Another characteristic of the divine attributes is beauty. The universe created by God is truly beautiful. Only a God of beauty can create a beautiful universe. Suppose your lawn were not green but black. You would see blackness when you go into your yard, and you would see blackness when you step out of your house. Would you consider that beautiful? Would you like to have such a lawn? The most beautiful thing is to have green trees, green grass, and red flowers. How beautiful, how pleasant to the eyes, and how refreshing are the scenes we see today!
Furthermore, everything in the universe is orderly. Today’s scientific research tries to discover the laws and principles in the universe. Since there are laws and principles, there must be one who makes them. If there are laws in a country, there must be a legislature or congress. How could there be laws without lawmakers? How could there be laws and principles in the universe unless it is God who has set them? The moon, the sun, the earth, and the stars revolve within their orbits without colliding. If the earth were a little closer to the sun, we would be burned; if it were a little farther from the sun, we would be frozen. Who defines these things? Who causes the universe to be so orderly, without any confusion? All these things speak forth God’s masterpiece and declare God’s invisible, eternal power and divine attributes.
Man can perceive the invisible things of God by observing the visible things created by Him. Both the eternal power of God and the divine characteristics that express God’s intrinsic nature are manifested in God’s creation. However, this is still not God Himself as a divine Person. What is referred to in Colossians 2:9 is the Godhead, God’s person. The characteristics of God’s nature, referred to in Romans 1:20, can be verified through the created things; however, the created things cannot manifest the Godhead and person. Only the living person of Jesus Christ, the Word who is God and who declares God (John 1:1, 18), can express God’s Godhead and person, that is, the very God, God Himself.
What the Lord Jesus Christ reveals is much deeper than what the universe verifies. What is verified by the universe is only the outward manifestation of God’s nature, not His Godhead. Only what is revealed and declared by the living person of the Lord Jesus Christ is God’s Godhead and person, that is, the very God Himself. Before we were saved, we could see the characteristics of God’s nature manifested through the universe, so that we were without excuse. After we have believed in the Lord Jesus, it is in Christ that we know the divine Godhead. The divine characteristics, which are outward, are manifested through the created things; the divine Godhead, which is God Himself, is lived out through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are countless items in the universe. In such a boundless and mysterious universe, who is maintaining, managing, upholding, and propelling it? Hebrews 1:3 says, “Who...upholding and bearing all things by the word of His power.” The Lord Jesus upholds, bears, and propels all things not by His work but by His instant word, the word of His power. In creation all things came into being through Him as the Word (John 1:1-3). The universe has been framed by the word of God (Heb. 11:3): “For He spoke, and it was; / He commanded, and it stood” (Psa. 33:9). God speaks and upholds all things with His word. According to Greek grammar, this upholding is continuous, unceasing. The Greek word for upholding implies several rich meanings, including maintaining, operating, managing, controlling, and even propelling.
The Lord Jesus as the Mighty God maintains, operates, manages, controls, and propels all things. He not only upholds all things for their mere existence but also maintains and propels them. This may be compared to a huge airplane. Once the engines are started, the airplane is upheld and maintained in the sky. Today no one can deny that the mystery of the universe is with God. God is the meaning and center of the universe; He is the purpose of the universe.
Without God, the entire universe is empty and dead. The meaning of the universe is the living God. As the living Spirit, He is omnipresent, and He is also a divine Person. You need only to open your heart and pray to Him, and He will enter into you. Then you will become a person with meaning, and you will enjoy God as the mystery of the entire universe.
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