “Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17. We choose Him because He first chose us. Ephesians 1:4. We repent because He first granted us repentance. 2 Timothy 2:25b. We believe because He first gave us faith, Ephesians 2:8,9. We love Him because He first loved us. 1 John 4: 19.

“In the beginning God!” This is neither human speculation nor the result of human investigation. This is irrepressible truth. Science cannot establish the truth, but true science must and will here find its only origin and foundation. For science of itself knows admittedly nothing about origins. Biology knows nothing about it, nor zoology, nor geology, no, nor paleontology. Science, if it would take all the facts into account, as it must if it would still be called science, must take the Bible into account as the only infallible divine revelation. Science, where its findings are valid, will coincide with the divine record. “In the beginning was the Word.” All things must conform to the Word, every thought and imagination, every technique and enterprise. It is not, first confirm the Word, then conform to the Word; but be conformed to it and know in that conformity that it is the self-confirmed Word. John 7: 17, ASV. For “Thy Word is forever settled in heaven.” Earth must settle itself in conformity to heaven. It is not, first analyze the Word, evaluate and substantiate it. Our first response to God and His Word must be to hear, read, believe and worship. That, too, is how we must study the Holy Bible. Searching and researching its matchless pages we “inquire in His temple.” This we do, not to arrive at faith. This we do out of faith.

Then this opening sentence of God’s revelation is no human invention. For it exposes every fallacy man has devised concerning God and the origin of the world. It leaves no room for atheism, for it presupposes God and His existence. It declines materialism, for it positively distinguishes between God and His material universe. It denies pantheism, for it immediately introduces the infinite, omnipotent personality of God. It refutes the abstract, impersonal first cause of philosophy, for no finite cause or being can create out of nothing, nor call the things not being into being. It is an utterly wrong and dangerous method to begin with man, to assume, in any shade of thought, “in the beginning, man,” thence to work up to God. We must begin with God, with the doctrine of God, thence work backward to man and to the Bible doctrine of man. (This is really going forward and the only way to progress, as in the first chapter of Genesis.)

By “In the beginning God” we are brought immediately into the presence of God. This is true for the individual creature and for the entire creation alike. For God is behind all things, in all things, around all things and over all things. Neither in this statement, nor anywhere in the Bible, do we have argument for the existence of God. We have no theistic proofs. God reveals himself. That’s it. That is enough for those who come unto God, for they believe that He is. God right at the outset declares His own infinite, incomparable superiority with “In the beginning God created.”

“In the beginning.” What was before the beginning? God was! The Son was! He is before all things. All things were made by Him. The Holy Spirit was! He is the eternal Spirit. Hebrews 9:14. The atonement was before the beginning, for the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. Election of the chosen ones was before the beginning. Ephesians 1:4. Then redemption of the elect was no afterthought, no patch-up of man’s fall; but was God’s eternal purpose. That world of the redeemed was before the beginning, and, consequently, was and is the best of all worlds. What was the beginning? It was the creation of the stage on which God’s attributes would be exhibited and His foreordained counsels would be executed. There the chosen ones would be brought forth, live, come to know the Lord to glorify and enjoy Him forever. So that at the beginning the Lord God began to bring to pass what He had ordained from eternity.

“In the beginning God created.” Here is more than God’s calling the things that are not as though they were. Also suggested is the relation between Creator and creature, the Creator-creature relationship. That relation is inevitable, inescapable, indestructible. All science and theology must proceed within the bounds of that relation. To think and work without it, as though it does not exist, is to insanely depart from reality. It is to commit intellectual suicide. It is to place the functioning world “out in the blue” of abstract nothingness. It is to turn the universe into a dream-world of utter impossibility. Man originally did recognize that he was a creature. Since the Fall, the natural man has lost this recognition. Now he denies that he is the creature of God. He rather thinks that he himself is all the god there is or that needs be. But it is plain that if man will not live, think, work and worship within the frame-work of the Creator-creature relation, he is headed for trouble. What he does, then, with his every breath, is to wipe God right out of existence. He had been created a king-servant of God, but fallen he wants no more to serve in that relation. By choice he is a playboy-autocrat. He now says of himself and all his, “We are lords; we will come no more unto Thee.” So, he denies his creaturehood. He aspires to something higher. But he can never advance beyond creaturehood. He is a worker in God’s workshop. He cannot go on strike and leave – unless he commits suicide. But then only death terminates his apprenticeship or ends his labor in trade or profession. So there he remains in God’s world-workshop. But in it he likes to think of himself as Owner of All. Deeming himself sole proprietor of the universe, he fires God, putting Him out of His own workshop! He will run things as He pleases. That is why the world is in such bad shape. Man is “playing God.” Where man does not begin with is chaos and despair. His ways, which are wisdom’s ways, are ways of pleasantness, and all His paths are peace. His paths are clearly marked with the sign-post, “In-the-beginning-God.” These paths, then, take us up to eternity to encircle the heaven of heavens and all the universe. Back of all that is around us is God! Back of the stars, the sun, the galaxies, the planets, the earth and all that therein is, is God. Back of our bodies, fearfully and wonderfully made, is the Maker of heaven and earth. Back of all reality is the mind and will of God. The Lord hath made all things for His own end, His own purpose. Proverbs 16:4, margin. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending. Everything is in His almighty hand. Man shall not have a say even at the end. God has the last word. Man will not be the one to blow up (or burn up) the world. God alone will bring about the great conflagration. 2 Peter 3. “When I begin, I shall also make an end.” 1 Samuel 3:12. When we know and realize these things, there will flood into the depths of our souls a peace of mind such as we’ve never known before.

Darwin’s principle was “the survival of the fittest.” The Reformed believer’s principle is, “the survival of those afore prepared to glory.” Marx’s opinion was that ‘ ‘religion is the opiate of the people. ‘ ‘ But everyone in the world certainly now knows that opiates are the opiates of the people. Ironically enough, Marxism had much to do with making the world a drug-enslaved society. But before Darwin (d. 1882) and Marx (d. 1883), before them, Voltaire (d. 1778), Rousseau (d. 1778), Kant (d. 1804) and Hegel (d. 183 1) believed and propounded these wicked absurdities. Then why should Darwinism and Marxism be lauded as marvels of interpretation of reality? They only popularized ancient shop-worn ideas. Then we may say, “Whatever is true is not new, and what is new is not true”.

Professional people often ask, “Which is the chicken; which the egg?” meaning: which is the most basic aspect of the problem? Or they ask, “Which is first, the chicken or the egg?” Every creationist finds that easy to answer (especially from Genesis 1: 11, 20, ASV, 30; 2: 19a). The chicken explains the egg, not the egg the chicken. Ignore the doctrine of creation and reality is not faced; it is lost. To reject the doctrine of creation is to, ostrich-like, hide one’s head in the sand of the real world to deny the real world. Christianity, therefore, is not bolstered by the best of humanism. Christianity has a theistic basis. Christianity is Christian theism.

“In the beginning God” is the essence, the seed of all truth. Without the truth we famish and die. The truth (John 14:6) is our true food (John 6:55, ASV, note). It was Winston Churchill who said, “I live from mouth to hand! ” Spiritually, that is true of the Christian. He can say, “When I looked. behold, an hand was sent unto me; and lo, a scroll was in it.” Then “the word of the Lord came unto me saying . . . Hear the Word at My mouth . . . eat this scroll . . . So I opened my mouth and He caused me to eat that scroll . . .Then I did eat it; and it was in my mouth like honey for sweetness” (Ezekiel 3:16,17; 2:9,10; 3: 1-3).