A Mighty Hero!

Excerpted from my upcoming book, Holy Heroes of the Bible:

Marvel's Avengers are knowns as "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" and, among them, Thor holds the title of "the mightiest Avenger." Yet, even the mightiest of Earth's mightiest heroes recognizes a Hero far mightier than himself. In The Mighty Thor Annual #14, the son of Odin confesses, "Even I, son of one of the mightiest gods, find it impossible to conceive of such levels of power! And 'tis a humbling thought to consider how much greater the Creator of all universes must be than that of all His creations combined!"[1]

As Thor points out, nothing reveals God's inconceivable might more clearly than the creation of the universe. Genesis 1 sums up the creation of the cosmos in the very first sentence: "God created the heavens and the earth." The phrase "the heavens and the earth" encompasses all of creation—the entire universe: quarks, neutrons, hydrogen, stars, planets, galaxies, gravity, even time and space. The sheer vastness of the universe boggles the mind. Just think about the stars for a moment. Those gleaming lights twinkling against a black velvet sky are overwhelming not just in splendor, but in number. Have you ever tried counting the stars? Three hundred years ago astronomers believed there were just over a thousand stars in the universe, today we know that there are as many as 300,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy alone, which is just one of billions more galaxies stretched across the cosmos. Reflecting on the cosmic creation event, the psalmist wrote, "The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born" (Psalm 33:6 NLT). As Thor admitted, it seems "impossible to conceive of such levels of power." Yet, verse one is just the beginning. The rest of the chapter zeroes in on the creation of the earth and everything in it—the oceans, rivers, land, mountains, trees, plants, animals, and even human beings. God is big enough to breathe out stars, yet delicate enough to fashion together the trillions of cells that make up every facet of who you are. And with each act of creation, the Bible tells us, "God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25).

Let's conduct an experiment. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Now, create and ocean. Can't do it? Try something smaller, like a gazelle or giraffe. Still nothing? How about something super simple like an ameba or an atom? Didn't work, did it? That's because human beings don't possess the power to create something out of nothing. Only God does!

Speaking of all the wonders God wrought on earth and throughout the heavens, Job says, “These are just the beginning of all that he does, merely a whisper of his power. Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?” (Job 26:14 NLT). Even today with our ever-expanding knowledge of the universe and the atom, we’re still just seeing a whisper of his power, "the outer fringe of his works" (NIV).

Scripture frequently speaks of God's "mighty power" (Exodus 14:31) and "the power of his mighty hand" (Exodus 13:14). The Bible says, "He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God" (Deuteronomy 10:17) and "The Lord, the Mighty One, is God!" (Joshua 22:22). As evidenced by his incredible creation, God is a mighty hero. In fact, God isn't just a mighty hero, he's the Almighty Hero!

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[1] Marvel Comics. The Mighty Thor Annual (Vol 1) #14 (1989)