There is nothing more natural and right than for a human being to know and love God. He is the Creator, and everything in the universe—including us as human beings—beats out this fact. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork’ (Psa. 19:1). It is also a fact that many don’t ‘hear’ anything but this does not mean it is not happening.
Because God made the world, it belongs to him, and he doesn’t thrown it away like a broken toy when it goes wrong. We are the guests on his property, beneficiaries of his bounty and participators in his project. Better still, we are his heirs because he has created us as his sons and daughters and desires to have us as his family.
There is a difference of course between speculating about God existing and knowing him. Everyone who trusts in Christ is given the right to be called a child of God. Family members then understand the world quite differently to those who have confined themselves to calculating everything on the basis of what visible and measurable.
So what does the Bible creation story tell us about God creating the world? This account occupies the first two chapters of our Bible. Actually, there are two accounts here, the first that tells us the big picture, and the second (spilling over into chapter three) that fills out what is taught in the first one.
The narrative is not written to help us pass a biology exam! Its first readers did not have a degree in science but were surrounded by idol worshippers. The question of how long a ‘day’ is, for example, would not have entered their minds and doesn’t need to trouble us either as we try to understand the story.
Idol worshippers believed their idols had made the world and that they controlled it in various ways. But idols are human inventions and they reflect what humans do—they squabble, compete and use people to meet their needs. (I’ve put a couple of links below to articles that describe Ancient Near Eastern myths based on various idolatries.) Our Bible reveals something quite different.
It is good that the Bible’s account of creation deals with idolatry rather than science because science can’t answer our big questions. Everyone is built for something big, something more important than anything else. If then, we don’t worship the Creator, we give the importance he should have to some other part of the creation. We make it into and idol. Something must rise up to take the place of the true God. And then we squabble about what is most important! And this becomes a huge problem.
Here are some things we can learn from the Bible’s two creation stories. What I say here will make more sense if you’ve read them, or if you check them off as you go through the article, or read them afterwards.
First, before God, there is nothing. ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ Everything we have and can discover exists because God decides to make it. This rules out the idea that our universe is self-generated or eternal. However it happens, it happens because God makes choices, and speaks.
Second, a home is being created. On the first three days, ‘spaces’ are created and in the second three days, they are filled. God makes light to separate day from night (day one) and then makes the sun, moon and stars to do this job (day four). He makes the air space and the sea (day two) and then birds and fish to occupy them (day five). He separates the land from the sea (day three) and then makes land creatures, including us, to occupy this land (day six). Everything is moving towards creating a suitable place for us to live.
The next creation story (in chapter two) speaks of this as God planting his garden and putting Adam there, and then Eve. Everything here is orderly and purposive and excludes the idea that our universe is the result of random events.
Third, a difference is made between God creating the heavens and the earth, and then animal life and then human life because the word to ‘create’ is used for these three developments rather than the word to ‘form’. God creates the entire inanimate universe (verse 1), and then creates the animal world (verse 20), and then creates human beings (verse 27). In fact God makes us ‘in his image’—that is, like himself, so that we can relate to him and be fitting custodians of his creation. This excludes the idea that we are no more than highly evolved animals. We are a separate act of creation.
Fourth, at each stage, God calls his creation ‘good’. The word means ‘functionally good’—that is, everything has its place in the universe and is needed for everything to work properly. There is nothing that is essentially bad or to be rejected in what God has made.
Then, when he makes us and gives us authority over all that he has made, he calls it ‘very good’. God’s idea of a perfect world is not one we have left alone but one we look after. This excludes the idea that the best parts of the world are the bits we don’t touch. God has made the world to be explored, researched, farmed, engineered, harnessed and enjoyed. But all of this is to be done for God and according to his commands—which includes looking after our neighbour. He is the gracious God who cares about everything and everyone he has made. This excludes the idea that we can ‘rape’ the earth as though profits or convenience or ourselves were all that mattered.
God has no ‘plan B’. He still thinks his creation is good and that it is ‘very good’ for it to be cared for by human beings. This is why his own Son becomes a human being, to do what we are unwilling and unable to do. All authority is given to Jesus Christ to lead humanity back to God and back to what it means to live in God’s creation as his curators.
Fifth, God makes us ‘male and female’. This is linked to our being made in the image of God. And this is made more explicit in the next story (chapter two). Adam is created first and told to cultivate and guard God’s ‘garden’. But being alone is not ‘good’. Adam can’t accomplish his task without the creation of woman as helper.
We will never understand what it means to be human if we blur this distinction between a man and a woman. And we need to see how men and women complement each other when they work together to raise a family, create a true society and take responsibility for everything that needs to be done.
Sixth, everything leads up to the final day—the seventh, when God finishes his creation. And what does he make on that day? Nothing. He rests. It is a kind of goal to which everything is leading.
The Bible makes a lot of the fact that Israel was to keep a day of rest—a sabbath, one day off in seven. We don’t just need a day off. We need to know that the creation does not come into being or continue to its goal by our ceaseless activity, but be realizing that God is our Creator, and that he is still in charge. We all need to do what God gives us to do. No more, but no less.
The seventh day also points to the goal God has in making everything—when the whole creation will be fully developed and glorious, and ruled over by Christ and all his followers (one example of this is in Matthew 19:28).
We will never be able to find something great enough to replace God. Above us, there is a power mightier than anything we can manage, an authority superior to anything we choose and a need to answer to someone whose plan we are part of. Those who ‘hear’ what God is telling us through his creation, and through the Son he sent to make everything clear, are grateful to know there is a Father over this world. They are glad there is a plan that is being worked out even though it doesn’t always appear to be that way. And they trust there is a finished creation for which they are destined.
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Simply True 