Creation ex nihilo

 
In Romans, chapter 4, Paul refers to God as the one who (1) “gives life to the dead” and, (2) “calls into being things that were not.” If miracles are out of the ordinary in normal life, what can be said about creation ex nihilo, out of nothing? Although miracles served to encourage belief (Mark 16:20), that was not their major role. Jesus healed the lame and restored the sight of the blind because . . . well, because they were lame and they were blind. It was his compassion for their handicap that moved him to act. However, they could not help but move a listener toward confidence in the one who performed them. A widow had just lost her only son and family and mourners were on their way to the burial (Luke 7:11-17). Jesus, moved by compassion, touched the bier, told the young man who has died to get up, and he did. Other accounts can be found throughout the gospels. As Paul said, “God . . . gives life to the dead.” Of course the supreme example of God giving life to the dead” was the resurrection of Jesus. On resurrection morning it was not some inner force that brought Jesus back to life but a action by God himself. Jesus was raised (passive), he didn’t raise Active) himself.
         It is the second descriptive clause of God that is especially intriguing; as the NLT has it, God “creates new things out of nothing.” One gets the image of a magician waving his wand and, “abra cadabra,” something appears – but we all know it was a trick. Well, serious people don’t get that image, but God does create stuff out of non-stuff, not a different kind of stuff but no stuff at all. In the beginning there was God, and I believe nothing but God, dwelling independent in a realm unknown to us. It was when he said, “Let there be light” that light appeared . . . out of nothing. Who but God could be thought of in that way!
         I believe it important that we who have always lived in a tangible world operating within the rules that we have derived from observation do need to be careful not to limit God to our understanding of reality. He exists infinitely beyond what we tend to think of as all there is. We honor him for raising the dead to life with the next step being creation from nothing, but he is infinitely beyond that. And he is our God. He loves us, came in the person of Jesus to live and die for us. Absolutely beyond all comprehension. So, the next time we think of God, let’s think of him in this larger dimension. See him as only a Spirit-guided imagination can get a glimpse of him. He is God, infinite and beyond all description.