Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Order in the physical world reflects the faithfulness of its Creator

Science shows us the physical world is ordered, obeys laws that hold everywhere and at all times. This is an amazing thing; something that has taken centuries for us to understand and codify. Why is the world that way? Does it tell us anything about God?

Yes. The order in creation reflects the faithfulness of its Creator. Jeremiah 31 says:
35Thus says the LORD,who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the LORD of hosts is his name:
36 "If this fixed order departs
from before me, declares the LORD,
then shall the offspring of Israel cease
from being a nation before me forever."
It is important to note the context of these verses; they follow declaration of the New Covenant, looking forward to our redemption in Christ:
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

This idea if the order in the natural world reflecting the covenantal faithfulness of YHWH is repeated again in Jeremiah 33:

20 "Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, 21 then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers. 22As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me."
The same faithful sovereign God who made the world, kept his promise and redeemed the world through sending his Son.
This theological perspective on the created physical order resonates with a previous post on Genesis 1.

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