“IN THE BEGINNING”: THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION

“IN THE BEGINNING”: THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION

By: Daniel McMillin

THE CREATION OF THE ONE SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS BY THE ONE GOD

The Scriptures declare, as Alexander Campbell said, there is “one God, one system of nature, one universe.”[1] This is at the core of the doctrine of creation. This doctrine explores the nature of God and all things in relation to Him. Thomas Aquinas emphasized, “It is necessary to say that all things were created by God.”[2] The biblical, theological, philosophical, and scientific evidence lead us to conclude that God is the best explanation for the primary cause of the universe, and it is necessary for affirming the Christian faith.

IN THE BEGINNING...

The moment I say, “In the beginning…” everyone knows what I am referencing and is able to finish the phrase: “…God created the heavens and the earth.” There are very few openers that are as dynamic and dramatic as the opening lines of Genesis. It is a truly profound and timeless expression that captures the hearts, minds, and attention of the reader. As we read Genesis, we are teleported to the beginning of time,[1] matter, and space as we witness the origin of the universe. Our divine author then takes on a journey from the Book of Beginnings to the Book of the End Times. This is the Biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation—the first creation to the new creation—chaos to cosmos.

John Calvin called creation “the theater of God’s glory.”[2] All of creation surrounds the radiant and vibrant majesty of God as He is worshipped as Lord. When we worship our Creator, He is the audience, and we are the actors. But in reality, we recognize that as we worship Him for who He is, we do so because we are in awe of Him. We elevate His name by offering Him praise because His performance or divine activity, from creation to redemption to consummation, is worthy of our adoration. He is the actor and director of all creation, and as Christians who are made in the image of God, we have a front-row seat to His glory. The Psalmist writes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps 19:1).

Louis Berkhof helpfully details this doctrine of creation when he says, “Creation in the strict sense of the word may be defined as that free act of God whereby He, according to His sovereign will and for His own glory, in the beginning brought forth the whole visible and invisible universe, without the use of pre-existent material, and thus gave it an existence, distinct from His own and yet always dependent on Him.”[3]

BIBLE AND CREATION

Berkhof grounds the doctrine of creation in the Scriptures and establishes helpful markers for moving through the Biblical data. He says, “The doctrine of creation is not set forth in Scripture as a philosophical solution of the problem of the world, but in its ethical and religious significance, as a revelation of the relation of man to his God. It stresses the fact that God is the origin of all things, and that all things belong to Him and are subject to Him.”[4] Further, “The scriptural proof for the doctrine of creation is not found in a single and limited portion of the Bible, but is found in every part of the Word of God. It does not consist of a few scattered passages of doubtful interpretation, but of a large number of clear and unequivocal statements, which speak of the creation of the world as a historical fact.”[5] 

GOD THE CREATOR

God as Creator is a basic notion of the Old and New Testament. As McKim says, “Since God as Creator is the explanation for the existence of the world and humans, creation establishes our deepest, most essential relation to God: as Creator and thus as Lord. The doctrine of God as Creator is perhaps our most basic conception of God.”[6] Why? It is because the first thing that God says about Himself is that He is the eternal Creator of all things in the universe.[7] Thus, not only is theology proper generally the root of all doctrine, but in particular, as Bird says, “God as Creator is fundamental for every doctrine that follows. It is no surprise then that confessing God as Creator has consistently been a first-feature in the Christian doctrine of God.”[8] The apostle Paul highlighted this fact when he wrote, “For his 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. So they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). We may come to a knowledge of God through creation.

The Bible explains the origins of the universe by attributing creation to God as Creator. The universe had a beginning, but God did not since He is eternal. In other words, there was once a time when the universe was not but there never was a time when God was not. There are only two options, as Colin Gunton points out: “Either the world creates itself, or it is the product of a personal creator.”[9] These options are not explained by the “God of the Gaps.” That is, The Bible does not just fill our gaps in knowledge of the origins of the universe by saying, “God made it” so we can appease the void. Instead, the Bible is a revelation by God of God creating the universe. The Scriptures are the most reliable resource for the origins of the heavens and the earth. To be more specific, the Book of Genesis is written by God (it is inspired!). There is no greater source of origin than the God who created in the beginning.[10] As Augustine writes, “For the belief that God made the world we can have no more trustworthy witness than God himself.”[11]

To list a few Old Testament passages, we notice that the Scriptures consistently identify God as Creator. The prophet Isaiah describes God as the Creator of the universe when he writes, “the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Is. 40:28; cf. 42:5; 45:18). In Nehemiah 9:6, we read, “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”

Each person of the Trinity (the Father, Son, and Spirit) are involved in the act of creation. Although, admittedly, the New Testament primarily focuses on how Jesus is identified as the one God of Israel who created the heavens and the earth. There will be many other texts that we will examine on how Jesus is identified as the creator, but just to list a few honorable mentions that we will have to examine briefly. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 8:6, “Yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” Since Jesus is the Creator, namely, the agent of creation through whom everything was made, He must then be identified as God, since only God creates. In Hebrews 1:2-3 we read, “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Jesus is not only identified as the Creator of the universe but also the Sustainer. He made the universe and maintains control over the universe He has made. Finally, in Revelation 4:11 John writes, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11). Since Jesus is the Creator of all things, He is to be worshipped and adored as the Creator God.

CREATOR-CREATURE DISTINCTION

The act of creation is the basis for the Creator-creature distinction. Herman Bavinck says, “the doctrine of creation, affirming the distinction between the Creator and his creature, is the starting point of true religion.”[12] The reason why God is different from man, and everything else is rooted in origin. God was not made, but everything other than God was made. In other words, the Creator has no origin, but all of creation has an origin. This also sets the God of the Bible against all pagan gods who have origin stories by showing how superior the Creator of the universe described in Genesis is in comparison to the lesser false deities.

Furthermore, the doctrine of creation separates God from everything else by identifying God as distinct from creation. God is not in creation as a creature but as the Creator. That is, God is not swept up in creation, but creation is swept up in God. God acts upon creation, but creation does not act upon God. Wellum rightly notes that “creation establishes a unique theistic, covenantal, and eschatological framework by which we understand God and all things in relation to him.”[13] The fundamental difference between the Creator and all of creation is that all of creation is dependent on God, but God does not depend on creation because He alone is independent and self-sufficient.[14] That is why God is so different from us. “Creation gives the world a distinct, yet always dependent existence.”[15] Creation needs God, but God does not need creation. “God alone,” Wellum writes, “exists in all of his triune self-sufficiency, complete in himself apart from the world, but by an act of the will he speaks and brings into existence the entire created order. As such, the universe is not eternal; only God is, and there was a time when the world was not, yet God has always existed.”[16] This Creator-creature distinction is what Paul argues at Athens in Acts 17:24-28, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’” Possibly the best text that illustrates the distinction between God and man is found in Job 38:4-7 where God finally answers Job in his suffering and essentially tells Him, “I am God and you are not.” Here is God’s response to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!  Or who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” We could obviously continue reading and notice how embarrassing this great divide between the Creator and creature. God made everything; we were not there. He willed things to be the way that they are, and we are merely His handiwork. God is the glorious Creator of the universe, and we are the creatures who were made for His glory. It would be a shame not to honor God in this lifetime since we bear His glorious image.

WORKS CITED

[1] Alexander Campbell, The Christian System (Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate Company, 1980), 1.

[2] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I:45.2. “To create can be the action of God alone. For the more universal effects must be reduced to the more universal and prior causes. Now among all effects the most universal is being itself; and hence it must be the proper effect of the first and most universal cause and that is God.” (45.5)

[1] “The fact that God created time reminds us of his lordship over it and our obligation to use it for his glory.” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 343) “There was no time before creation, since the world was brought into being with time rather than in time.” (Berkhof, 117-118) Further, “technically speaking, it is not correct to assume that time was already in existence when God created the world, and that He at some point in that existing time, called ‘the beginning’ brought forth the universe. Time is only one of the forms of all created existence, and therefore could not exist before creation.” (Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 121)

[2] John Calvin, 1.5.8.

[3] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 120.

[4] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 117.

[5] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 118.

[6] D.K. McKim, “Creation.” Ed. Daniel J. Treier and Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2017), 216,

[7] “God’s creation of the entire universe communicates his sovereignty and lordship for the creator of all is also the Lord of all…He is the king of the created cosmos. Therefore, the creation of the universe demonstrates that God is the Lord of the whole world and that his lordship will not be limited to Israel.” (Thomas R. Schreiner, The King in His Beauty: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 4.

[8] Bird, Evangelical Theology, 205.“God as Creator is fundamental for every doctrine that follows. It is no surprise then that confessing God as Creator has consistently been a first-feature in the Christian doctrine of God.”

[9] Colin Gunton, The Triune Creator (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998), 38.

[10] D.A. Carson offers 7 things about God that may be seen in Genesis 1: (1) God simply is, that is, He exists. (2) God made everything that is non-God, which distinguishes the Creator from the creature. (3) There is only one God who created in the beginning. (4) God is a talking God that has created and revealed Himself through words. (5) Everything God makes is good because God is good. (6) God comes to an end of His creative work and rests by ceasing His creative activity. (7) The creation proclaims His greatness and glory as image bearers of God. (D.A. Carson, The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2010), 18-21.

[11] Augustine, City of God, 2.11.4.

[12] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:406.

[13] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:787.

[14] See Grudem, Systematic Theology, 343-344.

[15] Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 134.

[16] Wellum, Systematic Theology, I:786.