God and Creation

Written for Principles of Biblical Theology, Dr. Joshua Madden, September 18, 2019

Genesis 1and 2 state God made the world and everything in it, and God made us in his own image.  Like the angels, man is created in God’s image.  Man is the only one of God’s creations to be in His image.  It sets us apart from the rest of earthly creation. 

God gave us dominion over other living things.  We are called to be good stewards of what God has given us.  We are to take care of the earth, its animals and plants, just as God cares for us.  God made us, God loves us, and he wants us to share that love not just by returning it to him, but by giving love to his other creations.

Proverbs 8 states that it is through Wisdom that kings reign, princes govern, and justice is enacted.  Christians today can recognize Wisdom as the Holy Spirit.  The people at the time would not have, since the emphasis in the Old Testament is on the one God, and the Trinity was yet to be revealed.  But they would have recognized Wisdom to be from God, and so the juxtaposition of rulers and God, especially in a time and place where kings and princes ruled with absolute authority, is a strong image.  Yet even more so than those kings and princes, God has ultimate authority.  Wisdom states “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.” (Proverbs 8:17)  God loves us; God loves us back, and if we look for him, we will find him.  We may have lost Eden, but we can never lose God, unless we choose to turn away from him.  We can’t truly comprehend who God is, what God has and continues to do for us, how much he loves us. 

Scripture is written for all peoples, for all time.  The science of creation is not relevant in Scripture; scripture is salvation history, not a scientific treatise.  Salvation history would not be amplified by a discussion of the need for dinosaurs to create oil for the people of thousands of years in the future.  Salvation history is for all people, who are all called to understand is that God is God (and we are not).  How much do we owe God, who is always the perfect good, loving and forgiving parent?  We owe him nothing less than everything – all our love, all our life.

Dauphinais and Levering state, in the first and last sentences of page 32 in Holy People, Holy Land: “In short, Eden is a place where God, who is spirit, profoundly dwells spiritually with human beings.” . . . “An infinitely more intense communion in God’s holy life awaits Adam and Eve, if they continue to embrace God’s love.”

That is what awaits us, too.  Although we lost Eden, we never lost God.  Dauphinais and Levering quote Milton:  “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”  If we don’t close our hearts to God, we receive the gift of being permitted to serve in heaven, to live within the blessed seventh day, to rest within the presence of God.

God so loves us that even though Adam and Eve turned away, even though Cain murders and lies, and even though stories of turning away from God repeat throughout the Bible, God never abandons us.  Overall, Creation is the story of all God gives us, freely, as gifts.  The Fall is the story of how we lose all that is good when we turn from God. 

Our relation to God is simply summarized by the answer to the sixth question in the old Baltimore Catechism: “Q. Why did God make you? A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”