Why the Bible
Is the Word of God

ANSWERING THE GREAT MYSTERY: WHY DID
GOD CREATE MAN?

"Astronomers looked 8,000 light-years into the cosmos with the Hubble Space Telescope, and it seemed that the eye of God was staring back"

--National Geographic, April 1997

Scientific advancements like the Hubble Space Telescope have enabled us to peer beyond the threshold of the earth into the secrets of boundless space. Yet how do we puny humans fit into the limitless gulf of the universe? Where does the Bible come into all this? Does our purpose here on earth have anything to do with the infinite cosmos?

Do we have a rendezvous with infinity? Is our ultimate destiny so mind-expanding that the human intellect can hardly grasp its grandeur? What is our purpose on earth? What is our future?

The late American author Norman Cousins once asked: "How did the conditions that make life possible originate? How did they come together in vital confluence?" To many, educated in the Judeo-Christian ethic, the real answer resides in the early chapters of Genesis.

But as Mr. Cousins also observed: "The primary question is not, 'Where did life come from?' but 'What can human life become?' . . . [Remember,] we belong to an unfinished species" (Human Options, emphasis added). When you really come to understand it, we were created to need something we did not have within us when we were born.

What is our ultimate purpose--our role in this vast cosmos?

"For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God" (Romans 8:19).

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Clearly the purpose of life is linked to creation. It did not end with the physical creation of Genesis chapter one. The present emphasis is on the spiritual creation God is bringing to pass in the lives of converted human beings (compare Galatians 6:15).

Was the mystery of life always known?

". . . According to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations . . ." (Romans 16:25-26).

The quest of the apostle Paul was "to make all [people] see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:9).

Even today only those the Bible terms the "firstfruits"--those people God is calling to salvation now, in this age--truly understand that mystery (compare John 6:44, 65). It is the mission of the Church of God to proclaim, clarify and make known that mystery.

A prominent religious leader recently expressed the dilemma that confronts us: "It is not merely that we face problems. It is, rather, the feeling that we have run out of solutions, that we have reached an impasse in public life."

Read your daily newspaper. Regularly our politicians promise us a better life, greater security, more access to health and wealth, and a host of other good things.Groups of us will get together to demand this or that crash program to cut neighborhood crime, force the government to slash a galling tax rate or do something else that we think will improve our lives. Surely, we reason, people power will get the job done--but in the end we must face the grim and disappointing reality that our problems continue to multiply.

Because of inadequate cooperation and commitment at all levels, even the wholehearted efforts of famous media personalities have not been able to make a permanent dent in Africa's hunger and poverty. The poor and dying are also still very much with us in the prosperous Western world. Few human experiences are as disheartening as the stubborn lack of progress in solving many of our most imminent problems. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," says the Proverb (13:12).

But is it possible for modern technology to ultimately transcend our feeble human limitations? Will its cumulative effects eventually overcome the ingrained, biased thinking that has impeded our human progress from time immemorial? Can the leadership of a computer technocracy provide the answer? Let's put all our technological advancements into a clearer perspective.

Obviously technical advances in the communications field should never be underestimated. They are fast altering our civilization as never before. As a newspaper editorial observed: "We are living through a period of social change at least as profound as the Industrial Revolution, perhaps more so. The new technologies of communication are transforming everything: our working lives, our private lives, and above all our culture--the way we deal with ideas."

Nonetheless, there is no reason for men and women to be intimidated by anything they have themselves thought out and finally shaped and made. As National Geographic wisely commented: "Information technologies, for all the attention they receive, lag far behind the power of the human brain. Researchers estimate that the normal brain has a quadrillion connections between its nerve cells, more than all the phone calls made in the U.S. in the past decade" (October 1995).

Has God long realized what human beings are inherently capable of achieving?

". . . And this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose [or 'have imagined,' KJV] to do will be withheld from them" (Genesis 11:6).

Does God's plan for men and women involve right leadership?

"'What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.' For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him" (Hebrews 2:6-8, quoting Psalm 8:4-6).

The context is "the world to come" (Hebrews 2:5). God plans to make men and women rulers and leaders in the majestic age to come. However, in this present time "we do not yet see all things put under him" (verse 8, last part).

In the age to come, who will share the supervision of the world with Jesus Christ?

"And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4).

The Bible tells us that the converted servants or "saints" of God will participate in the management of His creation! Restoration and right rulership of this earth are an integral part of God's master plan! He intends the whole world to be like the Garden of Eden of old (compare Daniel 7:27; Acts 3:20-21; Revelation 5:10; 22:1).

Mankind has long dreamed of utopia--an earthly paradise of peace and plenty. Many have wanted to usher it in through vastly improved human knowledge and technology. But the mass media bear daily testimony to the fact that utopia will not happen without God's supernatural intervention.