Human beings have produced no small amount of theories about how the world came to be. These include but are not limited to:
- Pantheism: God is the universe and the universe is God.
- Panentheism: God is present in and suffuses everything in the universe yet is not the universe.
- Deism: God winds up the world like a clock and then steps back and remains distant from it.
- Gnosticism: The evil demiurge, the offspring of Sophia, created the world.
On and on these theories goes. Over against them all is the assertion of the Apostles’ Creed and the biblical truths that undergird it: “I believe in God, the Father almighty; Creator of heaven and earth.”
That God is almighty and Father and that He creates heaven and earth is a foundational truth to all the rest of scripture. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” sets the Creator God over and against all opposing theories. Australian theologian Michael Bird writes:
God is not the creation—so no pantheism; God does not inhabit creation like an impersonal force—so no panentheism; God did not make the world and then permanently go off to lunch—so no deism; nor did an evil demigod create the world—so no Gnosticism. When we confess that God is Creator of heaven and earth, we are saying that God is distinct from creation, God is sovereign over creation, God loves his creation, God is concerned with creation, and God remains active in creation.[1]
Seen rightly, the biblical statement, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” and the creedal statement, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth” are not merely positive assertions. They are also negative critiques. To say that God is (1) exists, (2) is Father, (3) is almighty, and (4) creates, is to rebuke all competing claims as insufficient and wrong.
No, God is not distant and aloof from creation, nor is He somehow trapped within it, nor is He evil thereby making creation evil. Instead, our good God who is Father and almighty makes the heavens and the earth, is outside of them, yet enters them relationally, through providential governance, and in works of power as He so desires. What is more, all of creation bears His fingerprints and so stand as evidence of His existence and His power.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
To this we say, “Amen!” Let us consider what it means that God is “Creator of heaven and earth.”
That God is Creator means that the world has purpose and goodness.
We begin with Genesis 1 and the fundamental assertion of God as Creator.
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
As we have seen, this is an assertion and also a critique. It affirms that God exists and that God creates. It affirms that there is nothing outside of God that God did not make. It affirms that there is nothing before God and that there is no “before God.” Our eternal God makes, He creates, He crafts. And He creates simply out of His own desire and power. There was nothing that compelled Him to do so because there is nothing that could compel Him to do so! He is able to create, desirous of creating, and He creates. It is as simple as that in the picture of Genesis. He does not create out of some stuff that exists outside of Himself. No, He creates ex nihilo, out of nothing.
We must understand how shocking and absurd all of this seemed to other people in the ancient world, people whose conception of God could allow no such creation by fiat. Harold Kuhn gives one such example.
Historically, the Christian assertion of an absolute creation by a transcendent God was not only a scandal of the pagan mind (for example, the Graeco-Roman mind), but it represented as well a threat to the entire thought-world of ancient civilization. As Galen, of the second century after Christ, says: “Moses’ opinion greatly differs from our own and from that of Plato and all the others who among the Greeks have rightly handled the investigation into nature. To Moses, it seems enough that God willed to create a cosmos, and presently it was created; for he believes that for God everything is possible.… We however do not hold such an opinion; for we maintain, on the contrary, that certain things are impossible by nature, and these God would not even attempt to do …” (De Usu Partium Corporis Humani, XII, p. 14).[2]
Do you see? Galen could not conceive of a God powerful enough to simply create when and where and what He wanted to. “[C]ertain things are impossible by nature, and these God would not even attempt to do.” Ah! But our God would attempt to do this and can and did! Our God is not like these other gods!
There is more. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” is also a rebuke to Gnosticism and any and all ideas that creation is evil and the product of an evil God. There is a refrain in Genesis 1. Listen:
3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 And God saw that it was good.
Creation is:
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
This is no cruel game. This is no torture chamber. This is no cosmic prank.
Yes, there is evil in the world. There is pain in the world. There is suffering in the world. The world is fallen, but it was created good. As a matter of fact, it is only because it was created good that we can grieve over the suffering and wickedness and pain of the world! Had the demiurge created us we would never have yearned for a cessation of pain or violence or wickedness, because that would have been all that our hearts knew. But we know better! We know we were made by a good God and for a good God! This means that we can grieve when we see the lack of goodness in the world.
God being the Creator means that creation has purpose and goodness. If creation is an accident, then the best we can hope is to survive it as long as possible until we slip into nothingness. If creation is the evil product of an evil being, then we are nothing but evil people in an evil system who can hope for nothingness instead of spending eternity with the evil being who made this! But if God is, as the creed says, Father and almighty and Creator, then we can trust that there is purpose to existence because a good God has created us. If we reject this, our lives will be affected in a deeply adverse way.
Richard Hess writes:
Ours is a society which has lost an understanding of its source. And without an awareness of the source from which we come and who we are because of it, we lose an understanding of destiny and purpose…Mankind cries out, “Who am I?” and, more profoundly, “Why am I?” The Christian faith has set forth answers which are rooted in the scriptural idea of God as the Creator of all. The confession is simple; the meaning and implications are profound.[3]
Indeed. The implications of having a good Creator keep us from despair and from self-destruction.
That God is Creator means that your life has a focus that transcends creation itself.
The fact that God creates the world without Himself being trapped within it means that we can look outside of creation for the strength needed to live within it. Variations of this theme are present throughout scripture.
In Ecclesiastes 12, for instance, we read:
1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”
In other words, if you reject faith in and a relationship with your Creator, what will you do when “the evil days” come and those late years of life in which you say, “I have no pleasure in them”? What will you do if you have put all of your eggs in the basket of your earthly existence and then your health begins to decline and you approach your last days? Will you not despair?
But if you “remember…your Creator” then you will have a hope outside of creation that will sustain you within creation! If your life does not have a focus outside of creation then all you are stuck with is creation…and that will end in despair!But if you “remember your Creator,” then you have a hope that not only cannot be overcome but it can sustain you throughout your life on earth.
Consider, too, Romans 1, and its depiction of lost and rebellious humanity.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
The answer to lusts that dishonor and destroy us is to worship and serve the Creator! In other words, if the Creator is paramount to us then the creation can be approached rightly and not deified. If our grounding is not ultimately creation but the Creator then we will be equipped to live with proper focus and proportion within creation.
In 1 Peter 4, Peter tells us that a proper relationship with our Creator can help us endure suffering.
19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
Entrusting our souls to our Creator can equip us to endure suffering precisely because our Creator is “faithful.” Meaning, no matter what we suffer or how much we suffer we can believe and know that God not only has not abandoned us but that ultimately He will see us through and receive us to Himself!
The verbs in these three passages are significant.
- Ecclesiastes 12:1, “Remember…your Creator…”
- Romans 1:25, “worship” and “serve” your Creator
- 1 Peter 4:19, “entrust your soul to a faithful Creator”
To do these things is to anchor your hope, your well-being, your peace of mind, and, above all else, your very soul, your eternal destiny, outside of creation, in God Himself. Thus, you do not ultimately have to be defined by the limited and temporary realities of creation. Instead, you can know that the Creator Himself loves you and is for and with you.
That God is Creator means that your life has a trajectory and goal.
Our Creator God also establishes an ultimate trajectory and goal for our lives. Paul, in Colossians 3, beautifully depicts this in terms of our continuous Godward growth and renewal as we draw closer to Him and reject the sin that destroys us. Paul beings with two different lists of the old way of life that we must leave behind.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9a Do not lie to one another…
These things must be “put to death” (v.5), must be “put…away” (v.8). Why? Because:
9b-c seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
That phrase, “the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator” reveals the life-trajectory that the Lord God establishes for us. It is nothing less than Himself! It is nothing less than relationship with Him, yes, but also continuous renewal after the image of our Creator God. We were made by God to move toward God and ultimately be received into the presence of God. How can this be? It can be because our very identity has been defined not by earthly realities—“Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free”—but by Christ Jesus who “is all, and in all.”
We have a Creator and, through Jesus, we can now know Him again. And this changes everything!
Alister McGrath has written beautiful of the difference this makes.
Many people feel frightened and lonely in the world. They are overwhelmed by the thought of the immensity of space. The stars in the night sky seem to emphasize the brevity and unimportance of human life. After all, those stars are billions of miles away and become farther from us with each moment that passes. The light from them now reaching us may have begun its journey centuries ago, long before we were born.
The doctrine of creation allows us to feel at home in the world. It reminds us that we, like the rest of creation, were fashioned by God. We are here because God wants us to be here. We are not alone but are in the very presence of the God who made and owns everything. We are in the presence of a friend who knows us and cares for us. Behind the apparently faceless universe lies a person. The stars in the night sky are then no longer symbols of despair but of joy—the same God who made them also made me and cares for me![4]
To which we say, “Amen, and amen.”
[1] Bird, Michael F. What Christians Ought to Believe. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2016), 70.
[2] https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1961/may-8/basic-christian-doctrines-9-creation.html
[3] https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=03-03-009-f
[4] McGrath, Alister. I believe (p. 32). IVP. Kindle Edition.