A Brief Reflection on God and Creation, Pt. One
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the dep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” - Genesis 1:1-2
When we confess our faith, we say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth…” It's not unreasonable to conclude that the outset of all things is related to the outset of who we believe God to be and that the beginning of all things is also the beginning of our faith. If, however, I bring up the subject with many believers, it isn’t the symmetry and totality of Scripture’s testimony to who God is as Creator that first comes to mind but debates about the recency or antiquity of creation and whether the six days that form the structure of Genesis 1 are 24 hour days or not. It’s not that such debates are unimportant, but I think they often obscure and distract us from considering the bigger picture the Bible presents about God, the Creator. Let’s consider just a few brush strokes of this “bigger picture.”
The Creator-Creature Distinction
If God is the creator of all things, then the things he has made and we make with those things are not God. Paul wrote that the beautiful sign language of the created world reveals God’s invisible attributes; given the majesty of the language and the darkness of our hearts, it isn’t surprising that we turned from God to “worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1). Whether gods of the Sun or valleys and volcanoes, fertility, moons, and mountains, we have tended to see in the power of nature the personality of a god rather than a testimony to the true and only living God.
The Bible testifies that God, who made all things, needs nothing he has made and can’t be confused with what he has made. Creation isn’t eternal, but God is, and the One who first made all things will make all things new. This frees us from superstition before the face of nature’s power and loveliness, inviting us to enter it with thanks to God for its song and faithfully steward it with his care.
Ours is a world-affirming faith, not a world-denying mysticism. This faith calls us to a profound responsibility to hear “the groaning of creation” together with our unspeakable sighs, trusting the groanings of the Spirit to bring beauty from ashes (Romans 8). Far from despising nature on the one hand or worshipping it on the other, we are called to walk with God in it as his vice-regents over it, to care for and cultivate it for his glory and the good of others. “And God saw that it was good” is not canceled by our rebellion; the current enslavement of creation is not permanent, and the world's imperfections will be overcome in the great restoration of all things.
This is why the end of all things is marked by glorifying the good creation. In the end, Christ will “make all things new," not all new things.
This includes humans, God’s special creation, and his image bearers in the world. Reflecting on the teaching of the Westminster Confession, Lane Tipton summarizes the Creator-Creature distinction as the “absolute ontological difference between the Triune God and the creature. The Triune God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” He writes, “The creature that comes into existence by an act of God’s sovereign will is not eternal, but temporal, not infinite, but finite, not immutable, but mutable. The distinction between the two remains in the Creator-creature relation. While God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable apart from His relation to the creature, He remains such in relation to the creature.”
This is also why the Westminster Confession notes that the Creator-Creature distinction reminds us of God’s mercy and grace. Chapter seven, part one reads, “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant” (WCF 7.1). The distance between God and humankind isn’t merely qualitative as beings but moral as it touches on our sins and God’s perfections. Our sinfulness has darkened our hearts and minds; thus, the intellectual and moral chasm between God and humankind is so vast that only God can bridge it. He has done so by the covenant of grace and, ultimately, in the incarnation. Our creatureliness should humble us and increase our gratitude because God cares for us. But because we are sinful creatures, it should also - and infinitely more so! - increase our praise for his rich mercy in Jesus our Lord, who came to save rather than judge the world.
Creation and the End of Chaos
In many ancient creation accounts, the forces of chaos are supernatural beings—gods—that must be forcibly conquered and subjected to the rule of the higher, more powerful divines. The subjugation of chaos under God’s order—a coming of the Kingdom—is also central to the Genesis account and many other Old Testament passages. The darkness-enshrouded form and void of the world was not without the Spirit of God hovering over the abyss. God spoke into this swirling mass and brought to the darkness his light. The presence of this glory, its imposition through speech and Spirit, began ordering and forming the world for God’s purposes. This narrative is not just a historical account but a promise of the end of chaos, the restoration of all things, and the ultimate triumph of God's order over disorder.
Jeremiah sees God’s creative reordering of all things, the re-creating of Israel, in his visit to the Potter’s House. “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel” (Jere 18:1-6).
Even those parts of the created order ruined by the fall, especially people, are yet in God’s creative hands to be reshaped by his mercy and love. Creation is a re-ordering of chaos, a subduing of the tempestuous dark waters over which the Spirit was moving. It is a summoning out of these primordial waters of the land that would be made fruitful and become a joyful, beautiful home. Redemption reflects this reality and this is why all in Christ are “a new creation.”
God's covenant with humankind and nature in his promise to Noah (Genesis 9) invokes God’s mercy for the world he has made by his promise not to destroy but to save. This involves imposing his beauty on our misshapen souls, societies, and fallen world. This divine imposition reaches its apex not by the force of a tyrant but by the humiliation and weakness of the incarnation and crucifixion of God the Son.
Next: Creation and Victory over the Darkness and Disorder