Creation

Why should we celebrate October 31?

For hundreds of years, people of the western world have attributed spiritual significance to the last day of October and the first day of November.

But “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1, NKJV) governed the celebration of these days during the Dark Ages, until God brought light out of this darkness through the pen and voice of a humble monk and priest—Martin Luther.

Can We See God in Creation? This is a profound question—and the answer is both yes and no.

Yes

First—yes, we can see our glorious God in creation:

O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens! (NKJV, Ps. 8:1)

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
(Ps. 19:1, 2; cf. Job 12:7-10)

No

But in a second sense—no, we cannot see God in creation. Consider the following Scripture passages:

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CHAPTER IV SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN FAITH

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife” (ESV, Luke 20:27-33).

In the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, the Sadducees were the most skeptical. Their understanding of the Old Testament focused on the “literal” or normal meaning of the words and prioritized the first five books as more authoritative then the rest of the Old Testament.

Their method of interpreting the Bible led them to “deny that there is a resurrection” (Luke 20:27, ESV) and reject angels and spirits (Acts 23:8). We are informed by the Pharisee and Jewish historian Josephus (c. 37-c. 100) that they rejected the “belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades,” and the sovereignty of God (The Wars of the Jews, 2.8.14).

In our day, we would identify Christians holding these views as liberal. The Sadducees were obviously skeptical of the more fantastic claims of the Bible, and they leaned heavily towards the materialism of Epicureanism (Acts 17:18). And in this tendency, they are similar to moderate evangelicals and liberal Christians. Their normal or “literal” is dependent on an understanding of God’s word and world that does not match God’s revelation.

It was one of those moments when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I opted to just shrink lower into our second-row pew, stifle my giggles, and hold my seven year-old son close, thanking God for him and all his glorious honesty.

If you are a regular reader, you know that my husband pastors a rural church; and while we do our best to keep our kids out of the fishbowl, we do expect them to participate in the full-scope of congregational life. Including our mid-week service. This isn’t usually a problem, but like all of us, there are those days when they’d rather stay home. Perhaps they’re tired, busy doing other things, or in the case of my seven-year-old son, simply find Legos more interesting than having to sit still for an hour.

On this particular Wednesday night, we had dealt with the standard objections over dinner, and by 7:05, everyone was safely ensconced in our normal pew with our heads bowed as one of the deacons opened the service with prayer as only a deacon from a rural Baptist church can. About half way through, he asked God to touch the hearts of “those who could have come tonight but chose not to.”

Not missing a beat, my son piped up, “Well, I didn’t want to come, but I HAD to.”

Minnesotans joke about nature’s two seasons in these parts: winter and road construction. Fair enough; but head off road during repair season and you discover a state rich in natural treasures. Not the least of these is what we affectionately call the “North Shore” of Lake Superior. The beauty of this haunting, ever-changing body of water, with its rugged shoreline and untamed hinterland, is spellbinding.

A recent family trip located me on a secluded balcony high above the waves that lashed the rocky, Superior shoreline below. The evening air was warm and fresh—the kind of air so satisfying you seem to drink it as much as breathe it.

Looking out over the lake just after sunset, darkness shrouded the distinction between water and sky and between water and land. That period of gloom, just before the rising moon and starry hosts illumine the night, veiled the natural wonders before me like a curtain—a dramatic pause anticipating the show that was about to begin.