THE STORY Week #1, "Created with Intention"

THE STORY

Chapter 1—Created with Intention

How does a person begin an epic tale of love, intrigue, murder, brokenness, and redemption?  Some writers begin at the end of the story and then take the reader back to the beginning.  Others, start in the middle of the story, and then give background material to catch the reader up before moving forward. In God’s story of salvation, the tale starts at the beginning.

In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), the opening words in the Bible are ∆En aÓrch (en arkae)vØ, which means, “in the beginning.” The Hebrew Old Testament begins with, ty™IvaérV;b (bear a

sheith), which means, “in the beginning.”  Those three simple words have remarkable power because they assert that God was already present before there ever was a beginning.  This God, who has always existed, didn’t create the heavens and the earth because he had to, or because he was compelled to.  Rather, he created because he WANTED to.  God had a vision for what he was going to create, and the Bible is God’s story of how that vision would come to be—despite his creations best efforts to derail God’s vision.

In Genesis chapter 1 we are given a day-by-day account of the creation process.  God speaks, and the universe is drawn into existence out of nothing.  The church has always taught that God creatio ex

nihilo; that is, God created out of nothing. Or, perhaps another way of stating this is that God made that to be, which never had been.  The greater church has been in a protracted argument for many years regarding the creation process.  Was creation formed in six literal twenty-four days, or, was creation formed in six distinct time periods that took place over millions of years?  While I do have a pretty strong belief on this matter, I think both of these interpretations are faithful.  The point isn’t whether creation is millions of years old, or whether it is aproximately 5,000 years old—the main point of Genesis chapter 1 is that God created everything out of nothing.  We can surely agree on that, can’t we?

The magnum opus of God’s creative hand is found at the end of chapter one and is flushed out in more detail in chapter 2.  The greatest event in the creative cycle of God is forming humanity out of the dust of the earth into the very image of God.  The more I ponder the creation of humanity in the image of God, the more I stand in awe of the Creator.  Out of the 100 billion or so galaxies in the universe; out of the 400 billion plus stars in the universe; and out of the 240 x 10²⁴ planets in the universe—God chose earth to be the place where humanity, formed-and-shaped-and-breathed-the-breath-of-God, would dwell.

While I love Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Trek, and science fiction in general, I think it is pretty safe to assert that because humanity is formed in God’s image, and because we were placed on   earth, that is the place where humanity dwells.  That is, while biological life may exist on other planets or moons out in the vastness of the universe, humans exist only on earth—because we were formed in God’s image and placed in the Garden of Eden for a particular task. Genesis 2:15 (ESV) reads, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  That is, Adam - and then Eve with him -  were charged to be the divine stewards of the Royal Garden of the Lord (my term).  What were the implications regarding this stewardship? And how were those purposes affected during the fall of humanity, and so , all of creation, into sin (Genesis chapter 3)?

James Torrance, in his wonderful little book Worship,Community, and the Triune God of Grace writes,

God has made all creatures for his glory.  Without knowing it, the lilies of the field in their

Dr. James Torrance, 1923-2003

beauty glorify God with a glory greater than that of Solomon, the sparrow on the housetop glorifies God, and the universe in its vastness and remoteness is the theater of God’s glory.  But God made men and women in his image to be the priests of creation and to express on behalf of all creatures the praises of God, so that through human lips the heavens might declare the glory of God.  When we, who know we are God’s creatures, worship God together, we gather up the worship of all creation.  Our chief end is to glorify God, and creation realizes its own creaturely glory in glorifying God through human lips.

But nature fails in its realization because of our human failure.  Instead of singing songs of joy, the whole creation groans in universal trevail, waiting for the fulfillment of God’s purposes in human lives.  Does God then abandon his purposes for humanity and for all his creatures?  Does God leave all nature to be subject to vanity and futility—to be ruthlessly exploited and abused—and forget he has made us in his image for a life of communion and shared stewardship. (pages 13-14)

God communicates and binds himself to his creation through the use of covenant.  Next week THE STORY will take us to God’s binding of himself to Abraham.  We cannot begin to understand the saga of the story of salvation without first taking a serious look at covenant, just as we cannot begin to understand the understanding of God’s story without first having a basic grasp of “in the beginning…”  Despite the epic failing of our first earthly parents Adam and Eve, God is not through with us.  His vision for his creation WILL come to fruition; and God will go to great lengths to ensure that it happens, and that humanity-his magnum opus-is along for that wonderful act!