God’s Grand Design – Bible study seminar

Transcript of “Introduction” (Session 1)

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The New Testament says that the Creator was Jesus.

At the start of the Gospel of John, and also in the book of Hebrews, it says that everything came into being through Jesus. All things.

This is stated a third time in the book of Colossians, chapter1 verse 16. "For by Him (Jesus) all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible."

And what an astonishing world He created. Consider the stars in the heavens. On a dark night you can see about 3,000 stars.

Telescopes allowed us to see more. But now, in our generation, we've been allowed to see the cosmos in a way previous generations never could.

The Hubble Terlescope was sent into space in 1990. It is orbiting the earth and beaming back images of stars and galaxies billions of light years away.

On the first day of creation, Jesus made light. Light travels. About 300,000 kilometers a second. That's about one trillion kilometers in a year.

Light reflected from the moon takes about a second to reach us.

Light from the sun takes just over 8 minutes.But light from the furthest galaxies takes 13 billion light years to reach us.

That means the furthest away of the billions of galaxies that we now know exist, is something like 13 billion trillion kilometers away.

Jesus created this.

But it is cursed. Even the ground is cursed. In Genesis chapter 3, we read that Adam disobeyed God, and God cursed the earth.

In the book of Isaiah we are told that the earth will be laid waste. Peter, writing in the New Testament, says that “the Day of the Lord will come, and the heavens will pass away ... the elements will be destroyed ... and the earth ... will be burned up.”

Why? Because God is creating a new heavens and a new earth.

Revelation, chapter 21, tells us about the new heaven and new earth to come, “because the first heaven and the first earth have passed away”.

Jesus created this stunning world – yet it is going to be destroyed. It is flawed. He is not going to fix it up. He is going to replace it.

Our first thought here is that although “Heaven and earth will pass away, the Word of God will never pass away.” Jesus said, “not one jot will pass from the Word of God.”

A "jot" is the Hebrew letter Yud – the smallest letter. In Greek, an iota. The Bible, in the original languages ... in the Hebrew script, and in Greek for the New Testament, is perfect.

This world, as impressive as it is, is not perfect ... but the word of God is perfect.

If God would let us see the vastness of space for the first time in history, but say that it's going to end, why wouldn't He also show us the wonders of His perfect Word at this time?

The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Jesus is the living Word. Jesus took on human form and came to save us. Through the cross. Through His death and resurrection. Through His sacrifice of atonement. He purchased us for God. Jesus is the Word... the living Word. Jesus is eternal. By faith, we are in Him. The Word will never pass away. And we too, in Him, will live forever.