Last week we saw how evolution claims that energy from the sun is the mechanism of change on earth, but how this cannot work based on what we actually observe in science. This week I want to consider the power of God in Creation. The making of the things in the world requires great power, but that power must be directed by wisdom and intelligence. God has this creative power, and the Bible teaches clearly that God created the universe in six days. Psalm 104:24 says, “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.” The mechanism of Creation is God’s power, working through His wisdom and intelligence. Everywhere we look, we see evidence of God’s power and wisdom in the things that He has made.
One of the biggest obstacles for evolution is the Law of Biogenesis, generally attributed to Louis Pasteur. Until Pasteur, many believed in “spontaneous generation,” a theory based on their observations. They observed fruit flies appearing on fruit and maggots appearing on rotting meat, and assumed that the life of those flies and maggots was spontaneously generated from the dying fruit and meat. But Pasteur helped prove that the flies and maggots came from eggs laid previously by other fruit flies and houseflies. The Law of Biogenesis, a natural law of the universe, states that life only comes from life. A tree can only come from the seed of another living tree. A puppy can only come from a living mother. A human can only come from another living human. As it relates to evolution, the Law of Biogenesis presents a problem, because this natural law states that life does not come from non-life. If evolution was true, then at some point in the past, and presumably in the present as well, life would have sprung from non-life. Evolutionists will sometimes try to dismiss this by claiming a distinction between “modern life” and “primitive life,” saying that “modern life” does not come from non-life, but that in the past, “primitive life” could have come from non-life as a starting point for evolution. But this is a false dichotomy that we do not observe today. We see no evidence of a so-called “primitive life” that is distinct from “modern life.” All life that we can observe today comes from life, just as the Law of Biogenesis states. On top of this, if “abiogenesis,” as it is called, could occur in the past, then it should still be able to occur in the present. If life could spring from non-life in the past, then we should be able to observe it happening in the present. If abiogenesis could happen once simply from random chance over a long period of time, then it should be able to happen again. Laws of nature are uniform; things should work the same way more than once. That is how we use the scientific method to prove something. When something is possible once, then it should be able to be tested and proven again. That is how abiogenesis should be if it were true. Until Pasteur, that is what people who believed in spontaneous generation thought that they were seeing. They thought that they were observing life arising from non-life. But as Pasteur proved, that was not the case. So evolution essentially rejects one of the laws of nature, the Law of Biogenesis, to claim that life came from non-life. In contrast, the Bible teaches that God, who is living, gives life. The God who made the natural laws of the universe is not bound by those laws, and He can give life through His power.
Just how powerful is God’s power? God’s power can give life. Not only does abiogenesis (creation of life from non-life) not happen in nature, but scientists cannot reproduce life in a laboratory. Even with all the ingredients of a tomato plant, they cannot bring it to life. They can have the right parts and have them structured correctly, but they cannot give it life. The power to give life is reserved for God alone. Genesis 2:7 says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” When God formed Adam, He gave Adam life, and Adam began to exist; he became alive at that point. Philippians 3:10 says, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” God’s power brought Christ back from the dead after He had been crucified three days before. God’s power is powerful enough to give life, and to bring One back from the dead. God is powerful enough to give physical life, something that man cannot reproduce
But God is also powerful enough to give spiritual life, something that again, man is not able to reproduce. Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).” The Bible clearly says that we are born dead in our sins. We are spiritually dead, separated from God. We are born with a problem that we cannot handle. But God did something. But God quickened us. “Quickened” is an old English word for “made alive.” When a Christian was dead spiritually in his sins, God made him alive. How did God do this? As the end of verse 5 says, “by grace ye are saved.” Ephesians 2:8-9 makes this even clearer when it says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” How are we saved from the eternal punishment for our sin? How are we given spiritual life? By the gift of God’s grace through our faith. As verse 9 makes very clear, it is not by our works. We do not pay for a gift; we simply receive it. We cannot produce spiritual life in ourselves by the things that we do. Just as man cannot produce physical life, he also cannot produce spiritual life in himself. Only God can give spiritual life, and God gives it out of His grace, when we place our faith in Christ and what He has done for us. This is the gospel, the good news of what Christ had done for us. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This gospel, this good news of what Christ has done, is the power of God unto salvation. This gospel teaches us how we can have God’s power in our own lives, saving us from our sins and giving us spiritual life. That is how powerful God’s power is. God’s power is powerful enough to give life; He is the only one in the universe who can do that.
When we see the power of God in Creation, it should remind us of the greater demonstration of power that we can see in our own lives. If we have placed our faith in Christ, then we have experienced a greater demonstration of God’s power than when He created the stars or the oceans. We have experienced the demonstration of God’s power in Him giving us spiritual life. As Psalm 8:3-4 says, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?” When we observe the greatness of God’s Creation, it should cause us to be forever humbled and grateful that God would give Himself to save us, giving us spiritual life, if we only accept it by faith.