What I Believe, And Why: God Is

by N/A | Category: N/a | Jan 1951

The word "believe" is used so very loosely by many people that it is worth while to enquire what it does mean. Belief means more than having a vague opinion or a surmise, and there are many who take to themselves the title of believers who have hardly asked themselves what it is they believe, and on what ground do they believe. In the Scriptures the same root word is translated belief, faith, assurance, and in Hebrews 11.6, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is." the word "believe" is from the same root word as the word "faith" in the rest of the chapter. Now when we believe we accept as true a proposition, or statement, or fact, on the ground of evidence or authority. So it is necessary for those who believe to know the basis of their belief, whether it be in facts or words. Very largely, of course, our beliefs are based upon the authority of Scripture, as stated in Romans 10.17, "Belief cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ," but before we reach that state we pass through another one, which is the one I wish to write about at the moment. Before we can confidently rest ourselves on the Word of God we have to believe in the existence of God.

Some may say that that is obvious. So it is, but I must have something on which to rest my belief that God is a Person who exists now. In the Scriptures we have statements which profess to come from a Person who claims to be God. We have similarly statements made by a Person who claimed to be the Son of God, and in John 14.11 this Person recognizes that some people might not find it easy to accept simply His own word, and so He says,

"Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works' sake." So the question of belief rested on the belief of authority or on the evidence of works, and in many places in the Scriptures we find that an appeal to the works of God is made to support the statements of God concerning Himself. Thus Job must have known who was speaking to him out of the whirlwind, for the Name of God had been often on his lips, but he had not truly appreciated the character and power of God. He had done a lot of talking and God begins by telling him that he was using words without knowledge (Job 38.2). There are still many people like Job, and they talk a great deal without having studied what they are talking about. So God's first attack on Job is to declare the immense difference between the Creator and the creature

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" If now we turn to Hebrews 11. the wonderfully powerful argument begins in a similar way:

"By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear."

This matter of the creation is fundamental. If God was not responsible for the creation, then there must be another force or power or mind greater than His, and our idea of God is that He is the ultimate source of all power. Truly there is that in creation which tells of a God of infinite power and wisdom, with powers of mind far, far greater than those of all men put together. It is God Himself who reveals to Job who it is that is talking to him, and He does this by speaking of the things of His creation; "the ordinances of the heavens" (38.33) are brought before Job, and God goes on to speak of the "bottles of heaven" (38.37) which are associated with the natural phenomena of rain, snow, hail, and so forth. Job is called upon to consider the creatures of the earth and sea and air. Who indeed can plumb the depths of the wisdom of God in all these things ? Large and small, near or remote in space, all these things testify to the fact that " God is."

Now if we accept all this, it follows that we must not limit within our minds the power of God. Unbelief will not accept the story of creation as in Genesis, or the story of the Flood, or, to come down to later times, the birth of Christ by a Virgin. But I ask myself, If I believe that " God is," am I prepared to accept all that is stated in His Name? It cannot be denied that the Scriptures are asserted as being His word, and I see that it is entirely illogical to accept the thought of a Creator who has wrought wonderfully on a gigantic scale throughout the Universe, and yet to have doubts, say, as to His power regarding a little water on the earth at the time of the Flood. Men see the Flood as tremendously difficult, but God says, " Is there anything too hard for Me? " What is all this great volume of water that men are troubled about? It represents just a little more than what is on the earth to-day, and even the mighty oceans, as we consider them, are in depth, compared to the earth, as the sweat on a man's brow compared to the size of his head. And what is this earth as compared with the sun, or even the sun as compared with other known stars? So far as I am concerned, if I accept that God is the Creator then I am willing to accept that He is capable of doing all that He has declared unto us. I cannot limit my belief in what God is, and I judge Him, not by my estimation as to what seems reasonable for me to accept, but by His own statements as to His powers and the evidence of His works. My belief that "God is" must be, and is, based on both authority and evidence.

N/A | Jan 1951
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