IN THE BEGINNING

The phrase "In the beginning" is familiar to all who have the read the Bible. It is the first phrase in the Bible. It is grammatically a prepositional phrase. Beginning of what? It is the beginning of the created or visible world. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth is the full verse of Genesis 1:1. God is the cause of the visible world we call the creation. The word creation means that the world did not exist prior to God’s causing it to exist. This means that nothing existed prior to God.

This means that God had to create the world out of nothing since nothing existed prior to God. Matter is thus not eternal as the Greeks have presupposed but the direct creation of a Creator. God as the ultimate Cause has the power of action to bring about the results He desires. This power of action is also personal. Therefore, God is the personal Creator. To be spiritual is also to be personal. Thus, God’s created world is a personal world.

Anything that renders the world impersonal is false doctrine. All false doctrines make God an impersonal God and a God that is not spiritual. An impersonal God is one who is not the First Cause. An impersonal God becomes at best a superman, not the Ultimate Cause. An impersonal God is more an effect than a cause. An impersonal world frees man from being accountable to a Creator. This is why man apart from God desires to make the world impersonal. He thinks that it will make him not accountable to anyone but himself.

The world that God created is governed upon the principle of cause and effect. Not just cause and effect but ethical cause and effect. All causes are spiritual and thus, personal. Man is a cause but always a secondary one. Causes possess the power of action and this power of action will always be personal. When someone murders another, it is done personally. Murder is performed with the hands and since hands come in pairs, they serve as double witnesses that the personal actions of the murderer are evil.

We all have personalities. Personality is spiritual because it is invisible. This personality of the individual allows the person to perform actions. The rule is, change the cause and the effect will change. Change the heart of the individual (cause) from sinner to saint and the actions (effects) of the person will go from evil to good. This is why the heart (the cause of action) must be changed. If the cause remains the same, the effect will remain the same.

When talking about ethical cause and effect, we are to understand that the law of God is personal. Since God governs the world based upon ethical cause and effect and He is a personal God and we are made in His image, it follows that we are to base our actions upon the spiritual or personal. Romans 7:14 informs us "For we know that the law of God is spiritual..." i.e. personal. Understanding cause and effect makes us responsible for our actions. The law of cause and effect engenders personal responsibility for our actions.