By: Larry Young
I am always amazed how mere human beings somehow think they share some kind of equality with God or Jesus. Of course, there’s plenty of certifiable “whackos” who think that they ARE God. However, the really scary ones are those who have a huge following and claim that they are indeed God’s exclusive representative on earth. So just how great is God?
To even have a discussion about God’s greatness, we need a trustworthy document or foundation to work from, namely the Bible. So when God said in Genesis 1: 1 that in the beginning He created the Heavens and the Earth, let’s accept it. But what does that really mean? My wife and I drove to Glacier Point in Yosemite late one clear night, and an astronomy club was there with every imaginable telescope pointed at the sky. They were eager for us to look through their telescopes to glimpse the size of the Heavens. We told them this showed the marvelous work of God, but their response was that it was too big for there to be a God. Size apparently matters, so the size of the Heavens must fit inside the size of the universe. Can you comprehend the size of the universe? Certainly not. But God comprehends it, because He created it all, motivated by an equally great love for His creation. The Bible proclaims that “God is love”. (1John 4:8)
The observable universe is roughly 93 billion light-years in diameter, but the entire universe is much larger, and is estimated to be at least 23 trillion light-years in diameter, and even possibly infinite. One light-year is the distance that light travels in one year, which is 5.879 x 10,000,000,000,000 miles. Nobody but God or Jesus can actually comprehend the distance in one light-year, much less 23 trillion light-years. So how is it that any human being thinks that they have some kind of equality with God?
God could by a single thought cause the entire earth, our solar system, Milky Way galaxy, or all creation to simply disappear. Can any mere man do that? Nope. Would God do that? Of course not… but only because of His undeniable love for His created beings and His creation. God sent his one and only son Jesus down to this miserable teeny-weeny planet to save man from total self-destruction and to offer man a way to live happily and in harmony with God and Jesus for eternity.
God already regretted creating man prior to the great planetary flood, but His love allowed an unworthy remnant to escape in an ark, animals included. Next time, His love will allow another living & resurrected remnant to escape the great planetary destruction, by taking them all up in the air and away from this total loss of a planet to Heaven. So how is it that any human being thinks that they are going to help execute any part of that plan alongside God?
That’s why the prophet describes man in Isaiah 64: 6 “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (literally menstrual cloths); We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Yet in spite of our despicable lost condition, God’s love for us was expressed through the perfect loving Jesus, treated as the chief of sinners and crucified on a wooden cross. Jesus received the death sentence that we deserved, so that we can receive the gift of eternal life that He deserved. How Great Thou Art!!!