Last month we considered the vast celestial system and the billions of stars which God has created. Now let us turn our attention to the planets of our solar system, of which there are nine: Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. These are given in the order of their distances from the sun. They have no light of their own, but reflect the light of the sun in varying degrees. Each planet revolves on its axis, and each travels a regular orbit about the sun. The planets range in size from Mercury the smallest with a diameter of 3012 miles (the earth is 7926 miles at the equator) to Jupiter the largest with an equatorial diameter of 88,800 miles. The earth is medial in size; there are four smaller and four larger ones.
Notwithstanding the relative smallness of the earth when compared to an innumerable host of stellar bodies, it is the most important orb in the heavens for several reasons. It is here and here alone that man is found. Quite obviously no life can exist on the surface of the burning stars, and from all astronomical observations it seems conclusive that there can be no life of any kind on any of the known planets except Earth, which thus occupies a unique place in the universe of God.
These considerations take us back to Genesis 1 and 2, where we have the divine record of God's having originally created the earth. Next we are told of a subsequent chaotic state, and finally God's careful preparation of the earth for man, after which He created man in His own likeness and image, and gave him dominion over the earth. A verse in Isaiah is conclusive proof to the Christian that God did not create the earth in a chaotic state-"He created it not in vain" (chaotic). Chap. 45:18. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God." Heb. 11:3.
We are not told how or when the chaotic state came about, but merely that it was such and that darkness covered the face of the deep at the time when God began to prepare it for man. Sufficient room is left between the first and second verses of Genesis 1 to account for all the real and conjectured ages of the geologists and psuedo-geologists. God merely tells us of its original creation and then passes down to the time of its being readied for the human family. We need not concern ourselves with what or how many changes it may have undergone. What we need to know, God has told us; that is, He created it originally and then later set it in order for man. After all was ready, the Godhead took counsel: "Let us make man in our image [representative], after our likeness [moral likeness, sinless]." This is how man came to be upon the earth—all the vain reasoning and conceit of man notwithstanding. God created him and gave him to be its lord, but alas, he soon sinned and fell. He lost the likeness of God, but still retains His image, or is His representative here.
The sun and stars were created in God's original work, but all was placed in its present relation to the earth in the week of His work of preparation. We now learn from astronomers that the earth is 92,897,000 miles distant from the sun. God knew just exactly what distance was needed to have it do its part in sustaining life on earth. If it were much closer to the earth, then everything would be burned up; were it much farther away, everything would have been enveloped in a perpetual deep freeze.
Each year the earth travels 583,400,000 miles around the sun at a velocity of about 66,000 miles per hour (this makes all man's boasted speed of travel look insignificant) and it never falters nor needs repair. Its speed is constant. Here again we see the wisdom of God in the speed and in the size of the earth's orbit, for if this were changed it would affect its relation to the sun with resultant disaster for life on earth.
The earth is tilted 23 degrees on its axis; this produces our seasons with utmost regularity. And God has promised that while the earth remains, "Seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." Gen. 8:22. If the earth were not thus tilted, life would soon have become impossible here, for without the warming of the polar regions as they are briefly turned toward the sun each year, their increasing accumulation of snow and ice would soon affect all the water balance of the whole earth.
Every 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds the earth makes a complete revolution on its axis, and this does not change by even a second from generation to generation. Man cannot make such a timepiece. At the equator the earth's surface moves slightly more than 1000 miles per hour. Let us consider how very important this rotation is to our very existence. Saturn makes its rotation in only 101/2 hours, which if done by the earth, the days and nights would be far too short for proper benefit to be derived from the sun; for example, it takes the long hot days of summer to mature the corn and other crops. Mercury, on t h e contrary, only revolves on its axis once in 88 days. Just think of long dark nights 88 times 24 hours; or the hot burning sun for 88 long days without intermittence. To add to the comparison, Mercury also travels on its orbit about the sun in 88 days; thus by the same timing for its rotation and revolution it always keeps just one side toward the sun. If this were true of the earth, then one side would be burned up and the other side cold, to say nothing of the fact that all the weather and water would be disrupted.
In God's preparation of the earth, He placed the moon in its present relationship as a satellite of earth. It travels in an orbit around the earth. Six other planets also have satellites, or moons—Mars and Neptune have two each, Uranus five, Saturn nine, and Jupiter el even. These are planets. Earth's moon is the sometimes called secondary "lesser light" which God set to rule the night, and the "greater light" was to rule the day. We might consider the typical significance of these in that the Lord Jesus is spoken of as "the Sun of righteousness" by Malachi, and He will truly be the Light that will rule the millennial day, while morally, at present, this world is enveloped in the darkness of night. The true Light once entered the world and was cast out of it; since then it has been a long dark night. The Church has been set for light here while the Sun of righteousness is hidden. The Church, like the moon, has no light of its own, but sheds reflected light on this poor darkened scene.
People little realize the important place that the moon plays in the affairs of earth. To mention just one thing, the tides of the oceans (which in some places rise to 50 and 60 feet) are created through the gravitational pull of the moon. The moon keeps an average distance from the earth of 238,860 miles. Suppose that this were only half that distance; then the tides would be so great as to engulf large areas of the world.
We may well apply the words of the Apostle Paul, when he thought on the wonders of God's dispensational ways with men, to the wonders everywhere apparent in creation, if men only had eyes to see them: "0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen." Rom. 11:33-36. Man was God's crowning work of creation, and then He abundantly supplied him with everything needful, and many things for his pleasure and comfort. All creation is an intricately woven pattern of most delicate balance—the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat, the sunshine and the rain, the great ocean currents ("the paths of the sea"), and the winds which we feel, besides the great jet streams of air which move at tremendous velocity in the higher elevations.
David sang of God's wonders in the creation of the human body, saying, "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"; and then he adds, "Marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." Psalm 139:14. "O LORD, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches." Psalm 104:24.
God not only placed man on earth, but He gave it to him, as we read, "The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD'S: but the earth hath He given to the children of men." Psalm 115:16. The man is going to stay where God put him; he is not going on interplanetary trips. Such schemes are only the speculations of dreamers. Today there are some people who publish books in all seriousness claiming to have talked with visitors from other planets, and some even claim to have made trips with these visitors in space ships. Such aberrations are wildest flights of fancy, or else hoaxes for the purpose of deceiving the simple.
But there is still a stronger claim for the pre-eminence of the earth above all other heavenly orbs; that is, this is the place where God has been revealed. After man sinned and brought ruin into the scene that God had pronounced very good, he was tried in various ways to see if there could be any recovery. At every fresh test, man only failed, and often more signally than before. Finally God sent His beloved Son into this world. Yes, this small orb is the very place where God came in human form. He came into the scene of His own creation, only to be refused. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." John 1:10. He came in lowly guise—was born in a stable, was a carpenter, a lowly and poor Man who at times had not where to lay His head. He who was so truly human that He was weary with His journey and sat on the well at Samaria, was the Lord of glory. He who came "full of grace and truth" met poor sinners where they were.
"Thou wast 'the image' in man's lowly guise,
Of the invisible to mortal eyes;
Come from His bosom, from the heavens above,
We see in Thee incarnate, 'God is love.'
"No curse of law, in Thee was sov'reign grace,
And now what glory in Thine unveiled face!
Thou didst attract the wretched and the weak,
Thy joy the wand'rers and the lost to seek."
The earth bears this distinction, that here it was that
God was pleased to reveal Himself in the Person of His Son. It was here on this terrestrial globe that angels for the first time beheld their Creator. (See Luke 2:13, 14 and 1 Tim. 3:16.) God spoke to the fathers in the Old Testament times, by the prophets, but after that, He spoke in the Person of His Son (Heb. 1:1, 2). Wonder of wonders that God should come so near to His poor fallen creatures! and that He should occupy Himself with this little orb. The Apostle John said by revelation: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us)." 1 John 1:1, 2.
That blessed One came so near that they could hear, nor was it indistinctly; they could see, and not obscurely, for He remained long enough for men to contemplate Him; they could even handle Him, as John who rested on His bosom at supper time, and alas, He was taken by wicked hands and crucified.
When He was here He was light revealing darkness, but He was also love. If there had been only light it would have repelled the sinner, but the love drew many to Him. The poor woman d the 4th of John, did not respond to His overtures of love and offers of a gift, so He as light exposed her whole life in His presence. This together with the love that first manifested itself to her brought out a full confession of her sins, and at the same time won her heart.
"Thou the light that showed our sin,
Showed how guilty we had been:
Thine the love that us to save,
Thine own Son for sinners gave."
The physical wonders of creation may well astonish us, but the glory of God revealed in Jesus the Son on earth is beyond words to express. Truly this earth is the center of all God's ways, and the place where His love, His grace, His goodness, His holiness and truth, are also displayed. Everything meets in the Son, and fully at the cross. There too the perverse wickedness of the human heart was told out to its fullest extent—its innate hatred to God when He came in grace and truth.
Well may we praise Him for this display of His heart. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." 1 John 4:9. His beneficent goodness to His creature in creation is wonderful, but all pales into comparative insignificance before the full revelation of HIMSELF It is in this that we learn to know God.
"O God, how wide Thy glory shines!
How high Thy wonders rise!
Known through the earth by thousand signs,
By thousands through the skies.
"Those mighty orbs proclaim Thy power;
Their motions speak Thy skill;
And on the wings of ev'ry hour
We read Thy patience still.
"Part of Thy name divinely stands
On ev'ry work impressed;
Each is the labor of Thy hands
By each Thy power's confessed.
"But when we view Thy strange design
To save rebellious worms,
Where vengeance and compassion join
In their divinest forms:
"Here Thy bright character is known,
Nor dares a creature guess
Which of the glories brightest shone
The justice or the grace.
"Now the full glories of the Lamb
Adorn the heavenly throne,
While saints on earth that know His name,
Their Lord and Savior own.
"How blest are we who have a part
In the immortal song!
Wonder and joy become our heart,
And praise and thanks, our tongue."