John 1:1-18
The Word Was With God and the Word Was God
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Some say the God gave us two books to reveal Himself...First is the book of the Bible, and the second one is the book of Mother Nature...We discover God through the Word in Scripture and the Natural World around us...Each of us interpret the Bible in our own way...We do this through reading it and meditating and reflecting on it...Each of us interpret nature through what we see, feel, and hear and through the sciences...But both the Bible and nature require our own human interpretation...And because we cannot read when we are such a young age, we "read or interpret" God's Book of Nature first, and then read the Bible at a later age, after we have experienced nature and have had nature influence us one way or another -without first knowing that all of nature was created by God through His Son, Jesus Christ...
Author and Theologist and Professor, George L. Murphy says, "we should begin with the knowledge of God revealed in the history of Israel which culminates in Christ...Then we know that the Creator, the Author of the book of nature, is to be identified with the crucified and risen Christ, and we can read the book of God’s works in that Light...Metaphors of God as philosopher, ruler, moral teacher, or designer then have to be adapted to this revelation...We can put this in another way...Nature understood as text tells us about—nature...That, of course, is the basic idea of the natural sciences: We come to understand the universe by reflection on the way it really is...In the same way, reading any book tells us about the story that author gives us...But reading a book does not necessarily tell us anything about the book’s author...As the poet and critic Ezra Pound said, “You can spot the bad critic when he starts by discussing the poet and not the poem.”...This is the basis of Karl Barth’s criticism of the analogia entis, the “analogy of being,” which is at the root of the idea of natural theology independent of revelation...There simply is no reason to think that there must be such an analogy—that creation must in some way resemble the Creator...It is quite another matter, once we know the Creator, to look for evidence of His creative activity in the world."...Mr. Murphy goes on to say, "While science as an investigation of the natural world can be done without any religious presuppositions at all, it can only tell us something of value for theology if it is viewed in the light of revelation...To return to the book metaphor, we can learn about nature simply by reading the book of nature...But that book will tell us something about its author only if we have first read the Bible and understood its witness to Jesus Christ."...
The two books complement one another, because God created the heavens and earth, and all these things are made through Jesus...So Jesus helps us explain nature, by believing all of nature was made through Him...Jesus helps us explain there is a God, who is His Father, and man should believe in Him and His Father...Or as He says, trust in God, but also trust in Me...Jesus, Himself is full of Grace and Truth...So He has the potential to fill the world with Grace and Truth if we all believe in Him and what He teaches...Jesus, more than anyone in the history of mankind, teaches us God's Word and about God...We learn much about love, forgiveness, justice and mercy...And because we have these two books and all things were made through Him, we see the natural links and connections with God, man, and nature...We can believe that God has His fingerprint on all the things He created...And as we look around we can see the stars and the heavens declare the glory of God...
Some creationists believe in these two books and that God created all things through evolution...They believe in that creation in more symbolistic, yet they believe God made all plants, animals, fish -all living creatures are related by the way of evolution, with His Supervision...They believe God is this Source and Creator of all living creatures...And they believe that God made man and female in His Image and therefore, men and women are Spiritual...They point that God is Spirit and God is LOVE and God is moral and much different than all the other living things...
We can all agree that the Bible and the Book of Genesis is about a Spiritual, Moral God, and really not much about nature, even though there are verses of nature throughout the Bible...Everything we see in nature was created by God through His Son...Nature was so beautiful in the Garden of Eden...There has been nothing like Eden since it was originally created...
And so, God's creation of nature was declared "good" by Him, and believers and most all people would agree with that specific statement...The Garden of Eden though beautiful was not God or not Divine...And God does not say that nature is Divine and Sacred and Holy...So nature is put in this proper place by God...So we can believe that since that just because nature is tangible and physical like other tangible and physical things that we create are not necessarily bad...
Men and women are physical and touchable and tangible in nature, so we were good in the eyes of the LORD, when He created us...After all, we are made in His Image...So, we too were at first good...But sin got in our way, as we ate from the tree of life, after God told us not too...We were disobedient to Him...We sinned in Paradise...And since the wages of sin is death, God removed the tree of life away from Adam and Eve...So man lost his way to eternal life...And we were made to leave Eden...
So God and Science are not mutually exclusive and unrelated...God created science, math, and physics...Without nature we are hamstrung in our learning of the sciences...Through nature we can learn about math, biology, and physics...So God sent Jesus to show us certain things relating to the Spiritual and about nature...Since we know that nature was created through Jesus...
But Jesus went beyond teaching about nature and dwelt His Teachings on the eternities...Jesus shows us that God connects LOVE, Truth, Morality, Forgiveness, and Mercy...Jesus teaches us that LOVE without forgiveness is not much LOVE...And Justice without Mercy is not much Justice...
So for man to eternally live with a LOVING God and His Son in the Paradise of Heaven, we needed another way to get to the Father...So as His Great Gift of Grace, God sent His Son to us to be our Redeemer, our Savior from the sins we commit each day...And Jesus would tell us, "Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the Only True God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."...No one gets to the Father, except through Jesus...
We can thank God for Him giving us nature, but we must thank Him much, much more for giving us Jesus as payment for our sin debt in full...