GENESIS 1:1

The Visible Universe

I. ONE, yet NOT SIMPLE.

1. One. In age, origin, and nature one, “the heavens and the earth” also constitute one vast system. Cohering physically through the force of gravitation, which, in its ultimate analysis, is simply an expression of the Divine power, they are unified spiritually by Christ, who is the
impersonation of the Divine wisdom and love (<430103>John 1:3, 9; <510115>Colossians 1:15, 17). Hence, as constituting one stupendous system, they are not independent, but mutually influential — physically according to science, spiritually according to Scripture (<421507>Luke 15:7, 10; <490310>Ephesians 3:10; <600112>1 Peter 1:12, &c.). Yet —

2. Not simple, but complex, consisting of two parts — of this mundane sphere, with its diversified contents of men, animals, and plants; and of those shining heavens, with their starry hosts and angelic races. Hence the histories of those two realms may be widely divergent — an inference
which astronomy warrants as to their physical developments, and revelation endorses with regard to their spiritual experiences. Hence to argue from the one to the other is to reason hypothetically; as, e.g., to conclude that the planets must be inhabited because the earth is, or to
affirm that the Divine treatment of the human and angelic races must of necessity be alike.


II. VAST, yet NOT INFINITE.

1. Vast. Enlarged as were Shemitic notions of the dimensions of God’s universe, modern astronomy, by the grandeur and sublimity of its revelations, gives definite shape to what were then only vague and shadowy conceptions. Imagination becomes bewildered in the attempt to
comprehend the circle of the universe. Commencing with the sun, the central body of our planetary system, with a diameter about three times our distance from the moon, and passing, on her outward journey, no fewer than seven worlds in addition to our own, most of them immensely larger, she only reaches the outskirts of the first department of creation at a distance of 2,853,800,000 miles. Then, when to this is added that the nearest fixed star is so remote that three years are required for its light to reach the earth; that from some of the more distant nebulae the light has been traveling for millions of years; that the number of the stars is practically infinite; and that each of them may be the center of a system more resplendent than our own, — even then it is but a faint conception which she reaches of the dimensions of the universe (<182614>Job 26:14). Yet—

2. It is not infinite. Immeasurable by man, it has already been measured by God <234012>Isaiah 40:12). Undiscoverable by science, its limits are known to its Creator (<441518>Acts 15:18). The stars which man is unable to compute God calls by their names (<19e704>Psalm 147:4; <234026>Isaiah 40:26). That the universe must have a boundary is involved in its creation. Two finites cannot make an infinite. Hence the measured earth (<350306>Habakkuk 3:6) and the bounded heavens (<182214>Job 22:14) cannot compose an illimitable universe. Still less can there be two infinites, one filling all space, and another outside of it. But Elohim is such an infinite (<235715>Isaiah 57:15; <242324>Jeremiah 23:24); hence the universe is not such another.


III. OLD, yet NOT ETERNAL.

1. Old. How old God has not revealed and man has not discovered; geology and astronomy both say millions of years; one hundred millions at least, Sir W. Thomson alleges the sun to have been burning. Genesis gives ample scope to physicists in their researches by saying they may go as far
back as “the beginning;” only that beginning they must find. For —

2. The universe is not eternal, though its antiquity be vast. The frequency and certainty with which Scripture enunciates the non-eternity of the material universe is one of its most distinguishing characteristics (<199001>Psalm 90:1; 102:25, 26; <580110>Hebrews 1:10). This may also now be regarded as the last word of science: “We have thus reached the beginning as well as the end of the present visible universe, and have come to the conclusion that it began in time, and will in time come to an end” (‘The Unseen Universe,’ p. 93).


IV. EXISTENT, YET NOT SELF-EXISTENT.

1. Existent; i.e. standing out as an entity in the infinite realm of space; standing out from eternity in the sphere of time; and also standing out from God, as essentially distinct from his personality. Yet —

2. Not self-existent, not standing there in virtue of its own inherent energy, being neither self-produced nor self-sustained; but standing solely and always in obedience to the creative fiat of Elohim, the almighty and selfexistent God.