02.10.06
Why I Am a Christian: (1) God’s World
Romans 1:18-32
We live in what is called a pluralist society – a society in which no distinction is made between different religious and moral beliefs. In the past few weeks, from my regular visits to coffee shops in the West End I have picked up flyers advertising Islamic teaching societies, Zen Buddhism, New Age meditation groups and fringe Christian activities. And the question I ask as the society in which we live slips into complete anarchy and immoral relativism is, why am I a Christian, and does it really matter whether I am a Christian or a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Wiccan?
I thought therefore that I would spend the next seven Sunday mornings giving my reasons for being a Christian. And I want to take this opportunity to ask you to bring your non-Christian friends along to these Sunday morning sermons because not only are they designed to strengthen Christians in their faith, but they are also aimed at convincing non-Christians of the truth of the Christian faith.
I want to begin this morning by suggesting that I am a Christian because I live in God’s World. What I see of God’s World convinces me of the truth of God’s existence and that Christianity is best able to explain why the world is like it is and why society acts like it does. As many of you will know, I spent the earlier part of this year digging up my garden – I worked hard planting many different kinds of vegetable. But as the year has worn on, these vegetables have been disappointing. The reason is because of pests which have destroyed the leaves – greenfly, caterpillars and slugs. Well they are pests, but just for a second, if you look at them not as pests but as living organisms created by God, you just can’t help but give God praise for their anatomy and physiology. Aphids are amazingly intricate; caterpillars experience near-miraculous metamorphosis; even lowly slugs have highly complex sensory apparatus. Even from these so called pests, we are struck with wonder at the majesty of God’s Creation. Using Romans 1:18-32, I want to ask some questions about God’s world and how Christianity makes sense of what we see and experience in it.
[A] Why do I See? (vs. 19)
I include this slightly abstract point because it forms an introduction to our subject. The question is this: why, when I look at the world do I understand that God has created it? What property of this world points to God? The answer is given to us in vs. 19 – that is God has revealed it. Psalm 19:1 tells us that ‘the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’. God is a speaking God and He speaks to us through the world He has created. Without God actively speaking to us, we would make nothing of the created order – we wouldn’t see anything and wouldn’t understand anything. Regardless of who you are, God actively speaks to you through what He has made. God is not silent – He speaks constantly to all mankind. That is why I don’t think we should spend too much time convincing people of the existence of God because they already know God exists; they have heard Him speaking to them through the created order.
And when I talk about seeing, I am using the word in two different senses – first, in terms of our optical ability – our eyes, senses and mental ability. But the second way is in the sense of understanding – as if to say, ‘ah, I see’. And although I believe God is instrumental in the first way of seeing – that is of physical sight, I believe that God primarily speaks to us in the second of these senses – that is – He speaks to us through what we see with our eyes in order to make us understand something.
And so, when I’m asking the question, why when I am looking at this world do I understand that it is God’s World, the answer is because God has told me it is through the world itself. And before you think that’s crazy, I know He has told you exactly the same thing – He has revealed it to you. You perhaps wish He hadn’t, but you can’t change the fact that when you look at the complexity of the butterfly’s wing you hear God’s voice speaking to you.
[B] How do I See?
In vs. 20 we are told of the agency by which we see that this is God’s world – we are told of ‘the things He has made’. It is through the things He made that we perceive God. Now it seems to me that we can divide these ‘made things’ into 2 groups:
1. Matter – if you like, we can call this ‘stuff’, although by matter I also mean energy since the two states are interchangeable. When we look at something, anything, we are seeing a made thing, a thing which God tells us He has made. Things, stuff, are like windows through which we see something else – or rather someone else. Windows come in all shapes and sizes with all different kinds of decoration. Matter, stuff, ranges from the smallest neutrinos to the mighty stars. The 19th Century Free Church Father Hugh Miller spent many years discussing the relation between matter and the God you see through it. Many were his insights, but perhaps one of the most incredible was the way he compared human designs with ‘natural’ designs – for example, he compared the reinforcement on a Roundhead’s helmet with the reinforcement in the scales of a huge prehistoric fish he had discovered. Miller writes, “There is scarce an architectural ornament of the Gothic or Grecian styles which may not be found existing as fossils in the rocks.” What I’m saying is not just that there is an agreement between the mind of God and the mind of mankind, but that through everything mankind sees and does, God shines through. Everything from the mundane slug to the spectacular horse head nebula – it exists for one reason and one reason alone – that through it you may see something about God. These things do not exist themselves to be worshipped, but to proclaim the truth about their Creator.
2. Law – when I talk about law I’m talking about ‘natural’ laws – laws governing gravity, momentum, mathematics. Have you ever wondered why 1+1 = 2? Surely not just because you were taught it in school, and surely not just because invariably 1+1 does equal 2! But have you ever wondered why it has to be that way, and why 1+1 can’t equal 3? Surely it is because these laws are not entities in themselves; rather they give us the pattern in which God normally works. When Einstein discovered the theories of general and special relativity, he was merely discovering something about the way God works. Natural law is no more than a window through which we observe God upholding the universe. In many ways, we have to stop using the word ‘natural’ or ‘nature’ because what we see with our eyes isn’t natural; its God given and God sustained. And have you ever noticed, those of you who work in science, that laws and equations are beautiful things? The eminent physicist Paul Dirac had a criterion for knowing whether any equation he had developed was accurate or not – if it wasn’t a beautiful equation, then it was probably wrong. Truth is not merely truth, it is beautiful also. And it is through these beautiful laws of ‘nature’ that God shows Himself to us. The word for ‘made things’ which includes matter and laws is the word from which we get our English word ‘poetry’ – God sings this world into existence and through it we catch a fading note of that most beautiful of poems.
We are singing today from Psalm 104 because before we move on I want to correct a misunderstanding in how we relate the created world to God. Many Christians try and use things we do not yet understand in the world as pointers to God – they say, ‘we don’t know how cell nuclei came to be, therefore it must have been God’ and when they try to convince others to believe in God they show them these unknown gaps in our knowledge. But in Psalm 104, the Psalmist doesn’t use gaps in scientific knowledge to point to God – rather he uses the everyday and mundane – the rain on the hills, the birds and their nests, the fish and the sea – he uses these things to point to God. Romans 1:20 tells us that it is through these things we know about and can describe that God shows Himself to us because God is just as involved in the ‘natural’ processes, since these are reflections of the order in Himself, as in the ‘miraculous’. Even if you’ve understood nothing of what I’ve said in this point, the message is this – whoever you are, PhD Scientist, Doctor, Lorry Driver, Housewife, Engineer, Student – just open your eyes and see the majesty of the window of God’s Creation!
[C] What do I See?
What then, or rather who then, do you see through the window of Creation? The answer is given in vs. 20 – “God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature.” Through this window of the created order you see certain aspects of God. In the 19th Century, the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested that you can know nothing of the invisible realm by looking merely at the visible realm – in other words, he said that you can no nothing of God by looking at the Creation. In opposition to this, the Bible is here saying that by looking at God’s Creation you can in fact know something about God. After all, nobody looks at a painting without wondering who the painter was! In the same way, whether you are a farm hand or an astrophysicist, you don’t see reality as it is without reflecting on who created it.
What then do you see of God through this window of creation? Well, you don’t see everything about God – you don’t, as I will explain in the next sermon, see anything of His love or His purpose to save sinful mankind through the gift of His Son Jesus Christ upon the Cross at Calvary. Rather, what you see of God is His otherness – the fact that He is God and we are a sinful and frail human beings and between us and Him there is an infinitely large and unbridgeable gap. We see, first of all, His eternal power. The great 19th Century Scottish Philosopher David Hume refused to accept that you could attribute a finite or limited effect to an infinite or unlimited cause – in other words, you couldn’t say that a being with eternal power created that which is finite and limited. And yet, that’s precisely what the Bible says did happen – God, in His infinite and eternal power, created everything we see and know. And then, we see His divine nature – yes, even through the humble and yet exceedingly complex slug – we see the Godhood of God – His complete otherness – His divine nature. And this is not a warming, cheery thing – it is an awesome, fearful thought. Donald MacLeod has written, “When the creation points to the goodness of God it is directing us to One who is mysterious, unmanageable and infinitely threatening, upon whom we are totally dependent and to whom we are unconditionally accountable” Romans 1 goes on to show us that what we see of God through the made things makes us realise that God has a perfect standard of holiness which every one of us has broken – vs. 32 tells us that we know God’s righteous decree – we know all about sin and an angry God. You can see evidence of this where there is not one culture in the whole world ever which has not been religious and sought, by some means, whether by noble deeds, or by good works, or by sacrifices, to get right with God.
All these things I have seen – and all these things you have seen. You may wish God hadn’t shown them to you, but He has. When you look at the myriad of stars in the galaxy, you hear the song of God’s Creation and you know that He exists – but that doesn’t comfort you or make you happy; it worries you, because you know you’ve offended Him and He’s angry with you.
[D] How Much do I See?
Now at this stage, maybe you’re thinking to yourself, ‘but I’m not a scientist. How then do you expect me to see what you are seeing?’ In answer to that, I would say that the Bible makes it clear that this knowledge about God is universal – it is not restricted merely to those who work in the natural sciences. We see this working in three directions: first, vs. 20 tells us that God has been revealing Himself through the made things for all time – ‘since the creation of the world’ – since there was anything made, He has been revealing Himself to us. That means prehistoric man and stellar man both know of the existence and attributes of God through what they see with their eyes. Again, if you don’t believe me, speak to archaeologists and find out if there has ever been a non-religious culture and you will find that the answer is no! Every culture, every society, since the beginning of humanity has had an awareness of God. Second, all people see God – vs. 20 tells us that He has been ‘clearly seen’ and that means that not only scientists and the privileged few have this knowledge, but all people. This is a world of billboards, each one advertising the existence and attributes of God. James Montgomery Boice has written, “there is enough evidence of God in a flower to lead a child as well as a scientist to worship Him.” Lastly, this revelation is to be found in all places – because after all, remember that God reveals Himself through the things He has made and there is nowhere a human being can go to get away from something which has been made. Even if that human being sits in the middle of an infinite vacuum, he still has himself to look at as one of the made things of God. And that means whether you are on one of the South Sea Islands, or in the Arctic, or in Europe or in space, you have unavoidable access to what God says about Himself in the made things.
This knowledge which you have and you perhaps wish you didn’t is absolutely universal – all time, all people, all places – you can’t get away from it. You know, I know you know what the voice of God is telling you through the created order. You know that this God is worthy of your worship.
[E] What do I do with what I See?
What you see and understand is one thing – and I believe we all see and understand the same thing by what we see because God ensures that communication process is effective; but, it’s what we do with what we see that is the real problem. Vs. 18-23 tell us that mankind, we included, do 2 things with what God shows us of Himself:
1. Man’s Unrighteous Suppression (vs. 18) – we are told here that ‘we suppress the truth in unrighteousness’. The word ‘suppress’ here is the word which is used of the potential energy of a coiled spring – it is as if we are pushing this spring down to make sure it doesn’t leap up. And the question is, why are we doing that? Why do we suppress the truth of what God tells us in His world? Is it because we don’t know and can’t see? Not at all – vs. 20 tells us that the invisible qualities of God are clearly seen in what has been made. Our suppression of the truth is not ignorance, or cognitive inability. Rather, we choose not to see because we don’t like the idea of God because we want to live selfish, unrighteous, ungodly lives. We don’t want God looking over our shoulders, we would rather worship ourselves – and therefore, we choose not to believe what God clearly shows us in the Created Order. The same thought is put more forcefully in Psalm 14, where the reason the fool says in his heart ‘there is no God’ is on the basis of his evil deeds and not from any intellectual reason.
2. Man’s Idol Worship (vs. 23) – here we are told that mankind, as a whole, ‘have exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal men and birds etc’. In other words, the window God has created through which we are to see Him starts to be worshipped itself. Because we do not want to worship the God of righteousness, we begin to worship the things He has made instead – we find them far less demanding. And so we worship ourselves and the figments of our imagination – we worship ‘nature’ – we will worship anything as long as we don’t have to worship God. But that’s crazy isn’t it – no-one would stand in a flat overlooking Kelvingrove Art Gallery and not admire the building in front of them but rather admire the glass through which they are looking. That would be foolish – but that’s exactly what we do – and even though, in the words of vs. 22 we are claiming to be wise, in fact, we have become fools, literally morons. We worship mortal, limited things at the expense of the unlimited, eternal, immortal God who created them. And again, let’s understand exactly why we do that – it’s not because we don’t know any better – we do – it’s because we don’t want to know any better because we don’t want to know about the perfect righteousness, power and divinity of God.
So we pervert and twist what God has made and worship it rather than its Creator – that is what we do. Its like the girl whose fiancée buys her an expensive necklace as a present –and rather than falling more in love with her fiancée, she stops thinking about him and falls in love with the necklace.
[F] What does God do with what I See?
The reaction of God in the immediate context of Romans 1 is one of wrath and then one of the giving over of humanity to their lusts and to all kinds of degradation. In vs. 24 we read of how God gives humanity over to sexual impurity, and then in vs. 26, God gives humanity over to homosexuality, and then in vs. 28 He gives them over to a depraved mind. It’s not that God makes them do these things, but rather He releases His restraints upon humanity and allows them to go their own way. And isn’t this an accurate analysis of where we are as a society today – sexually impure in both the adulterous and homosexual sense, and completely depraved – even approving of those who are pushing the moral, or immoral limits, as far as they can go and all in the name of liberty, equality and civilisation. For example, Glasgow City Council is going to spend £200,000 on a Gay Festival in Glasgow – but is this a sign that the council are civilized and modern? No, it’s a sign that they are under the judgment of God.
That’s God’s reaction in the immediate context. I think Romans 1 gives us an unerring analysis of the world in which we live and the society in which we find ourselves. But surely it doesn’t end with doom and gloom? For some it does because they spend their lives closing their eyes to God on the basis of their own immoral actions. But, the rest of the Book of Romans is built upon Romans 1 – the Romans 1 which is the story of mankind’s sin. But the rest of the Book is how God has sent Jesus to die upon the cross to take away our sins so that if we trust in Him we can be forgiven and get into a right relationship with God. Romans 5:8 says, “God demonstrates His love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The ultimate story is not one of man’s failure, but God’s success. In closing, I have a challenge for you all – this afternoon, either go for a walk or look at a flower or into the sky or whatever – open your eyes and see God’s World! AMEN