ELECTRICITY &
A HOLY GOD

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10

To my Cherished Friend,

I have visited several libraries in the past month and I've spent many hours researching books on electrical phenomena, so please indulge my excitement and allow me to share with you what I've learned about electricity!

As a scientist I fully admit that I cannot see the universe as God sees it, yet, of all His created wonders, electricity seems to best reflect the Lord's holiness. Christ's holiness--who can comprehend it? Like electricity, it is invisible, powerful, and mysterious. Holiness is the very essence of God, so it is good that we strive to understand it. I can not presume how much you know about electricity, so please permit me to start at the beginning.

Science is truly invigorating--no matter how much I study the creation I'm frequently amazed at how skillfully and orderly the Creator has fashioned the heavens and the earth. Practically everything in the universe, including you and me, is made of atoms: countless millions, billions, trillions of atoms! Atoms are the bricks or building blocks God used to construct His creation.

Atoms are far too small to be seen by microscopes, even the most powerful microscopes. We know of their existence, however, by using equally complicated instruments. The atom is the smallest piece of matter that can exist by itself, normally. It is actually created from even tinier particles (protons, neutrons, and electrons) which are "uncomfortable" being by themselves, though occasionally they can be in that state.

Think of an atom as a "family" of particles. At the center of the atom are the protons and neutrons. They form the nucleus--"parents," if you will. Running around the outer edges of the atomic household are the "children," the electrons. Electrons are much smaller than the protons and neutrons, which are roughly equal in size. (I'm afraid the picture I drew of an atom on the left is far too elementary!

"So what does the atom have to do with electricity?" you may be asking. Please let me explain. Most metals (aluminum, iron, copper, gold, etc.) conduct electricity well. Metallic objects are made of atoms with numerous orbiting electrons, and frequently some of these electrons "go exploring." A copper wire can be used to illustrate this principle. One or more electrons in the outermost orbits of a copper atom sometimes "leaves home," at least for awhile. This is because some of the electrons surrounding the copper atoms are held in orbit quite loosely and can travel freely from one copper atom to another and back again. If properly motivated, several of the electrons from the billion or more copper atoms in the wire can be made to pass from one atom to another to another, down the wire. They thus form a current of electrons, like the current of a river.

The impetus for such an electron current can be a battery or a generator. An ordinary battery acts as a pump, moving the electrons along much the way gravity draws water in a stream downhill. The pressure the battery creates to push the electrons is measured in volts, in honor of Alessandro Volta, who invented the battery in 1800. We refer to this current of electrons as electricity. (Electricity can also be made to pass through certain liquids and gases. In this case, however, whole atoms may carry the electric charge, not just the electrons of the atoms.)

Likening electricity to a river can help explain other electrical properties as well. The amount of electricity, or current, passing through a wire is measured in amperes. An ampere represents a specific number of electrons passing along the wire each second. A 100-watt light bulb uses almost one ampere of current, which amounts to approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000 (six quintillion, or six billion billion) electrons flowing through the bulb every second! It follows that the greater the amperes of electricity moving in a wire, the larger the current, just as the greater the volume of water moving down river each second, the stronger the river's current will be.

As with any moving body of water (river, stream, estuary), there can be rocks, logs, and other obstacles impeding the flow and creating noise as water splashes against them. Likewise, electrons of electricity often bump into the atoms of the wire in which they are moving, creating not noise, but heat as a result. (In the case of our 100-watt light bulb, both heat and light are produced.) Thus, the resistance to water flow (rocks) in a river creates sound, whereas the resistance to electricity in a wire (atoms) produces heat. You can prove this to yourself by carefully touching the cord that leads to a heavy appliance, like a refrigerator.

We are probably most familiar with electricity's ability to light our homes, drive our fans, and power our radios. Offices, factories, and hospitals all use electricity produced with modern generators. King Solomon once said, however, that there was nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Certainly the truth of this statement can be seen with electricity, for the Lord God was generating it centuries before mankind tapped into it as a source of energy.

One of the more obscure, but important natural sources of electricity can be found in mineral crystals. Several hundred different kinds of minerals can be made to produce electric current by applying pressure to them. Examples are quartz, mica, calcite, and tourmaline. The amount of electricity (known as piezoelectricity, and pronounced PIE - eh - zo - electricity) that crystals produce is tiny, but useful and fascinating. A common piece of quartz will spark if struck by a hammer. (I would not recommend doing this without proper safety gear, such as protective eye-wear.) This property of piezoelectricity is used in quartz watches and precision clocks to provide incredibly accurate timekeeping.

Any traveler to the Amazon basin of Brazil, or the Orinoco basin of Venezuela, is acutely aware of another source of electricity found in their murky waters. Unsuspecting visitors risk serious injury or even death! Yeshua deliberately designed a breathing, eating, swimming high-voltage "machine" that populates certain rivers of South America. Electrophorus electricus, or electric eel, is a marvel of the created world.

This master of shock, though not really an eel, is in a unique class of fishes. Approximately 40 different electric eels can be found worldwide, but it is this Amazonian fish that generates considerable fascination and dread in scientists and lay people alike.

Even a newborn electric eel can cause a tingling sensation in the hand of anyone brave enough to pick one up. By the time it is three feet long, E. electricus can produce 350 volts of electricity. (Electricity in most U.S. homes is 120 to 240 volts.) Record-breaking fish, six feet long, have been found to generate up to 650 volts of electricity! This is enough to stun a swimming horse which accidentally comes too close.

The Heavenly Father placed three main electricity-producing organs in the tail of the electric eel, which takes up 80 percent of the entire length of the fish. The largest of these organs generates the high voltage it uses to protect itself and hunt for food. The other electric organs generate low levels of electricity, not for hunting or defense, but as a way to communicate with other electric eels, and as a method of detecting its surroundings. Isn't that incredible?! These weaker electrical signals are used to navigate the muddy Amazon and Orinoco rivers, much like a bat uses high-frequency sound waves to "see" at night. In fact, adult electric eels often become blind due to frequent exposure to their own powerful electric surges, and come to depend on the Creator's provision of this alternate sense. (And we thought the "electric eye" was our invention?!)

Certain species of freshwater catfish also produce strong electric currents,1 and a group of disc-shaped, ocean-going fish, known as rays, function as living batteries. The circuitry of the electric eels and the electric catfish are in series. Christ wired the "batteries" of the electric ray, however, in parallel. This means that the electric ray can produce fewer volts, usually in the range of 20 to 200 volts, at a time. These rays live in salt water, however, and since saltwater conducts electricity far better than freshwater, less voltage is needed to stun a prey or ward off an enemy.

The electric current that rocks and fish can generate is an energetic praise to their Maker, but the world knows of a natural source of electricity that far exceeds these. This greatest of the Heavenly Father's electrical phenomena can produce currents of 100 million volts and 20,000 amperes! One hundred times each second, lightning strikes somewhere on earth. With it comes the greatest example of electron power anywhere on this planet, for a single bolt of lightning produces more electricity in the briefest moment of time than all the man-made electrical generators on earth combined!

Nature is full of Christ's glory (Isaiah 6:3), yet nothing in the world tells of God's holiness like the awesome spectacle of lightning. The blinding veins of glowing air briefly reflect the brilliant purity and mystery of the Lord like no other event in creation.
No one really knows exactly how lightning is created, though Benjamin Franklin was the first to realize that lightning is caused by electricity. It is electricity that causes the sky to light up, but the electricity itself is invisible. Like the filament in our light bulb,2 the air provides resistance to the flow of electrons which leads to the production of incredible heat and light. The air around a lightning bolt can toast to 50,000° F., five times the temperature of the sun's surface!

You've probably experienced an electrical discharge which jumped from your hand to a doorknob after you walked across a room in winter. As your feet brushed against the carpet or rug, electrons were transferred from the floor to your body. Then, as you approached a grounded object, like a doorknob, the electrons formed a current and leaped from your fingers to whatever you were about to touch (provided it was a good conductor of electricity).

A thunderstorm operates on the same basic principle, only it is far more complicated and immense. Although we don't know precisely how the Lord does it, electrical charges are separated in a thundercloud much like charge is separated in a dry cell creating the positive and negative ends of a battery. Typically, the base of the storm cloud becomes negatively charged and the top becomes highly positive. While a household battery may have a potential of one-and-a-half to nine volts, depending on the type, a cumulonimbus cloud may charge to an electrical potential of 100 million volts, relative to the ground! It's not hard to see how much greater God is than us!

The earth below the base of a thundercloud develops a strong positive charge which "shadows" the negatively charged cloud above. Now, air is a very good insulator and a large amount of current must be generated to cause electricity to pass through it. It is one thing to produce a spark off the tip of your index finger, and quite another to get a lightning bolt to travel several miles uninterrupted through the air!

Research has led us into the engineering mind of our Creator. It is thought that the violent turbulence of a thunderhead, with its powerful updrafts and downdrafts, is what causes the charges in the cloud to separate and create the potential for lightning. Once enough charge has built up, the electrons gathered in the base of the thundercloud rush downward toward earth with a brilliant flash and an explosion of sound.

I must now confess that I have grossly oversimplified the explanation! I am quickly learning that just about everything that the Spirit of Christ has made is much more complicated than it first appears. (What does that tell us about Him?) I will, therefore, endeavor to give you a slightly more accurate look at what is actually happening when lightning is created, but first, take a deep breath.

A lightning bolt, referred to as a lightning flash by many scientists, is actually composed of several distinct up and down strokes which are not apparent to the naked eye. In the first fraction of a second of a typical lightning flash electrical current starts to proceed downward from the cloud toward the ground in a step-like fashion. It is analogous to using several sticks of dynamite to create a long tunnel in a solid, granite mountain, one blast at a time, so that tracks can be laid and a train allowed to pass. This first stroke of electricity does little to light up the sky--it does not create the brilliant flash that typifies lightning. It does, however, create a channel in the air in which the train of electricity can then travel. As this initial stroke (called the stepped leader stroke because it occurs in steps) approaches the ground, a second stroke (called the return stroke) advances upward at one-third the speed of light! During this return stroke the flash of light and associated thunder, characteristic of lightning, is produced--so you could say that lightning travels up.

Most lightning starts in a cloud and either moves to another cloud or to the ground. It is also possible for lightning to begin at the ground and proceed to a cloud. Confused yet? Take heart, it gets more complicated!

An average thundercloud releases two to three lightning bolts per minute. A severe storm, however, may produce a flash every two or three seconds, with one out of four hitting the ground!

The electric current which causes lightning is only an inch in diameter, allowing for the thin appearance of most lightning flashes. Lightning can also present itself as a ribbon or a string of beads. One of the most bizarre and rare types of lightning is ball lightning. Unlike normal lightning, which forms continuous branches in the air, ball lightning can shoot out of a cloud, akin to a meteor falling from the sky. Like some portly beast, it is usually round in shape and several inches in diameter. It has been observed as red, blue, yellow, or white in color, traveling along the ground at a horse's trot, sometimes hissing, and then exploding upon impact with a stationary object. Most lightning flashes last less than one-half second in duration, but lightning balls may survive for several seconds to a minute or more. One person even described a ball of lightning entering the back door of her home, and rolling along the kitchen floor before disappearing. How strange!

Am I mistaken in seeing the Lord's holiness in electricity, especially lightning? I don't think I am. Did you know that one of the names for God, El Shaddai, can be translated, "the thunderer"? It is written that God's glory streams forth from His holiness (Isaiah 6:3). Likewise, the brilliance of lightning is an outward manifestation of giant streams of invisible electricity coursing through the atmosphere. Now, please permit me to fully explain my comparison of holiness to electricity.

The Hebrew word for "holy" has two distinct meanings. One is purity. When we say that God is holy we are saying He is pure. Almost everything in creation is a complex and carefully designed mixture of atoms and molecules. Electricity is an exception, however, because it is truly pure--it is made of only one thing--electrons.

The dominant meaning of the word holy is "foreign," "unique," or "separate." In his book, The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul describes holiness as "the infinite distance that separates Him (God) from every creature."3 In this sense, electricity does reflect the Lord's holiness. Possessing no atoms or molecules, it is unique in the physical creation. Electricity is quite foreign to our concept of matter.

My special friend, we can plainly see that God took on the challenge of creating something that shouldn't be able to exist; this is especially true for lightning. Getting trillions of electrons to move away from their comfortable "homes"--the atoms in which they reside--and travel through the atmosphere is like getting a school of fish to leave the ocean and fly through the air! (By the way, God has been able to accomplish this as well!)

We can also characterize Christ's holiness as His "consuming majesty."4 We catch a glimpse of this in the image of a lightning bolt hitting a tree. The enduring strength of an oak is no match for the power of electricity. Instantly, wood is reduced to fragments; bark and splinters explode outward in all directions. Dr. Sproul, who is a well-respected theologian, likens God's holiness to "divine energy,"5 something to be reverenced, even feared. When Isaiah saw the holiness of God in the temple, the only appropriate thing he could say was "Woe to me!...I am ruined!" (Isaiah 6:5). In another translation he cries, "...for I am undone!" (KJV).

In his book Wires and Watts, Irwin Math states that "no one has ever seen electricity."6 Remember, the lightning we view in the night sky is the result of electricity overcoming the resistance of the air through which it passes, creating heat and light in the process; we don't actually see the electricity itself. No one has ever seen God face-to-face either (John 1:18). In electricity, we therefore "see" reflected the invisible holiness of God!

I have another thought for you--compared to most metals Christ Jesus created, gold and silver conduct electricity best.7 Is it a coincidence that God also used these precious metals many years ago to build His temple and bring light to His holiness? Adorned with silver and gold, He used His temple to conduct His unseen holiness to the world (1Kings 6 & Ezra 6)!

It doesn't surprise me that, as a society, we have some respect for lightning. Each year, a thousand people are struck by lightning in the United States alone.8 It does amaze me that so many people have no regard for Christ's holiness! A notable example is the account of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, found in Leviticus, chapter ten. They used poor judgment regarding rituals of worship. They disobeyed God and carelessly came in contact with God's holiness. As a result, they were instantly killed by fire. The similarity between this Biblical account and news stories of people using bad judgment during thunderstorms is striking (no pun intended)!

Electricity is invisible, yet potentially very powerful. God's holiness is invisible, and infinitely powerful. If we are frightened by lightning and thunder, how much more should we give the Heavenly Father His due respect?

The temple no longer conducts the holiness of our Heavenly Father--the Lord Jesus Christ does! As lightning is to electricity, Jesus is the visible manifestation of the invisible Holy God!

My dearest friend, there is only one way to truly worship God and be part of His kingdom. God our Father does not want you to dedicate yourself to religion, but commit yourself to a relationship with Christ Jesus, His Son. Christ, being the One and Holy God, humbled Himself and died on a cross so that our sins could be forgiven. His divine energy can be yours, and His holiness will light you up from the inside out if you let Him into your life. If you are willing you can become a saint, His holy one, not by anything you've done, but by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Him alone.

Thank you for letting me share with you what I've learned. If you have not yet made the decision to follow Jesus, please make it now! Simply pray the prayer below; then, live your life for Him!

In the warmth and sincerity of Christ's love,

Your Friend

NOTES
1. An example of an electric catfish is Malapterurus electricus, which lives in rivers and lakes of tropical Africa, and can produce electric shocks of 350 volts!
2. A light bulb filament is made of tungsten, which becomes very hot and glows when current is passed through it.
3. R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.: Wheaton, 1985), p.19.
4. ibid., p. 55.
5. ibid., p. 19.
6. Irwin Math, Wires and Watts: Understanding and Using Electricity, (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York: 1981), p. 7.
7. The three metals that conduct electricity best are silver, copper, and gold.
8. NOVA: Lightning!, (WGBH Educational Foundation, Boston: 1995).