REFORMED WITNESS
May 1992
God's Handwriting In Nature
by Herman Hoeksema
From The Standard Bearer, Vol. V, pp. 572-575
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...When God made the world He wrote as with His finger a speech concerning Himself, and every creature adds to this symbol-language declaring unto us the beauty and wisdom of the Most High...
Time would fail should we attempt to give a complete sketch of all the wonderful language that is poured into the believing heart from this handwriting of God in nature. But we must give a few illustrations in order at least to obtain a glimpse of these riches. There can be no question in our mind that all creation speaks of the grand theme of the antithesis, that fundamental thought of God's counsel. It does so in the contrast between the heights of the mountains that rise heavenward in proud forms and the depths of the valleys and precipices at their feet. It does so in the antithesis between the sea and the dry land, between the wild storm and the still breeze, between the rose and the thorn, and above all by the always appearing contrast of light and darkness. The light is symbol of the light of God, the eternal light, the heavenly light; the darkness, of the horror of sin and death and hell. Every evening the setting sun reminds us of the shadow of sin and death that fell over us when our first parents fell in the garden of Eden; every night the silvery moon is a sign that the sun of righteousness is still there and shall appear again with new splendor at the proper time; every dawn is speech poured consolingly into the hearts of the children of God that the eternal morning shall arise when night shall be nevermore. I do not have to remind you of the fact that, according to Scripture, the sun in the heavens is a symbol of the great Sun of righteousness, the multitude of the stars, of the multitude that shall once surround the throne in glory forever. You find the same language if you turn to the creatures that dwell on the earth.
The lion, though in its accursed existence a symbol of him that seeks whom he may devour, is as a creature of God in his royal power a picture of the victorious Lion of Judah's tribe. The lamb is God's language in nature of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And similar language you find interpreted in the Word of God with regard to all the animals. The panther and the bear, the calf and the ox, the eagle and the sparrow on the housetop -- all speak in their own language. Thus it is no less when we turn to the world of plants and flowers and trees. The vine in nature is but a shadow of the true vine, and together with its branches it is the picture of the church in organic relation with her Head. The olive tree is the people of God as they are in this world, and branches are cut off and ingrafted according to God's will and counsel. The palm tree as well as the cedars of Lebanon are pictures of the righteous. The mustard tree is a picture of the marvelous growth of the kingdom of God. The seed itself, falling into the earth and sprouting and growing and bearing fruit, speaks in God's own language of the wonderful work of God's grace in the heart of God's people when they are renewed by the eternal and imperishable seed of the eternal Word of God. Thus the lily of the valley and the rose of Sharon, the thorn and the thistle and the wheat and the tares, all speak their own words to complete the speech of God in nature. That man's own life is full of symbol language will be sufficiently plain if I remind you of the relation of man and wife as the mystery to which Paul calls attention, as well as the prophets of the Old Testament, as the picture and shadow of the eternal relation between Christ and the church, God and His people; not to mention that other relation of father and child or mother and babe. You can turn to the world of colors in creation with the same results. Who can forget that white is the color of eternal holiness and victory in the New Jerusalem, blue the color of God's everlasting faithfulness, stretching itself over us in the heavens as a testimony, black the color of the night and sin and death, red the color of God's anger and wrath, of blood and destruction? And is it different with the marvelous mysteries of the number relations? Three is the number of God, four of the world, seven of His perfected covenant and kingdom, ten of His complete will and counsel, twelve of His people in their fullness on earth. These numbers you find everywhere. You cannot believingly look at the starry heavens without admitting that intentionally the Lord speaks from them in the numbers three and four and seven. There are six days in the week plus one, there are seven notes in an octave plainly arranged in groups of three and four, there are seven colors, all present in the rainbow. There are four winds, and four seasons, and you carry the number ten with you on your hands and feet. These few examples could easily be multiplied, and undoubtedly we would find that, indeed, with wisdom God has made the heavens and the earth, and that in such a way, that the earthly is an image of the heavenly, the natural of the spiritual, and that also God's revelation in nature points to the final consummation of all things in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ....
The unbeliever in the midst of the Christian world, really is surrounded by the light of both, that in nature and in the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. Hence his sin is the greater, for also he, not possessing the light of the Spirit, clearly shows that he does not will to do the will of Him who thus reveals Himself to him. He will have the greater condemnation. And finally, there is the spiritual child of God, with the light of grace clarifying his eyes so that he may see things spiritual, and the light of the Word shining upon his pathway, so that he may walk in it. To him all things are of God in Christ. He looks for the city that hath foundations and for the perfect realization of God's covenant. Of that realization speaks to him the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures. And when with that light he then turns to the handwriting of God in nature, he finds that there also God speaks the same language. All things point to his salvation. All things point to the heavenly City. For that reason the sight of these things and the spiritual understanding of His hands, strengthens his faith, fills him with hope, makes him the more refrain from seeking the things that are upon earth, knowing that they are but shadows and that all these shadows shall pass away, to give place to the eternal reality of the heavenly city. There shall be no night there, but perfect and everlasting light. In that light we shall see the light forever!
We need no other argument to prove that God made the world than the world itself -- it carrieth in it and upon it the infallible tokens of its original.
John Owen
How Manifold are thy Works
When we contemplate the wonderful works of Nature, and walking about at leisure, gaze upon this ample theatre of the world, considering the stately beauty, constant order, and sumptuous furniture thereof; the glorious splendor and uniform motion of the heavens; the pleasant fertility of the earth; the curious figure and fragrant sweetness of plants; the exquisite frame of animals; and all other amazing miracles of nature, wherein the glorious attributes of God, especially his transcendent goodness, are more conspicuously displayed: so that by them, not only large acknowledgments, but even gratulatory hymns, as it were, of praise have been extorted from the mouths of Aristotle, Pliny, Galen, and such like men, never suspected guilty of an excessive devotion; then should our hearts be affected with thankful sense, and our lips break forth in praise.
William Barrow, 1754-1836
God Manifested in His Created Works
by John Calvin, from his Institutes, Chapter V, pp. 51-69
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1. The clarity of God's self-disclosure strips us of every excuse
The final goal of the blessed life, moreover, rests in the knowledge of God [cf. John 17:3]. Lest anyone, then, be excluded from access to happiness, he not only sowed in men's minds that seed of religion of which we have spoken but revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. As a consequence, men cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him. Indeed, his essence is incomprehensible; hence, his divineness far escapes all human perception. But upon his individual works he has engraved unmistakable marks of his glory, so clear and so prominent that even unlettered and stupid folk cannot plead the excuse of ignorance. Therefore the prophet very aptly exclaims that he is "clad with light as with a garment" [Ps. 104:2]. It is as if he said: Thereafter the Lord began to show himself in the visible splendor of his apparel, ever since in the creation of the universe he brought forth those insignia whereby he shows his glory to us, whenever and wherever we cast our gaze. Likewise, the same prophet skillfully compares the heavens, as they are stretched out, to his royal tent and says that he has laid the beams of his chambers on the waters ' has made the clouds his chariot, rides on the wings of the wind, and that the winds and lightning bolts are his swift messengers [Ps. 104:2-4]. And since the glory of his power and wisdom shine more brightly above, heaven is often called his palace [Ps. 11:4]. Yet, in the first place, wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory. You cannot in one glance survey expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness. The reason why the author of The Letter to the Hebrews elegantly calls the universe the appearance of things invisible [Heb. 11:3] is that this skillful ordering of the universe is for us a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible. The reason why the prophet attributes to the heavenly creatures a language known to every nation [Ps. 19:2] is that therein lies an attestation of divinity so apparent that it ought not to escape the gaze of even the most stupid tribe. The apostle declares this more clearly: "What men need to know concerning God has been disclosed to them.... for one and all gaze upon his invisible nature, known from the creation of the world, even unto his eternal power and divinity" [Rom. 1:19, 20].
2. The divine wisdom displayed for all to see
There are innumerable evidences both in heaven and on earth that declare his wonderful wisdom; not only those more recondite matters for the closer observation of which astronomy, medicine, and all natural science are intended, but also those which thrust themselves upon the sight of even the most untutored and ignorant persons, so that they cannot open their eyes without being compelled to witness them. Indeed, men who have either quaffed or even tasted the liberal arts penetrate with their aid far more deeply into the secrets of the divine wisdom. Yet ignorance of them prevents no one from seeing more than enough of God's workmanship in his creation to lead him to break forth in admiration of the Artificer. To be sure, there is need of art and of more exacting toil in order to investigate the motion of the stars, to determine their assigned stations, to measure their intervals, to note their properties. As God's providence shows itself more explicitly when one observes these, so the mind must rise to a somewhat higher level to look upon his glory. Even the common folk and the most untutored, who have been taught only by the aid of the eyes, cannot be unaware of the excellence of divine art, for it reveals itself in this innumerable and yet distinct and well-ordered variety of the heavenly host. It is, accordingly, clear that there is no one to whom the Lord does not abundantly show his wisdom, Likewise, in regard to the structure of the human body one must have the greatest keenness in order to weigh, with Galen's skill, its articulation, symmetry, beauty, and use. But yet, as all acknowledge, the human body shows itself to be a composition so ingenious that its Artificer is rightly judged a wonderworker.
11. The evidence of God in creation does not profit us
But although the Lord represents both himself and his everlasting Kingdom in the mirror of his works with very great clarity, such is our stupidity that we grow increasingly dull toward so manifest testimonies, and they flow away without profiting us. For with regard to the most beautiful structure and order of the universe, how many of us are there who, when we lift up our eyes to heaven or cast them about through the various regions of earth, recall our minds to a remembrance of the Creator, and do not rather, disregarding their Author, sit idly in contemplation of his works? In fact, with regard to those events which daily take place outside the ordinary course of nature, how many of us do not reckon that men are whirled and twisted about by blindly indiscriminate fortune, rather than governed by God's providence?...
15. We have no excuse
But although we lack the natural ability to mount up unto the pure and clear knowledge of God, all excuse is cut off because the fault of dullness is within us. And, indeed, we are not allowed thus to pretend ignorance without our conscience itself always convicting us of both baseness and ingratitude. As if this defense may properly be admitted: for a man to pretend that he lacks ears to hear the truth when there are mute creatures with more than melodious voices to declare it; or for a man to claim, that he cannot see with his eyes what eyeless creatures point out to him; or for him to plead feebleness of mind when even irrational creatures give instruction! Therefore we are justly denied every excuse when we stray off as wanderers and vagrants even though everything points out the right way. But, however that may be, yet the fact that men soon corrupt the seed of the knowledge of God, sown in their minds out of the wonderful workmanship of nature (thus preventing it from coming to a good and perfect fruit), must be imputed to their own failing; nevertheless, it is very true that we are not at all sufficiently instructed by this bare and simple testimony which the creatures render splendidly to the glory of God. For at the same time as we have enjoyed a slight taste of the divine from contemplation of the universe, having neglected the true God, we raise up in his stead dreams and specters of our own brains, and attribute to anything else than the true source the praise of righteousness, wisdom, goodness, and power. Moreover, we so obscure or overturn his daily acts by wickedly judging them that we snatch away from them their glory and from their Author his due praise.
By what means God is made known unto us
We know him by two means: first, by the creation, preservation and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small', are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Rom. 1:20. All which things arc sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse.
Belgic Confession, Article 2
The Existence of God as Manifest in Creation
by A.W. Pink, from The Doctrine of Revelation
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Let anyone spend but a few hours in watching the rapid and incessant motion in a small leaf (such as that of the Anacharis Alsinastrum) under one of the best microscopes science has been able to furnish, the field being less than a ten-thousandth part of an inch. In that small field can be distinctly seen twelve rows of cells with an average of five cells in each row. The current can be seen flowing rapidly along appropriate channels, like rivers with broken ice on the surface, while in each of the sixty oblong cells the fluids are seen circulating like eddies or whirlpools in a rushing stream. But for the perfection which microscopic art has attained this amazing activity would never have been suspected or credited. Witnessing this activity in the ten-thousandth part of an inch of the surface of a small leaf, what would be the impression upon the mind could we look upon a single tree, discerning the activity of vital force in every part of it with the same degree of clearness? While we cannot do this, imagination can transfer what we have seen in the leaf under the microscope to all the leaves of the forest, to all vegetation on the globe, for in every cell of every living plant there is substantially the same vital activity.
Whether we look upon a forest or field the eye of the mind should discern not merely motionless forms of life but everywhere intensely active vital power. Were we capable of seeing the real activity of the vital force in the living tree, it would be to us scarcely less wonderful than the "great sight" which Moses turned aside to see; nor could it fail to produce in us a sense of the divine presence not unlike that which he experienced. This vital action, which man and all created intelligences must ever strive to behold and may ever more and more clearly discover God Himself alone sees as it is....
"It is in the minutiae of creation, perhaps, that the most surprising marvels, mysteries, and miracles of creative workmanship are often found. It is here also that the works of God so singularly differ from the works of man. However elaborate man's work it does not bear minute microscopic investigation. For instance, the finest cambric needle becomes course, rough, and blunt under the magnifying lens, whereas it is only when looked at with the highest power of the microscopic eye that nature's handiwork really begins to reveal its exquisite and indescribable perfection. Where the perfection of man's work ends the perfection of God's work only begins.
"The proofs of this perfection in minutiae are lavishly abundant. When a piece of chalk is drawn over a blackboard, in the white mark on the board, or the powder that falls on the floor, are millions of tiny white shells, once the home of life. The dust from the moth's wing is made up of scales or feathers, each as perfect as the ostrich plume. The pores of the human skin are so closely crowded together that seventy-five thousand of them might be covered by a grain of sand. The insect's organ of vision is a little world of wonders in itself. In the eye of a butterfly thirty-four thousand lenses have been found, each perfect as a means of vision. The minute cells in which all life, vegetable and animal, reside present as true an evidence of the mysterious perfection of individual workmanship and mutual adaptation as the constellations that adorn the sky, and equally with them declare the glory of God! How it speaks of a creator who can lavish beauty even on the stones, and who carries the perfection of His work into the realm of the least as well as the greatest!"
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