Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people on it
and spirit to those who walk in it:
(Isaiah 42:5)
Few have problems with the idea that God creates. Compared to more thorny aspects of God's character, like his wrath and his judgement, God's creativity is relatively easy to swallow. After all, if God is great—if God is strong and almighty—God's creativity is merely part of God's awesome omnipotence. So, when we read the story of the how the world was made in Genesis 1 (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”
), sometimes we are awed at the way God spoke everything into existence but mostly we just switch off, having heard one too many sermons on the subject and read one too many books.
Because we often just brush over the topic of God as creator, we don't really think about the implications. We don't think about what it means for us, being one of the Creator's creatures. We don't understand how knowing this should apply in the way that we treat God. This is quite unfortunate but not unexpected. We are, after all, sinful creatures who have lived most of our lives in rebellion against him. To understand what it means for God to be creator would make us uncomfortable and knock the floor out from under us.
This does not mean we should ignore this aspect of God. On the contrary, it means we should make a proper examination. We should take to heart Ecclesiastes 12:1 (“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near.”
) We should take the time to ponder the matter. Let us proceed.
This is a simple point to make but an important one. In Genesis 1 we read the account of God making the world and speaking it into being. On the first three days he creates day and night, sky and sea, land and plants. On the second three days, he fills what he made on the first three days. He creates sun, moon and stars; sea creatures and birds; land animals and, finally, as a climax to the whole of creation, humans. God created all this out of nothing and he created it to be “good”. It is creation that points to God's presence as Paul says in Romans 1:20: “[H]is invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
We know of God's existence through creation.
What about man-made things, then? What about books and clothes and computers? What about knives, bombs and weapons of mass destruction? Did God create these things too? In a sense, he did. God created the raw materials from which these things are made: trees which can be pulped and dyed to make paper; sheep and cotton plants from which we can make textiles and thread to sew them together; ores and metals from which we can build knives, machines and deadly weapons.
And God gave humans the ability to create and be creative. In Isaiah, the Lord says,
Behold, I have created the smith
who blows the fire of coals
and produces a weapon for its purpose.
(Isaiah 54:16)
No artist, architect or engineer can claim that their skills are derived from something other than God. Man's imagination, ingenuity and eye for design all come from the Lord and the Lord alone.
In addition, God is utterly sovereign; he oversees the motivations of men: “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.”
(Proverbs 21:1). Nothing happens without him knowing about it as he “declares to man what is his thought”
(Amos 4:13). It is God alone who determines what will happen: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
(Proverbs 16:33).
At the same time, however, man is responsible for his own actions. The thoughts of his heart are continually wicked (Genesis 6:5) and he will create objects to use to carry out his wickedness (eg. idols). The objects he creates are not inherently “good” or “evil” as they have no morality. A weapon of mass destruction that hasn't been deployed is no more than a heap of metal and chemicals, doing harm to no one. It is humans who use objects for good or for evil.
So it is too simplistic to say that God creates weapons of mass destruction. God creates but humans also create. The Bible says that God is sovereign and yet humans are responsible. Both these things are true but we are not told how it is that one does not cancel the other out.
It must be said, however, that God does create “evil” in the sense of calamity, disaster or affliction:
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.
(Isaiah 45:7)
God brings about evil to judge the wicked and slay the evildoer (see 1 Kings 21:21, 2 Kings 22:16 and 2 Chronicles 18:22, 2 Chronicles 34:24, Amos 3:6). The idea that God creates evil is shocking to us and yet God is righteous and just; he uses evil to bring about his good purposes, not to further spawn more evil.
Because God created everything, he knows how everything works. Consequentially, he knows what is best for creation and what is not. In Genesis 2 he says to the man, “You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
(Genesis 2:16-17). The man and the woman ate and, though they lived for a long time, eventually what God said came true: they died. Also in Genesis 2, God gave man the institution of marriage: one man for one woman united to become “one flesh”
(2:24). Anything outside this model results in much trouble and heartache, as seen in the lives of Abraham (Genesis 16), Jacob (Genesis 29-30), David (2 Samuel 11 and 15-17) and Solomon (1 Kings 11). God's ways are the best ways. He knows what's good the for human body and what is not. Therefore it would be wise for us, as his creatures, to pay attention to our Creator in these matters.
But God didn't just create everything and leave it at that. He is not some great cosmic clockmaker who set the world in motion and stands back to watch. God is still intimately involved in how the world works. According to Jeremiah, it is the Lord who
gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar ...
(Jeremiah 31:35)
It is God who commands the morning and “causes the dawn to know its place”
(Job 38:12). It is God who “clothes the grass of the field”
(Matthew 6:30). And it is God who forms our inward parts and knits us together in our mother's womb before we are born (Psalm 139:13). Paul says, “[I]n him all things hold together.”
(Colossians 1:17). God sustains the world we live in until the time should come for heaven and earth to pass away.
Because God created everything, everything belongs to him. God owns everything. David says, “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”
(Psalm 24:1). God holds more land than the old British Empire. God has more sheep and cattle than Australia and New Zealand combined. God possesses more gold, silver, jewels, precious metals and oil than all the millionaires of Brunei. And, of course, God owns us—every single last one of us. He created us and therefore owns us. What an offensive thought! We are not our own. So, as Jesus commands, “[Render] to God the things that are God's.”
(Matthew 22:21).
As God owns everything, God has the right to destroy the things he has made. God floods the earth and takes the lives of all wicked men in Genesis 7. God orders the total annihilation of all the nations who inhabited the promised land prior to Israel in Deuteronomy 20:17. God destroys the northern kingdom of Israel for their idolatry and wickedness in Jeremiah 25:9. God is the potter and we are the clay. He will do with us as he sees fit.
God created everything. By his will he brought all things into being (Revelation 4:11). He did all of this for a reason: “The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”
(Proverbs 16:4). The world and everything in it—us included—exists for him (Colossians 1:16, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Hebrews 2:10).
But for what? Why did God create the world? Why did God choose to make us? He obviously didn't need to. He would not have been lonely or deficient without us. But according to his good and perfect will, God created humans for the very specific task of praising him and bringing him glory (see Isaiah 43:21, Jeremiah 13:11, Isaiah 61:11, Revelation 7:9-12). The earth is to be filled with “the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
(Habakkuk 2:14).
God created everything not only for himself but also for humans. God gave instructions to the man and the woman to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it ...”
(Genesis 1:28). God gave humans dominion “over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
(Genesis 1:26). The plants and, eventually, the animals are given to us for food (Genesis 1:29; 9:3). Mankind, as the pinnacle and climax of God's creation, is given the gift of the whole of creation for his enjoyment and good pleasure.
This is why, when man fell, the creation fell with him. The harmony of Eden was broken because of Adam and Eve's sin. In Genesis 3 God curses the land, the serpent, the woman and the man with brokenness, tension and enmity in their relationships with one another. The earth no longer brings forth food in abundance, wild beasts can no longer live in peace with humans, and men and women can no longer live in peace with each other. Instead of taking care of creation, men abuse it, exploiting its natural resources and polluting the environment. Instead of being ruled by man, creation rears up to crush man through famine, flood and plague. Creation, as Paul says in Romans 8:21, is “in bondage to decay,”
waiting for the sons of God to be revealed so that it too may be redeemed through our redemption.
God created everything for humans—specifically, for the ultimate human: Jesus the Christ, the Lord's anointed, the “firstborn of all creation”
through whom everything was made (Colossians 1:15-16, Hebrews 1:2, John 1:3). It is he who has designed and created. It is he who sustains and owns. It is he who has the right to exalt and the right to destroy. Indeed, the whole of history is heading towards a point where all will be subjected to him. All powers, all principalities, all authorities in heaven and on earth will eventually be put under the feet of the Lord Jesus. He will then hand the kingdom over to the Father so that “God may be all in all”
(1 Corinthians 15:28)—sovereign and ultimate ruler of everything he has created.
Because everything was made through Jesus for Jesus and is therefore owned by Jesus, we too have been made through Jesus for Jesus and are therefore owned by Jesus. We are his slaves and his servants. We are members of his body (1 Corinthians 12), citizens of his kingdom and members of his household (Ephesians 2:19). We are even called his “brothers”
in Hebrews 2:11. What an amazing thought!
But we must remember that the things of this world are only temporary. God created everything and he created it for a purpose but we must also bear in mind that that purpose also includes its destruction. Peter reminds us that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
(2 Peter 3:10). As God owns all, God has the right to destroy.
One day, God will create again.
For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
(Isaiah 65:17-18)
Karen likes to think of herself as being one of the more amusing parts of God's property.
Comments
I am very happy to know that kind of life’s understanding. But it doesn’t answer question that I still struggle for. I wonder why god creates humans if He know that one day human will rebel to Him dan he must go down to earth dan suffer for our sin. And why most of anything that we feel enjoy for our flesh, god not allowed us to enjoy because it opposites with the willingnes of spirit.
Albert on 01 December, 2003 4:17 PM
I am very happy to know that kind of life’s understanding. But it doesn’t answer question that I still struggle for. I wonder why god creates humans if He know that one day human will rebel to Him dan he must go down to earth dan suffer for our sin. And why most of anything that we feel enjoy for our flesh, god not allowed us to enjoy because it opposites with the willingnes of spirit.
Albert on 01 December, 2003 4:18 PM