God (Christianity) -- Worship and love; Spirituality
One of the great realities with which we have to deal is the Voice of
God in His world. The briefest and only satisfying cosmogony is this:
"He spake and it was done." The _why_ of natural law is the living Voice
of God immanent in His creation. And this word of God which brought all
worlds into being cannot be understood to mean the Bible, for it is not
a written or printed word at all, but the expression of the will of God
spoken into the structure of all things. This word of God is the breath
of God filling the world with living potentiality. The Voice of God is
the most powerful force in nature, indeed the only force in nature, for
all energy is here only because the power-filled Word is being spoken.
The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is
confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather.
The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is
free. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life." The life is in the speaking words. God's word in the Bible can
have power only because it corresponds to God's word in the universe. It
is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful.
Otherwise it would lie locked in slumber within the covers of a book.
We take a low and primitive view of things when we conceive of God at
the creation coming into physical contact with things, shaping and
fitting and building like a carpenter. The Bible teaches otherwise: "By
the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by
the breath of his mouth.... For he spake, and it was done; he commanded,
and it stood fast." "Through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God." Again we must remember that God is referring
here not to His written Word, but to His speaking Voice. His
world-filling Voice is meant, that Voice which antedates the Bible by
uncounted centuries, that Voice which has not been silent since the dawn
of creation, but is sounding still throughout the full far reaches of
the universe.
The Word of God is quick and powerful. In the beginning He spoke to
nothing, and it became _something_. Chaos heard it and became order,
darkness heard it and became light. "And God said--and it was so." These
twin phrases, as cause and effect, occur throughout the Genesis story of
the creation. The _said_ accounts for the _so_. The _so_ is the _said_
put into the continuous present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account