Hebrews Chapter One, The Witness Of Nature

 

Hebrews 1:10 And: You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. [11] They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; [12] Like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and Your years will not fail.

 

To preface this quote from the Old Testament we begin at verse 8, where we read, “But to the Son He says…” The second passage quoted as the author continues to build upon the message of who God the Son is comes from Psalm 102:25-27. This deific attribution describes the Son of God. Moving from His reign as King, taken from Psalm 45, we now find the mantle of Creator placed on His shoulders. Christ, described as Lord, laid the earth’s foundations and made the heavens; they are the work of His hands. We read in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Later, God reminded Moses and the Israelites, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day,” Exodus 20:11.

Not to stray too far off topic, but these last two passages are a death knell for theistic evolutionists. Genesis provides the creation account: the six days God made the heavens and the earth. In Exodus God contrasts His work week (six days of work to one day of rest) with the week He is giving Israel: namely six 24 hour days of work followed by one 24 hour day of rest. Seeing as how He is contrasting the one against the other, God means us to understand that as He created all things in 6 days, or 144 hours, and rested the seventh day so too ought Israel to model its work week after Him. (See also Revelation 7:4 for the same number, 144,000, when describing the Jewish evangelists sealed by God for more instances of powers of 12.)

 

As Genesis 1:1, John 1:1, and Hebrews 1:2 testify, Jesus was in the beginning and is the Creator. In Psalm 19:1 David writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” In fact, Psalm 19 is what some believers refer to as “the witness of nature,” when testifying of evidence of God’s existence and superintendence of creation. Continuing, David tells us, “Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world,” Psalm 19:2-4. Creation stands as a not so mute witness of God’s majesty. Paul, a thousand years after David, wrote that God’s attributes are clearly seen in creation, “even His eternal power and Godhead (divine nature),” Romans 1:20. Heaven and earth stand as witness to the unfathomable power and unimaginable genius of the One that brought them into being.

 

David describes the day to night cycle and all of its attendant processes as uttering speech and revealing knowledge. Knowledge, that is, of the One who created the day to night rotation of the planet and its axis in the solar system, orbiting the sun. The day/night cycle is an imperative to sustain the delicate balance upon the earth. More than that (as if it should be necessary) are the forests, lakes, oceans, mountains and weather patterns that function according to laws set up to make it so. David attests that the universal speech of nature and the celestial heavens transcends language barriers and cultural blocks, reaching to anyplace on the earth where a human being draws breath. Carl Sagan, the famous atheist/evolutionist, touted worship of the heavens, leading right back into pagan idolatry. He fell into the indictment of those who would worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever.

 

But it is accepted that all material things must have a maker, Hebrews 3:3. That Maker, who is witnessed in nature, should have been sought after by the thoughtful when they considered the origin of the natural world and its predisposition toward human utility, Acts 14:17, 17:27. The witness of nature ought to have been a beginning for the considerate seeker, but our hearts have become dull, and our minds consumed with personal gain and vainglory. Darwinian Evolution is the newest kid on the block to try stealing God’s thunder, so to speak. We’re back to impersonal cosmic forces birthing life from some nebulous, impossibly defined celestial chaos, sans the gods this time.

 

No; now we move straight into the veneration of nature in God’s place. Note that in former times the gods were personifications of natural forces. They were a cross between deifying humanity and anthropomorphizing natural phenomena. Evolution is a “naturalized” or “atheistic (without God)” replacement for the gods. Mankind, so touts evolutionary theory, is the apex of time, chance, mutation and natural selection (invoking the names of modern gods) bringing forth nature’s crowning achievement: human beings. But the cause of our creation (the big bang followed by abiogenesis attributing life to lifeless matter and conscious thought to bundles of protein) is less than its effect. An effect, by definition is never greater than the cause it originates from.

 

Of the created universe, of which God is the First Cause, the writer states that it will end. The heavens and earth will cease. The Old Testament saints seemed to understand this principle. Joshua explained to the camp of Israel, “Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth,” Joshua 24:14. David told Solomon the same thing on his deathbed, 1 Kings 2:2. To a lesser extent Joshua and David meant that all flesh would expire. Men, animals, etc., perish after their appointed time has come. They took this as a matter of course since they were aware that sin was the cause of death, and death’s presence reminded everyone that God’s judgment upon sin stood. “The soul who sins shall die,” Ezekiel 18:20. This judgment is upon all mankind, saved or unsaved. Joshua, David, and legions more have physically died, evidencing God’s judgment against sin and how sin’s entrance into the world brought death with it. On a larger scale universal death is a surety.