Category Archives: Creation

Belief about God, Bible, Creation, Man, Sanctification, theology

The Creator and His Creatures

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the Creator seen in creation

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” Psalm 24:1-2 (ESV).

There is a reason the Bible begins with creation. Genesis 1:1 tells us that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God is the creator of our world. Everything we see in nature has been created by God. More than that, from Colossians 1:16 we know God’s creative work extends beyond the visible into the realms of the invisible too. In short, God made all things and continues to hold them together. Because God is the creator and sustainer of all things, all things belong to him and are obligated to him. Understanding this to be true about God, there are several observations we can make about how we should then relate to our Creator with our time, treasure and talents:

  1. Time. So often we treat time as a commodity to be distributed as we please. However, in our work environments we do not behave this way. We do not check into work and decide to have some “me-time” in the middle of the board meeting or construction project. Our bosses ensure we accomplish our tasks for the good of the company. However, the doctrine of vocation stemming from the protestant reformation teaches that all our work should be done with God in view. Our time should not be spent with a horizontal orientation, thinking primarily about men. Rather, our time should be spent with a vertical orientation, thinking primarily about God. He made us and our work. So we ought to honor God with our time.
  2. Treasure. Since God made all things he is the owner of all things. Whatever we have we received from God’s hand. We live in a materialistic culture and our tendency can be to treat the blessings of this life as ours and to enjoy them exclusively for our own benefits. Yet Proverbs 3:9 charges us to honor God with our wealth. The question is not what we would want to do with our treasure, but what God would have us do with his treasure. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus charges us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That should be our orientation in the use of our money as well.
  3. Talent. Talents do not only describe the people who are gifted singers and musicians. Talents of all stripes are needed to strengthen the church. All church members have a talent which can be used to strengthen her. Some will be talented in ways completely conspicuous to others. Some have been given gifts to be used in very public ways. The talent given is less significant than the way it is used. We should use our talents wisely, to the glory of the One who gave them: our Creator.

God as creator is a significant theological truth. Our Creator is not our peer, but he is Lord of the universe. Since we also are part of his creation, we must recognize our obligation to him. He has given us time, treasure and talents to be used joyfully as we serve him. Yet our joy is not the primary objective in our living. Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That statement, my dear friends, is not a suggestion. As his creatures, it is our obligation.

10 Commandments, Belief about God, Bible, Creation, Man, theology

The Sabbath in ALL of History

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Sun Breaking Through Clouds

Last post we looked at the Sabbath as one of the three creation ordinances God established to give structure to our relationships with him, his world, and our fellow man. These ordinances are simply ways in which man is to imitate God. Work, marriage and rest are all done by God and as his image-bearers, we should do them as well.

These ordinances were established prior to the fall into sin, and form a perpetual order for mankind. They make up part of the core of man’s obligations to God. There are other obligations God places on his creation as well as part of his relationship with the world. These relationships between God and man in their different forms are called God’s covenants in Scripture. Prior to sin, God’s covenant with man was defined along the lines of his obedience. Man was to live before the Lord in perfect obedience, and in response God would graciously give life (Cf. Gen. 2:17). The initial relationship between God and man is typically called the Covenant of Works, or Life. However, after the fall in Gen. 3:8 man dies both physically and spiritually. His thoughts, motivations and desires are all corrupted by sin.

Man can no longer meet the righteous requirements of the obligations that go along with God’s covenant. However, God in his grace inaugurates another covenant: the Covenant of Grace. In this covenant, though man is unable to fulfill and obey, God sends the seed of the woman to be the mediator between God and man. This mediator is the Christ who lives in perfect obedience to God on our behalf. He came not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them (Mt. 5:17). His perfect righteousness is imputed to us that we would have life. If Christ had disobeyed he would not have been able to mediate between God and man. So Christ’s obedience does matter. God’s obligations for man never change, because they reflect his unchangeable character. These obligations make up God’s moral law.

God’s moral law is distinct from his other laws. When God summarizes the obligations of the covenant he gives to Israel, he summarizes them in the Ten Commandments (Cf. Deut. 4:13). We have already seen that God’s obligations do not change between covenants administrations. That means in all ages, the Ten Commandments are binding. We can easily see this distinction if we try and apply the Decalogue to pre-fall Eden.

If Adam, in Eden, would have decided to make an idol, he would have sinned. If Adam, in Eden, would have murdered or would have stolen, he would have sinned. However, if Adam failed to set up cities of refuge in Eden, he would not have sinned. The moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, was binding for him. The other laws are specific applications of this moral law to the people of Israel, or to the world as a whole now stained with sin.

Now here comes the point of this whole exercise. Since the Sabbath Day is part of the Ten Commandments it is part of God’s perpetual obligations for man and therefore is applicable for us as well. Exactly how that plays itself out in today’s world I leave for the next article.

Belief about God, Creation, Gospel, Man, Sin

Why Should Christians Be Joyful?

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Gift

One time my wife and I gave our oldest daughter a doll house. She had waited for what must have seemed like an eternity. Finally on her third birthday we gave her the doll house as a gift. When she took off her blindfold and saw the gift set up on the table for her all she could do is jump for joy, shout “thank yous”, and hug and kiss her mom and me. We could tell it was a precious gift for her.

Transitioning now to the spiritual realm, our response is not often the same when it comes to the gift of eternal life. We know from the Bible the God is the maker of all things. He made all things visible, invisible, spiritual, or material. Everything we see around us is obligated to him. The bad news is that we also know from the Bible that we sin against God every day. Our thoughts, words, and deeds are not faithful to him, neither can they be because of our sinful nature. This condition places us in a position of great guilt before him. Only when we realize the truth both of who God is and who we are will we realize the greatness of his gift to us. If we do not think much of the greatness of God, we will not realize his gracious condescension. If we are not aware of the depth of our sin, we will not grasp our desperate need of salvation. Without this understanding the Bible will be just another fantastical fairy-tale, or some opium for the masses.

However, the Bible is good news for those who receive God’s promises by faith. In fact, the news is so good, our response should be 10,000 times that of my daughter when she received her doll-house. If someone gave you one million dollars, you would do more than buy a canned Hallmark card and no one would have to tell you to do so. Yet we Christians often respond with apathy and indifference toward the things of God. It seems we have missed the preciousness of God’s gift to us.

Spend some time in Genesis 1-3, meditate on the significance of what is recorded there and go out and live with joyful enthusiasm for the God who made you, redeemed you and sustains you.

Belief about God, Creation, Gospel

Who Cares About Creation?

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space

Ok. Here we go. First real post. And I chose the topic of…. creation. I’m going to acknowledge up-front that I am not trained in the natural sciences, so you will not get a lot of argumentation from me along those lines. There are people who are much more qualified than I to do that kind of article. That is not even the point of what I want to write. What I want to do is consider the theological implications that surround the issue of creation. I want to ask the question, “Why should I, as a Christian, care about God creating all things out of nothing, in the space of six days, and all very good?”

From a theological perspective, creation is important because the Bible says it is important. The first words of God’s inspired word deal with how the earth was formed: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1). God speaks and the physical universe is formed. Later, in Colossians 1:16 we learn creation is not just physical or material, but also spiritual, including the things we cannot see. The Bible’s teaching could not be clearer: God made everything.

So What?

More than an old stuffy book written by Moses in his spare time as he wandered the wilderness, Genesis lays out a proper order for understanding all that follows in the Bible. If God made us, it would follow that we are obligated to him. If God made all things, it would follow that all things are obligated to him. By contrast, if the world is formed by random chemical mutations (a very generalized and incomplete summary of naturalistic evolution, I know) we are not obligated to anyone. So creation is important because it helps us to see our obligation to God. And when we are obligated it speaks to our theology (how we should think) and our ethics (how we should act). We are not free to set our own agenda, but follow that of the One who made us.

Don’t skip over this truth, don’t allow the world to trivialize it. God made you, he put you together. That means something. You are obligated to him in thought, speech, and behavior.