God Establishes His Kingdom: Creationpickard/DOS_Creation.pdf · In the beginning God created the...

The Drama of Scripture October 13, 2009

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God Establishes His Kingdom: Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:25)

The first act in the drama of Scripture addresses the question of origins. In fact, the first book of the Bible, Genesis, draws its name from the first words of the

book: In the beginning…. Concerning this opening phrase, Bill Arnold writes:

The Bible opens with a book of beginnings, Genesis. The word “genesis” itself is the

Greek title of the book, meaning “origins.” The Jews called it by the first Hebrew

word, beresit, “In the beginning.” As a book of beginnings, Genesis deals with the

beginning of the world, the beginning of history, the beginning of sin, salvation, and

God’s people. (Encountering the Book of Genesis, Bill T. Arnold, pg. 22)

The first complete sentence of the Bible states the following proposition:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. !Genesis 1:1"

Notice that Bible starts with the tacit claim that God exists and the explicit claim that He is the one responsible for the creation of the universe. In fact, the entire first chapter of Genesis focuses on God as the main actor in this scene of creation. Derek Kidner comments on this observation.

It is no accident that God is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible, for this word

dominates the whole chapter and catches the eye at every point of the page: it is used

some thirty-five times in as many verses of the story. The passage, indeed the Book, is

about Him first of all; to read it with any other primary interest (which is all too

possible) is to misread it. (TOTC, Genesis, Derek Kidner, pg. 43)

Scott Hafemann adds these thoughts:

…Notice that this assertion is a concrete description of what God has done (God has

created) rather than an abstract statement concerning one of his attributes (God is the

all-powerful Creator). God has revealed himself primarily through his activities in time

and space, not through a philosophical discussion of his nature. The Bible is the record

and interpretation of God’s self-revelation. The Bible begins, therefore, by asserting

that God is the sole and sovereign Creator of the universe. … (The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, Scott J. Hafemann, pg. 23)

While it is true that God is the main actor in Genesis 1, the reader’s attention is also drawn to the product of God’s activity. Bruce Waltke explains what is

meant by the phrase that refers to that product: the heavens and the earth.

This merism represents the cosmos, meaning the organized universe in which

humankind lives. In all of its uses in the Old Testament (cf. Gen. 2:1, 4; Deut. 3:24;

Isa. 65:17; Jer. 23:24), this phrase functions as a compound referring to the organized

universe. (Genesis, A Commentary, Bruce K. Waltke with Cathi J. Fredricks, pg. 59)


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(Note: In rhetoric, a merism is a figure of speech by which a single thing is referred to by a conventional phrase that enumerates several of its parts, or which lists several synonyms for the same thing. (Wikipedia, merism))

As we launch into this account of the creation of the universe it is helpful to remember who the intended audience of this passage was and the situation they were encountering. Gordon Wenham helps set the stage for our study.

Finally, in reflecting on the contents of Genesis, it must never be forgotten that it is the

first of a five- (or six-) volume work, the Pentateuch (Hexateuch). It gives the

background to the history of the exodus from Egypt and the lawgiving at Sinai which

are dealt with in great detail in Exodus-Deuteronomy. Whereas according to Genesis’

own chronology the first book of the Pentateuch spans some two thousand years, the

next four cover a mere one hundred and twenty. This helps to put Genesis into

perspective. It does not stand on its own, but rather contains essential background for

understanding those events which constituted the nation of Israel as the Lord’s

covenant people. It would therefore not be surprising to find adumbrations of the later

national history in the story of the patriarchs. In turn, too, the primeval history (chaps.

1-11) must be seen in this perspective. It is also essentially preparatory in function and

puts the patriarchs into their cosmic context. The God who called Abraham was no

local divinity but the creator of the whole universe. The succession of catastrophes that

befell humanity prior to Abraham’s call show just why the election of Abraham, and in

him, Israel, was necessary. (WBC, Genesis 1-15, Gordon J. Wenham, pg. xxii)

Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen add these comments that make the claim that the creation story was written to reorient the Israelites so that the basis of their faith was aligned with the truth about God, people and the world rather than with the myths that were circulating in the ancient Near East

The first scene of any story is worth paying attention to, and the first scene of the

biblical story is no exception. The first chapters of Genesis, telling the story of

creation, were written for the Israelites long ago in a culture quite different from ours.

Though some aspects of the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 may seem strange to us,

we need to remember that they made perfect sense to the people of Israel when they

first heard them. This is so because the writer is using imagery and concepts familiar to

his own audience. Once we read the first chapters of Genesis against the backdrop of

the ancient world in which they were written, we begin to see the power of the message

this story is meant to convey.

Several scholars have pointed out a strong polemical or argumentative aspect to

Genesis 1 and 2. The ancient Near East had many competing accounts of how the

world came into existence. These stories were common in Egypt when Israel was

captive there and in Canaan when Israel began to take it over as its land. It would have

been only too easy for the Israelites to adopt the stories of those who lived in the land

before them or alongside them and who (after all) supposedly knew the land much

better than they did themselves. Many of the gods worshipped by the Canaanites were


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closely associated with the fertility of the land. The newcomers struggling to learn how

to farm there would be tempted to call out to these “gods” rather than to the Lord God.

We know quite a bit about the sort of creation stories circulating in the ancient world.

It is fascinating to see how the story told in Genesis 1 and 2 deliberately contradicts

certain important elements of them. For example, look at how Genesis 1:16 describes

the sun and the moon. The text does not refer to the sun by its normal Hebrew name,

but instead merely as “the greater light,” which God made for the day. Similarly, it

calls the moon “the lesser light.” Why? Probably because the sun and moon were so

often worshipped as gods by the people among whom the Israelites were now living. In

the Genesis story readers cannot mistake the sun as a divinity to be worshipped. The

Scripture clearly describes the sun as a created thing, an object placed in the heavens

for the simple, practical purpose of giving light. The attention is thus all on the One

who has created the marvelous light, the One whose power is so great that he can

merely say a word, and an entire universe springs into being. No mere “light” in the

heavens deserves to be bowed down to. God alone is divine; he alone is to be

worshipped. Though the whole of creation is “very good” (Genesis 1:31), it is so

because the One who created it is infinitely superior to anything he has made.

And this transcendent Creator is not like the capricious gods described in the

Babylonian creation story (the Enuma Elish), who make humankind merely to serve as

the gods’ servants, to wait on them and keep them happy. In Genesis, the God who

creates the world sets men and women within it as the crowning touch on what he has

brought into being. The creation itself is described as a marvelous home prepared for

humankind, a place in which they may live and thrive and enjoy the intimate presence

and companionship of the Creator himself.

The creation stories of Genesis thus are argumentative. They claim to tell the truth

about the world, flatly contradicting other such stories commonplace in the ancient

world. Israel was constantly tempted to adopt these other stories as the basis of its

worldview, in place of faith in the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth.

However, the Genesis creation narrative is more than a polemic. It also aims to teach

us positively what faith in God means for how we think about the world he has made

and how we live in it. It does this in a story form. And it is precisely this story form

that we need to be sensitive to if we are not to misinterpret it.

In order to understand the Genesis story of creation, we must understand something

about the kind of writing it is. Scholars themselves have difficulty in describing this.

Von Rad sees it as “priestly doctrine” so rich in meaning that “it cannot be easily over-

interpreted theologically.” Blocher sees the creation account as an example of carefully

crafted wisdom literature. But what scholars do agree on is that the story told in the

first chapters of Genesis has been very carefully put together: the evidence of

craftsmanship in the telling is clear. Hence, we need to focus as much on the way in

which the story is told as upon the details themselves and weigh whether or not these

details are meant to be read as a modern historian or scientist would read them. Indeed,

this is a difficult question: the story told here is of the mysterious inauguration of

history itself. But the broad outlines of the Genesis story are certainly as clear to us as

they were to those who first heard it. God is the divine source of all that is. He stands


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apart from all other things in the special relationship of Creator to creation. The

fashioning of humankind by God was intended to be the high point of all his work of

making and forming. And God had in mind a very special relationship between himself

and this last-formed of all his creatures.

In these chapters we are told the story of creation but not to satisfy our twenty-first-

century curiosity concerning the details of how God made the world. For example, we

wonder whether God created over a long period of time or caused all that he made to

spring into existence instantly. The Genesis story is, however, given so that we might

have a true understanding of the world in which we live, of its divine author, and of our

place in it. As John Stek rightly says of the creation accounts in Genesis:

Moses’ … intent was to proclaim the knowledge of the true God as he manifested

himself in his creative works, to proclaim a right understanding of humankind, the

world, and history that knowledge of the true God entails—and to proclaim the truth

concerning these matters in the face of the false religious notions dominant

throughout the world of his day. (The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, Craig G. Bartholomew & Michael W. Goheen, pp. 30-32)

Finally, John Walton helps us understand why we must not impose questions on this text that it was not designed to answer.

So what are the cultural ideas behind Genesis 1? Our first proposition is that Genesis 1

is ancient cosmology. That is, it does not attempt to describe cosmology in modern

terms or address modern questions. The Israelites received no revelation to update or

modify their “scientific” understanding of the cosmos. They did not know that stars

were suns; they did not know that the earth was spherical and moving through space;

they did not know that the sun was much farther away than the moon, or even further

than the birds flying in the air. They believed that the sky was material (not vaporous),

solid enough to support the residence of deity as well as to hold back waters. In these

ways, and many others, they thought about the cosmos in much the same way that

anyone in the ancient world thought, and not at all like anyone thinks today. And God

did not think it important to revise their thinking.

Some Christians approach the text of Genesis as if it has modern science embedded in it

or it dictates what modern science should look like. This approach to the text of

Genesis 1 is called “concordism,” as it seeks to give a modern scientific explanation for

the details in the text. This represents one attempt to “translate” the culture and text for

the modern reader. The problem is, we cannot translate their cosmology to our

cosmology, nor should we. If we accept Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology, then we need

to interpret it as ancient cosmology rather than translate it into modern cosmology. If

we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are making the text say something it never

said. It is not just a case of adding meaning (as more information has become

available) it is a case of changing meaning. Since we view the text as authoritative, it is

a dangerous thing to change the meaning of the text into something it never intended to

say.


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Another problem with concordism is that it assumes that the text should be understood

in reference to current scientific consensus, which would mean that it would neither

correspond to last century’s scientific consensus nor to that which may develop in the

next century. If God were intent on making his revelation correspond to science, we

have to ask which science. We are well aware that science is dynamic rather than

static. By its very nature science is in a constant state of flux. If we were to say that

God’s revelation corresponds to “true science” we adopt an idea contrary to the very

nature of science. What is accepted as true today, may not be accepted as true

tomorrow, because what science provides is the best explanation of the data at the time.

This “best explanation” is accepted by consensus, and often with a few detractors.

Science moves forward as ideas are tested and new ones replace old ones. So if God

aligned revelation with one particular science, it would have been unintelligible to

people who lived prior to the time of that science, and it would be obsolete to those

who live after that time. We gain nothing by bringing God’s revelation into accordance

with today’s science. In contrast, it makes perfect sense that God communicated his

revelation to his immediate audience in terms they understood.

Since God did not deem it necessary to communicate a different way of imagining the

world to Israel but was content for them to retain the native ancient cosmic geography,

we can conclude that it was not God’s purpose to reveal the details of cosmic

geography (defined as the way one thinks about the shape of the cosmos). The shape of

the earth, the nature of the sky, the locations of sun, moon and stars are simply not of

significance, and God could communicate what he desired regardless of one’s cosmic

geography. Concordism tries to figure out how there could have been waters about the

sky (Gen 1:7), whereas the view proposed here maintains that this terminology is

simply describing cosmic geography in Israelite terms to make a totally different point.

If cosmic geography is culturally descriptive rather than revealed truth, it takes its place

among many other biblical examples of culturally relative notions. For example, in the

ancient world people believed that the seat of intelligence, emotion and personhood was

in the internal organs, particularly the heart, but also the liver, kidneys and intestines.

Many Bible translations use the English word “mind” when the Hebrew text refers to

the entrails, showing the ways in which language and culture are interrelated. In

modern language we still refer to the heart metaphorically as the seat of emotion. In the

ancient world this was not metaphor, but physiology. Yet we must notice that when

God wanted to talk to the Israelites about their intellect, emotions and will, he did not

revise their ideas of physiology and feel compelled to reveal the function of the brain.

Instead, he adopted the language of the culture to communicate in terms they

understood. The idea that people think with their hearts describes physiology in ancient

terms for the communication of other matters; it is not revelation concerning

physiology. Consequently we need not to try to come up with a physiology for our

times that would explain how people think with their entrails. But a serious concordist

would have to do so to save the reputation of the Bible. Concordists believe the Bible

must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science.


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Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a

science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was

not common to the Old World science of antiquity.

Beyond the issue of cosmic geography, there are a number of other cultural and

potentially scientific issues to consider concerning how people thought in the ancient

world. Several questions might be considered:

• What is the level and nature of God’s involvement in the world?

• What is God’s relationship to the cosmos? Is he manifested within the cosmos?

Is he controlling it from outside?

• Is there such a thing as a “natural” world?

• What is the cosmos? A collection of material objects that operate on the basis of

laws? A machine? A kingdom? A company? A residence?

• Is the account of creation the description of a manufacturing process or the

communication of a concept?

These and many other questions will be addressed throughout this book. The answers

proposed will not be determined by what best supports what we would prefer to think

or by what will eliminate the most problems. Instead we strive to identify, truly and

accurately, the thinking in the ancient world, the thinking in the world of the Bible, and

to take that where it leads us, whether toward solutions or into more problems.

Before we begin moving through the remainder of the propositions that make up this

book, one of the issues raised in the list above should be addressed immediately. That

is, there is no concept of a “natural” world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The

dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one.

Deity pervaded the ancient world. Nothing happened independently of deity. The gods

did not “intervene” because that would assume that there was a world of events outside

of them that they could step into and out of. The Israelites, along with everyone else in

the ancient world, believed instead that every event was the act of deity—that every

plant that grew, every baby born, every drop of rain and every climatic disaster was an

act of God. No “natural” laws governed the cosmos; deity ran the cosmos or was

inherent in it. There were no “miracles” (in the sense of events deviating from that

which was “natural”), there were only signs of the deity’s activity (sometimes

favorable, sometimes not). The idea that deity got things running then just stood back

or engaged himself elsewhere (deism) would have been laughable in the ancient world

because it was not even conceivable. As suggested by Richard Bube, if God were to

unplug himself in that way from the cosmos, we and everything else in the cosmos

would simply cease to exist. There is nothing “natural” about the world in biblical

theology, nor should there be in ours. This does not suggest that God micromanages

the world, only that he is thoroughly involved in the operations and functions of the

world.

As a result, we should not expect anything in the Bible or in the rest of the ancient Near

East to engage in the discussion of how God’s level of creative activity relates to the

“natural” world (i.e., what we call naturalistic process or the laws of nature). The

categories of “natural” and “supernatural” have no meaning to them, let alone any


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interest (despite the fact that in our modern world such questions take center stage in

the discussion.) The ancients would never dream of addressing how things might have

come into being without God or what “natural” processes he might have used. Notice

even the biblical text merges these perspectives when Genesis 1:24 says, “Let the earth

bring forth living creatures” but then follows up with the conclusion in the very next

verse, “So God made the animals.” All of these issues are modern issues imposed on

the text and not the issues of the culture of the ancient world. We cannot expect the

text to address them, nor can we configure the information of the text to force it to

comply with the questions we long to have answered. We must take the text on its own

terms—it is not written to us. Much to our dismay then, we will find that the text is

impervious to many of the questions that consume us in today’s dialogues. Though we

long for the Bible to weigh in on these issues and give us biblical perspectives or

answers, we dare not impose such an obligation on the text. God has chosen the agenda

of the text, and we must be content with the wisdom of these choices. If we attempt to

commandeer the text to address our issues, we distort it in the process.

As we begin our study of Genesis 1 then, we must be aware of the danger that lurks

when we impose our own cultural ideas on the text without thinking. The Bible’s

message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the

culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was

fully permeated by the ancient culture. This was God’s design and we ignore it at our

peril. Sound interpretation proceeds from the belief that the divine and human authors

were competent communicators and that we can therefore comprehend their

communication. But to do so, we must respect the integrity of the author by refraining

from replacing his message with our own. Though we cannot expect to be able to think

like they thought, or read their minds, or penetrate very deeply into so much that is

opaque to us in their culture, we can begin to see that there are other ways of thinking

besides our own and begin to identify some of the ways in which we have been

presumptuously ethnocentric. Though our understanding of ancient culture will always

be limited, ancient literature is the key to a proper interpretation of the text, and

sufficient amounts of it are available to allow us to make progress in our understanding. (The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, John H. Walton, pp. 16-22)

We now will consider the text of Genesis 1 and 2. The focus will be on a summary of what is said in the text and what theology and anthropology can be inferred from it. First consider the comments of Gordon Wenham.

In reading a book special attention needs to be devoted to the opening, for as Rimmon-

Kenan says: ‘information and attitudes presented at an early stage of the text tend to

encourage the reader to interpret everything in their light’.

Genesis 1 does this very effectively. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the

earth’ introduces one God, not a pantheon, who takes the initiative and orders all that

happens in the whole universe. The implied monotheism of Genesis 1 is one example

of the persistent critique of Near Eastern theology that runs throughout Genesis 1-11

culminating in its trenchant attack on the religious pretensions of Babylon and its

tower.


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This picture of one God in total control is reaffirmed repeatedly in Genesis, most

obviously in the flood story and at turning points in history, when God ‘remembers’

people and intervenes on their behalf (cf. 8:1; 19:29; 30:22). Just before the end of

Genesis, another key point for interpretation, Joseph reminds his brothers of God’s

sovereign control of human affairs: ‘you meant evil against me; but God meant it for

good’ (50:20).

God’s sovereignty is further underlined by the acts of creation that follow. Each time

God speaks, his command is obeyed; there is light, the dry land appears, fish swarm in

the seas and so on. God is a speaking God, and what he says happens. This speaking

anticipates his promises to the patriarchs, the theme of Genesis, and serves to give the

reader confidence that they too will be fulfilled as assuredly as God’s creative words

have been (cf. Jer. 31:35-36; Ps 89:35-37).

The acts of creation on the first five days have a polemical thrust in denying the

divinity of the sun, moon, and sea monsters as much of the ancient Orient believed, but

their chief purpose is preparing a world suitable for human habitation, for the whole

story reaches a climax with the creation of mankind on the sixth day. However already

the creation of the environment hints at concerns that run through Genesis: the plants

and fruit trees bear ‘seed’ (a Genesis keyword), while the birds and fish are ‘blessed’

(another keyword) and commanded to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (1:11, 22).

Against the background of ancient Near Eastern mythology Genesis’ account of the

creation of mankind is strikingly original and distinctive. According to the Atrahasis

epic, the fullest and closest Babylonian parallel to Genesis 1-9, the gods created

mankind as an afterthought to provide them with food. The subsequent population

explosion led the gods to send famine, plague, and finally a flood to destroy the human

race. Only the dissent of one of the gods enabled Atrahasis (=Noah) to escape in an

ark. But Genesis portrays the one God as in favour of the human race.

Though this critique of ancient Near Eastern thinking emerges most clearly in the flood

story, it is already evident in 1:26-31. Here the creation of mankind is seen as the

culmination of the six days’ work, and God pronounces all that he has made very good.

Mankind is created in two sexes, male and female: he is blessed and commanded to be

fruitful and multiply. God gives the plants to man for food; it is not man’s duty to

supply the gods with food. Finally and most significantly, man is made in God’s

image. The nature of this image is elusive, but the function of the image is clear: it

enables mankind to rule over the earth and the other creatures. In ancient oriental myth

kings were made in the gods’ image, but Genesis democratizes the idea; every human

being is a king and responsible for managing the world on God’s behalf. (Benevolence

towards the governed, not exploitation, was the mark of the good ruler according to

oriental and biblical thought: see Psalm 72, which is rich in allusions to Genesis 1-3.)

The positive vision of humanity’s place in the divine economy echoes on through

Genesis. Whereas in 1:28 God commands mankind to be fruitful and multiply, the

genealogies in chapters 5 and 11 repeatedly observe that so-and-so ‘had other sons and

daughters’, and the patriarchs are repeatedly assured that they will have numerous

descendants. Conversely homicide is viewed as the gravest of crimes, itself warranting


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the death penalty at human hands, and Onan’s attempt to frustrate the procreation of

descendants leads to the Lord slaying him (4:1-16; 9:1-7; 38:9-10).

The image of God is not just invoked to underline the sanctity of human life, but it also

signifies man’s royal role as God’s vice-gerent on earth. Here is a foreshadowing of

the promise that among Abraham’s descendants there will be kings (17:6) and more

particularly that ‘the scepter will not depart from Judah’ (49:10). Kings were supposed

to act benevolently towards their subjects and seek their welfare, and Genesis 1:28

gives man dominion over the other creatures. In 2:19 Adam names the animals,

demonstrating his authority over them, but the fall introduces tension between man and

the animals (3:14-15; 9:5). However, Noah the perfect man is charged to bring pairs of

animals into the ark ‘to keep them alive’ (6:19-20). The patriarchs are portrayed as

shepherds whose flocks prosper under their care, most spectacularly in the case of Isaac

and Jacob (26:12-14; 30:25-31:42). And Joseph’s famine-relief measures save the lives

not just of the Egyptians but their flocks and cattle too (47:15-18). Joseph is surely

portrayed as very much the ruler in Genesis, the ideal king.

God’s provision of food for man is a distinctive feature of Genesis, when it is compared

with its oriental predecessors which speak of humans feeding the gods. This provision

is of course most evident in the Joseph story, where ‘God revealed to Pharaoh what he

is about to do’ (41:25) and gave Joseph the ability to advise the Pharaoh how to cope

with the famine. God’s blessing of Isaac ensured bumper crops (26:12), but also right

back in Eden Adam was provided with every kind of tree that was ‘good for food’

(2:9). Admittedly the fall complicated the food situation, and this is reflected in the

various famines which are mentioned in the book (3:17; 12:10; 26:1, etc.), but however

dire these famines were, the patriarchs survived.

The first account of creation concludes with God resting from all his work on the

seventh day and blessing and sanctifying it (2:1-3). This shows that while the creation

of man may be the climax of the creation, its goal is rest. Though the seventh day is not

called the Sabbath, the word used for ‘rest’ sounds almost the same (sabat), so that any

Hebrew reader would say that God was observing the Sabbath. Remarkably too the

seventh day is blessed, a keyword in Genesis, but elsewhere God blesses only animate

creatures, whether animal or human. And apart from the Sabbath only one festival day

is ever declared a holy day (Neh 8:9). This accumulation of unusual terms shows the

prominence given to the Sabbath here. Coming so soon after the comment that man is

made in the image of God, God’s rest on the seventh day is clearly being set out as

model for mankind to follow (cf. Ex. 20:11). This paragraph then has the clearest

ethical implications of the whole section. (Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically, Gordon J. Wenham, pp. 24-27)

David Naugle adds these insights as he discusses Genesis 1 & 2.

However you work out the details scientifically, Genesis 1-2 is clear that God created

the heavens and the earth. The chief characteristic of the cosmos is that it is created.

Specifically, God prepared the earth to be a delightful habitation or home for us where

we could live and flourish. The account opens with the majestic declaration in Genesis

1:1 that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In verse 2, our


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attention is rifled immediately to our planet. At this early stage, our future home was

formless, empty, and dark. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters in

anticipation of shaping the chaos into a well-ordered cosmos. That is exactly what

happened in the six days of creation detailed in verses 3-31.

On the first three days of creation (vv. 3-13), God formed that which was formless by

creating light, the skies, the seas, the dry land, vegetation, plants and trees, declaring

each successive thing to be good. On God’s second three creative days (vv. 14-25), he

filled that which was empty by making the sun, moon and stars, fish and birds, cattle,

creeping things, and the beasts of the earth. First God made the realms, then he filled

them with their rulers and he affirmed the goodness of each individual thing that he

made along the way.

Then at the summit of God’s creative work, God made us — both male and female —

as the image and likeness of God (a notion that includes the body as well as the soul).

God blessed us as embodied human beings. That blessing consisted of three things: (1)

a loving relationship with God himself, (2) the institutions of marriage and family life,

and (3) the mandate to rule and subdue the earth and its creatures. These divinely

ordained purposes for our lives — spiritual, social, and cultural, respectively — are

delineated in the “creation decree” of Genesis 1:26-28.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let

them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and

over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God

created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female

He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and

multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over

the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Following this succinct statement of the human project, God provided abundant food in

the form of a vegetarian diet of green plants and fruit-bearing trees for people and

animals (vv. 29-30). At the conclusion of this sixth day, God observed his handiwork

and declared it all to be “very good” (v. 31). Each part of this world was “good”

independently. As a whole, however, it was truly excellent and utterly beautiful in its

sheer being. Everything God created was and is unspeakably good (see 1 Tim. 4:1-5).

This assertion of the original goodness of all things is important for understanding how

God designed the world with our well-being in mind. To be sure, it exists for God’s

glory first and foremost. According to Isaiah the prophet, the angels cry out before God

saying, “Holy, Holy Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the fullness of the whole earth is His

glory” (Isa. 6:3).

While the world exists for God’s glory, God also created it as the place of blessing for

us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us, “This blessing — be fruitful and multiply, and

fill the earth and subdue it — affirms man totally in the world of the living in which he

is placed. It is his total empirical existence that is blessed here, his creatureliness, his

worldliness, and his earthiness.”


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The first part of the creation account is wrapped up in Genesis 2:1-3 with a word about

the special character of the seventh day. By then, God had completed his creative work

and rested, not because he was tired, but because he had finished. God sanctified the

seventh day as a day of rest, because on it he ceased from his labors and began to enjoy

what he had made.

The rest of Genesis 2 focuses specifically on the origin of humans, the Garden of Eden,

and the institution of marriage. After a brief word of introduction about the early

condition of the earth (vv. 4-6), we learn how God created the first man from the

ground itself and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This first man became a

living being, a composite of body and soul, both physical and spiritual in nature (v. 7).

God also planted a beautiful garden eastward in Eden where there were beautiful and

fruitful trees and a bountiful river of water. He placed the man there whom he had

created to cultivate it and keep it (vv. 8-15). To sustain him in his life and work as a

gardener, the man was to eat freely from the trees of the garden. There was one

exception, however: he was not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of

good and evil. This prohibition served as a test of the man’s obedience to God (vv. 16-

17).

Despite the abundance of the man’s surroundings, the only thing that wasn’t good was

the man’s solitude (v. 18). After creating the animals and disclosing their social

insufficiency, God made a woman from the man’s side for the sake of companionship.

Like the father of a bride, God presented the woman to the man that she might be his

wife and that he might be her husband (vv. 19-22). This initial encounter inspired the

man to wax poetic for the very first time:

This is now bone of my bones,

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman,

Because she was taken out of Man. (Gen. 2:23)

This episode concludes with a declaration of God’s intent for marriage. It was to be a

total life union between man and woman in an exclusive and permanent covenantal

relationship of faithfulness and love (vv. 23-24). The first human couple enjoyed

unhindered communication and acceptance of one another in the absence of any

impediment. They both were naked and not ashamed (v. 25).

Eden overall, as the name in Hebrew literally suggests, was a garden of delight. It is

called paradise for a purpose. A trace of it in the most glorious of spring days reminded

the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins of the original creation:

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden.

The universe and our world in particular, then, were no cosmic accidents. The creation

was the result of God’s purposeful design. God intended us to live in the fullness of

community with himself, others, and the world around us. This blessed estate


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established the setting for the truly happy [blessed] life, six components of which are

evident in the creation account:

1. Spiritually, we were made to enjoy intimate union with God the creator in

obedience to his will, rooted in our identity as God’s image and likeness.

2. Vocationally, we were made to undertake fulfilling work based on the

commandment to rule the earth and to cultivate and keep the creation.

3. Socially, we were made for human companionship especially as man and woman

in the context of marriage and family life.

4. Nutritionally, we were made to partake freely of food and drink, as seen in the

generous provision of plants, fruitful trees, and water in the garden of Eden.

5. Sabbatically, we were made to rest and play in the enjoyment of the world, based

upon the blessing and sanctification of the seventh day.

6. Habitationally, we were made to take pleasure in our surroundings, in the nature

of the locations and places where we live, since God set us in the delightfulness of

Eden and in the context of the creation’s astounding wonder and beauty.

These are the six ingredients in God’s recipe for the happy [blessed] life [shalom]. It is,

we might say, “a state made perfect by the aggregation [combination] of all good

things.” God intended us to live fully in the largess of indescribable blessing mediated

through multifaceted aspects of God’s marvelous world in a complete and satisfying

way. It’s not hedonistic but an edenistic happiness that roots the fullness of human life

in God and his creation. (Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness, David K. Naugle, pp. 14-17)

The collection of writers that contributed to the book entitled, The Story of Israel: A Biblical Theology, provide this overview of important themes in the story of Scripture as well three key blessings that they identify from Genesis 1 and 2.

The Pentateuch begins with the creation of the world and concludes with the creation of

a nation. Throughout the stories there is a struggle between divine will and human

responsibility. The struggle for humans to be responsible often leads to sin, exile and

restoration. This paradigm of sin-exile-restoration appears frequently in the Pentateuch

in various forms. The stories from the Primeval History suggest that such a pattern

stands outside of the story of Israel—it is the story of humanity. Yet the remainder of

the Pentateuch indicates that this paradigm, while part of the story of humanity, can be

traced in greater detail with the events surrounding the story of Israel.

The opening chapters of Genesis are fertile ground for theological reflection. They

have much to say about creation and the created order. But three blessings appear in

these chapters that prove critical to reading the remainder of the Pentateuch. In the

movement from sin to exile to restoration, these blessings are challenged, thus

threatening the creative design of God.

The first blessing relates to the orderliness of creation. The highly poetic design of

Genesis 1, with the repetition of numerous words and phrases, suggests that the author

intended to present creation as an act of ultimate order. The repetition of the phrase

“and God saw that it was good” suggests that from the beginning creation fulfilled its


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creative design—the world was as it was intended to be. The remainder of the story of

Israel and the story of the world in general, however, depicts a world gone awry—one

that has long since faltered in maintaining its creative design. As John Walton has

noted, Genesis 1 “is intended to show that the world was not always as it is now.” The

chaos and disorder experienced in the stories that follow in the history of Israel only

highlights the fact that the world is not as it was intended. Yet the function of Genesis

1 is to call people (and creation) back to its creative design—to fulfill those functions

for which they were designed by God.

The second blessing pertains to the blessing of dominion and fertility. While dominion

and fertility may be considered two distinct ideas, they can be subsumed under one

theme. Through their appropriate use, humanity can continue the creative activity of

God in the world. The two gifts of dominion and fertility were not given to be fanciful

privileges of the human race; rather, they were given so that the human race might

continue God’s designs for his creation. The story of Israel, however, is fraught with

stories where those creative designs are thwarted. The blessing to be fruitful and

multiply is often challenged, threatening the future course of humanity. The oscillation

between stories of barrenness and lists of genealogies suggests that the fulfillment of

these blessings will be tenuous at best.

The final blessing is that of the presence of God. Although not specifically stated as a

blessing, Genesis 2 alludes to God’s close presence to the created order. The

anthropomorphic language that pervades the chapter suggests a God who is near. He is

one who “forms man” (Gen 2:7), “plants a garden” (Gen 2:8), and puts man in the

garden (Gen 2:15). There is an apparent spatial relationship that the author intends for

the reader to discover. In the Garden, the humans are near to God—it is paradise. But

as Genesis 3 will demonstrate, outside the Garden indicates a certain separation from

God. Thus, the remainder of the Pentateuch is about how Israel gets back to the

Garden, not geographically but spatially. How do the people of God enjoy the blessing

of being in God’s presence? (The Story of Israel: A Biblical Theology, C. Marvin Pate, J. Scott Duvall, J. Daniel Hays, E. Randolph Richards, W. Dennis Tucker Jr. & Prebin Vang, pp. 29-30)

How does the story of creation relate to a person’s worldview? Consider these thoughts by J. Mark Bertrand.

But have you ever wondered why Scripture tells us about the creation of the world?

After all, what is the practical value of this knowledge? Does it change the way you

live your life? If you take two people, one who believes the world was created by God

and the other who believes it came into being through chance, and study their daily

activities, you will not notice any differences that can be directly traced to the book of

Genesis. You cannot tell by looking who believes in creation and who believes in

evolution, unless they are helpful enough to affix the appropriate fish—the standard

version, the fish with the word Darwin inside, or the big fish eating the fish with

Darwin inside, etc.—on the back of their cars. What you believe about the details of

the creation story seem irrelevant to everyday life, too. People who believe in twenty-

four-hour solar days do not get more (or less) sleep than those who believe that the


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“days” were metaphorical. So why is the creation story, which seems to cause so much

trouble for Christians in this scientific age, even included in the Bible?

We find the answer when the Psalmist sings, “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.” (Ps. 24:1-2) Creation tells us something important

about ourselves: who we belong to. God is omnipotent, but his right to dictate what we

should and should not do comes, not from his strength, but from the fact that he made

us. It is not that he has taken us by force, but that, through giving birth to us, he owns

us.

Paul’s epistle to the Romans is the key theological text of the New Testament. Here,

we find the most detailed expression of some of Christianity’s most important

doctrines. To grasp the importance of the doctrine of creation, we must turn once more

to the first chapter of Romans, where Paul describes the fundamental fault of the

unbeliever:

So [sinful men] are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor

him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their

foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and

exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and

birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of

their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because

they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature

rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom. 1:20b-25)

The whole of man’s problem, it seems, can be summed up under the heading of false

worship. Man, who is made in God’s image, sins when he worships what is made by

man. This passage conjures up images of ancient idols—not unlike the fish-god

Dagon—but it is easy to see how the more sophisticated inventions of our own age

qualify. When we worship such things, we exchange something breathtaking and

glorious, God Almighty, for a mundane and disappointing evil. The true object of our

worship and our service is not man but God. Why? Because we are creatures and he is

the Creator.

So the logic is simple. If you know who made you, then you know whom you must

worship and serve. Genesis tells us: Go to the beginning, and you will find God. The

Old Testament adds: Fear God, and you will find the beginning of wisdom. In the New

Testament: Christ, by whom all things were made, is the wisdom of God. In revealing

creation, God points both to his Trinitarian nature and to the proper trajectory of a

creature’s life. The doctrine of creation serves not only as an answer to the

philosophical question, where did I come from? but also (more significantly) as the

basis for obedience in this life. There is nothing abstract, remote, or impractical about

it. It is a fundamental of the faith—perhaps the fundamental, since so many other

doctrines flow from it.

The cold logic of mid-twentieth-century atheism has now given way to an era of

renewed “spirituality,” but it is an awakening more therapeutic than pious, more


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attuned to self-expression than self-denial. It is now fashionable to talk about God,

though it is still deeply unfashionable to believe in him. Yes, Americans are a religious

people, but we embrace religious beliefs in the same way we adopt preferences for

certain brands of product. The commitments are deeply personal without necessarily

being deeply held. Our convictions are about identity, not reality. They suggest who

we want to be rather than what we believe is true.

In some ways, the new, accessible spirituality may be the result of disaffection. In the

same way that Europe’s wars of religion paved the way for the emergence of pietism,

the century and a half of struggle over the doctrine of creation has cleared a path for

subjective, paradoxical expressions of faith. People want to explore spiritual things

without getting bogged down in the culture wars, so they look for modes of spirituality

that do not step on the toes of science. As a result, they are receptive to the idea of

religion as a metaphor, a way of adapting to and understanding life, rather than a

coherent system of truth claims.

What this means is that the doctrine of creation, long under siege by scientists who

believed that the theory of evolution adequately accounts for the universe apart from

God, is also in danger of being classified as irrelevant by believers who adopt an

approach to faith that emphasizes personal experience over the traditional doctrines of

Christianity. In some ways, the second threat is greater than the first. When

unbelievers deny the fact of creation, they are behaving as Christians expect them to

act. But when believers begin to conceive of a Christianity without creation—arguing,

in essence, that we can have our cake and eat it, too—then the risk of others being led

astray multiplies significantly.

But what is exactly at risk? Let me spell it out. If the doctrine of creation is the basis

upon which God can rightly demand our worship and service, then the collapse of the

doctrine takes that claim to obedience with it. It robs God’s actions in the world of any

justification but power. What right does he have to condemn sin? What right to judge?

What right not to be judged by us according to our own standards? The Christian

system of truth requires the doctrine of creation for coherence. Remove that pillar, and

you lose much of the rationale for God’s actions in history. If we are to be Christians

who zealously embrace the whole of our inheritance, then we must guard the doctrine

of creation against enemies both within and without. ((Re)Thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World, J. Mark Bertrand, pp. 52-53, 57-58)

How does this story of creation relate to the with-God life that was claimed to be one of the most significant themes running through the story of Scripture? The authors of the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible provide us with these insights.

In the early chapters of Genesis, how God interacts with humanity—the with-God

life—is expressed in three characteristic ways: it is conversational, direct, and

intermittent.

Conversational. Perhaps the most striking feature of this stage is the conversational

tone of all that occurs: God speaks to human beings and they speak back to God. The

content of this two-way communication is specific, practical, and propositional (Gen


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2:15-16). Human beings correspond to God as to Someone with whom they are

working. They are constantly interacting with God: obeying, disobeying, questioning,

objecting, and rationalizing. The “garden” is not merely a human enterprise they are

running alone; rather, it is a cooperative enterprise human beings engage in with God.

Even at this early stage God gives the members of the human family substantial room

to work out for themselves what they are to do and to be. In fact, God limits them only

in the negative: they are not to eat of a certain tree. Everything else is for their

choosing. Clearly human freedom is of fundamental importance in God’s plan, though

Adam and Eve are not set free from the consequences of their choices. They are

responsible for their choices.

However, it soon becomes clear that responsibility requires character, and that such

character will come only through a process of formation. Formation, or more specific

to our topic, spiritual formation, occurs in the dynamic exercise of human choice in

response to divine purposes. We are formed by our reactions and choices as we will

see throughout the Bible and human history. God alerts human beings to the dangers

and tells them what they must do. “Sin is lurking at the door,” Cain is told, “but you

must master it” (Gen 4:7; cf. 3:3).

Direct. Being conversational, the interaction between God and human beings is direct

and not through intermediaries. In fact, in the early parts of the Genesis narrative there

are suggestions that God is somehow physically present to the very senses of Adam and

Eve: “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the

evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord

God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8). Scripture seems to imply they even see

God’s face (1:28-29; 2:15, 22), something that would later be forbidden to humanity on

pain of death (Exod 33:20-23; Deut 5: 24; Judg 13:22).

As the members of the human race choose to act independently and contrary to God’s

purposes, there is a gradual distancing of God from them; but God’s Spirit—that is, his

nonphysical presence—continues to strive with them (Gen 6:3; KJV). Now the people

begin to call upon the name of the Lord in a way that implies One who is absent (4:26).

Yet some, like Enoch and Noah, still “walked with” God, and God with them. Thus,

although the direct interaction of individuals with God is becoming less frequent in

general, it does continue with individuals of singularly developed character, whose

example becomes a beacon for the whole human family.

Intermittent. It is important to note that God is not constantly present with Adam and

Eve or their immediate descendants. He did not “stand over them,” but instead made

room for them to obey and disobey. And God even allowed them to hide from him in

their shame, though he still spoke to them as they hid (Gen 3:8-13). This space allowed

by God’s “absence” is necessary. In order to move beyond unknowing innocence, we

must develop a character and an identity that freely seek harmony with God. Of course,

God’s absence” allows for the opposite to happen. Whenever we turn away from God,

we take on an identity that focuses exclusively on ourselves, and we then try to master

our life and our world on our own. This is exactly what happens in the Garden of Eden,

and the dreadful decline catalogued in Paul’s letter to the Romans begins: “For though


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they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became

futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened” (1:21). The natural

outcome is an earth “filled with violence,” where “every inclination of the thoughts of

their hearts [is] only evil continuously” (Gen 6:11, 5).

In response to such an outcome, God judges. In the first general judgment of humanity

after the fall of Adam and Eve, one person, Noah, is found worthy of escape and

continued blessing. But after Noah, humankind continues on its path of independence

from God (Gen 11:4). Hence, in the second general judgment at Babel, no individual is

exempted. God sees that there is no limit to people’s arrogance and depravity (11:6).

To defeat their project of building “a tower with its top in the heavens,” God

permanently disrupts their communication with each other and scatters them over the

face of the entire earth (11:1-9).

So in the beginning God’s presence to humankind was conversational, direct, and

intermittent. And with the freedom granted human beings by God’s “absenting”

himself enough for humanity to make its choices, what did we do? Our responses were

characterized by disobeying in God’ absence (Adam and Eve) and pursuing human

objectives without regard for God’s gentle presence (Cain and Abel). Human beings go

astray “like sheep”—as sheep do, following momentary interests, and the gentleness of

God permits this to happen. Human self-will nurtures massive insensitivity and

resistance to God’s personal overtures and finally a hopeless immersion in evil (Gen

6:1-7, 11-13).

However, individuals of character, such as Enoch and Noah, still respond to God, are

“selected,” and in turn find “favor” with God (Gen 5:21-24; 6:8, 13-22). That is God’s

way, and it is always so. In this way God lays the foundation for the next form of God-

with-us, in Abraham and his family. But early humanity as a whole rejects God and, as

the population increases, asserts its power in unified activity against God at Babel.

The major formational advantage of this individual communion with God is the good

effect of God’s direct presence. Our lives find their direction when God is present with

us, and we are directionless without him. Intimate, individual communication with God

is something that cannot be done away with in spiritual formation. We must constantly

seek out this intimate, individual communion. We need the full assurance of God’s

greatness and goodness that comes only from his direct presence. This, frankly, cannot

be derived from any other source.

The eternal fact of our lives is that we are constantly being upheld by God’s direct

action upon us. This fact is not abolished by human withdrawal from God; rather, God

preserves it and develops other ways to support it, as we shall see in later sections of

the biblical record, starting with the stories of Abraham. But being aware of how God

is upholding us must run through the texture of our entire life like a golden thread. And

we can become aware of his constant work and presence only by experiencing

individual communion with God.

But God-with-us in direct, conversational relationship cannot be our whole life. It

gives us neither character nor identity. It promotes passivity instead of vigorous


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righteousness and self-identity with God, whether he is present or absent. When God is

not actively present with us, there is nothing to pull us or sustain us in a direction

toward God. We are left entirely on our own, facing bare choice. And our feelings,

desires, and wayward thoughts will triumph—or become tools of God’s great enemy,

Satan.

The gentleness of God’s presence can be resisted. We can even fail to recognize God’s

presence. Our heart can become hardened in self-will and thus incapable of

recognizing when God is moving upon it. Or we may simply reject God’s overtures

even when we know it is God, failing to appreciate his gentleness. It is sobering to

realize that we can grieve and resist the Spirit of God.

Within this conversational, direct, and intermittent form of God-with-us, humanity’s

progress and development under God is restricted to whatever occurs within individual

lives. Humanity as a whole has no identifiable God center or God context within it or

around it to draw it toward God. What is lacking in this early stage of human history is,

in a word, mediation.

From this point onward, God will use mediation to be present with us even when he is

“absent.” Examples of this mediation are social structures such as the family, the tribe,

the nation, and religious institutions such as the tabernacle, the Temple, and the Church.

Mediation will now be the ongoing story of God-with-us, developing through various

forms from Abraham, the friend of God, to the end of the Church age, reaching its

fulfillment and perfection in the mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus (1

Tim 2:5), and in his continuing incarnation in his body, the Church.

What can we learn from this stage of God-with-us? First, we learn that God desires and

intends cooperative efforts and direct, conversational relationship with us. Very

simply, we are made for this. To use Augustine’s famous words, “Thou has made us

for thyself, and we are not at rest until we find our rest in thee.”

God does not abandon this direct mode of his presence with us after the human failure

witnessed in the first chapters of the Bible. God will not be defeated (Rom 8:3-4). Out

of respect for the human condition, God establishes indirect means for working with us,

for our own sake. This fact of indirection is plainly spelled out in biblical and human

history. It is something we must understand and respect in our own day and in our own

spiritual life.

A second thing we learn is why there must be a human, or mediated, side to God’s

relationship to us. Earthly institutions are needed to enable God to be present among us

even when, from the merely human point of view, he appears to be absent. God’s

presence on earth in mediated, outward forms is necessary because of the human

condition. The human condition is such that earthly institutions serve as constant

necessary points of reference to God without his being directly present to us.

We also learn from the biblical record that our finitude and limitation cannot be

successfully overcome by the immediate presence of the infinite God. Adam and Eve

fell despite directly being in God’s presence. God has now shown us a different path.

We need gradual and humble steps toward God, as can be seen, for example, in God’s


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choice of an aged Bedouin and his barren wife. Or in a shaggy tabernacle built by

escaped slaves. Or in a ruddy-cheeked boy smelling of sheep. Such are the humble

steps God uses until the One comes who “humbled himself and became obedient to the

point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).

The biblical record of God using these “things on earth” to draw human beings closer to

him can instruct us endlessly. And what about us? In the course of our own spiritual

formation in Christlikeness, what physical things does God use as his instruments to

bring us to the point where we will be able to “reign forever and ever” in a world where

there will be no night and we will once again see his face (Rev 22:3-5)? (The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, Editor: Richard J. Foster, General Editors: Gayle Beebe, Lynda L. Graybeal, Thomas C. Oden, Dallas Willard, Consulting Editors: Walter Brueggemann, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 1-5)

Although we find no explicit references to Jesus in Genesis 1 and 2, the apostle John does tie Jesus to this passage in the prologue to the gospel he wrote (John 1:1-18). Consider the comments of Gary Burge on John 1:1-18.

One reason why the Gospel of John was symbolized by the eagle is the lofty heights

attained by its prologue. With skill and delicacy, John handles issues of profound

importance. It comes as no surprise that this prologue has been foundational to the

classic Christian formulation of the doctrine of Christ. Here divinity and humanity,

preexistence and incarnation, revelation and sacrifice are each discussed by John with

deceptive simplicity.

The first verses of John’s Gospel are a triumph of Christian theology. John begins by

establishing the preeminence of the Word existing before the creation of the world.

The initial allusion to Genesis 1 cannot be missed (John 1:1). This is a Gospel that will

record the re-creation of men and women, the giving of life in darkness where there is

no hope. This parallels the thought of Genesis 1 [and 2], in which God breathes life

into the nostrils of Adam and provides new possibilities for the world.

John begins by introducing Jesus as “the Word” (logos) and is building here on much

contemporary Jewish thought, where the word of God took on personal creative

attributes (Gen. 1; Ps. 33:6, 9). In the New Testament period it was personified (Wisd.

Sol. 7:24; 18:15-16) and known by some as the immanent power of God creatively at

work in the world (Philo). John identifies this Word as Jesus Christ. As such John can

attribute to him various divine functions, such as creation (John 1:3, 10) and giving of

life (1:4, 14, 16).

But John goes further. He is ready to infer some personal identity between the Logos

and God. “And the Word was God” (1:1). John often employs similar Greek verbs in

order to develop a contrast of themes. The Greek words ginomai (to become) and eimi

(to be) have similar nuances, but John frequently uses them together to make a point.

For instance, in 8:58 Jesus says (lit.), “Before Abraham was [ginomai], I am [eimi].”

The first verb suggests “coming into being,” such as Abraham’s birth; the second

implies ongoing existence. Thus in 1:6 John writes, “There came [ginomai] a man sent

from God.” In 1:1 John carefully writes, “In the beginning was the Word”—“the Word

was with God”—“the Word was God.” In each case he uses eimi. John is making an


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absolute affirmation about the eternal existence of the Word. It did not come into being

nor was there ever a time when “the Word was not.” Whatever we can say about God,

we can and must say about the Word.

But who is this Word? “The Word was God.” Attempts to detract from this literal

translation for grammatical reasons (e.g., “the word was a god [or divine]”) run

aground when we consider the number of other times when such a divine ascription is

made for Jesus. For example, Jesus employs the divine Old Testament title “I Am”

(8:24, 28, 58, etc.), he is “one with God” (10:30), and he is even addressed by Thomas

in the Gospel’s final scene as “my Lord and my God” (20:28).

Some have argued that because theos (God) does not have a definite article, the better

translation would be, “The word was divine,” thereby limiting any absolute claim for

the Logos. But this cannot be the case. Greek has another common word for divine

(theios), and in other passages, John omits the article but does not imply a change in

meaning. In Greek the word order is reversed (“and God was the Word”), emphasizing

not that the Word contains the entirety of the Godhead, but that the divinity possessed

by God is also possessed by this Word.

This is John’s overture to Christology and the beginnings of his Trinitarian thought.

Indeed, “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse.

The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.” This is the theme that

will be echoed throughout the Gospel. We will be introduced to Jesus time and time

again, and in each case we will be forced to picture Jesus with increasingly profound

images. He is the greatest of all people; he is the Messiah of Jewish expectation; but

more (this is John’s unique message), he is the Son of God the divine messenger from

the Father. Any reading of the Fourth Gospel that omits this supreme and ultimate

claim for Jesus misses its central affirmation.

Once John has identified the Logos with God, he continues to mark the relation of the

Logos to the world. As God’s creative agent, he was responsible for the creation of the

world. John’s language here is careful and specific: The Logos was not one preeminent

creation that went on to create others. In fact, the Logos was never created. Nothing

came into being without him (v. 3). This is another parallel with the thought world of

Genesis. In Genesis 1 we are introduced to the God of Israel, Creator of the universe.

Now we learn more. The creative capacity of God was Logos. Therefore John stresses

not merely that who God is, the Logos is (Strophe One), but that what God does, the

Logos does. Therefore in the Gospel, what Jesus does is divine activity. When he

heals or speaks—when he gives eternal life (v. 4)—this is God at work, just as God

worked at the foundation of the world.

The prologue is the most complete, indeed, the most explicit study of Christ’s

preexistence in the New Testament. The significance of Jesus is not merely in his

ability to be a powerful worker of mighty deeds. Nor is it in his wisdom as a great

teacher. Rather, Jesus is God-become-flesh. That is, the phenomenon of Jesus Christ is

a phenomenon unlike anything the world has witnessed before. He is God-in-descent,

God stepping into the context of humanity. In more technical terms, Jesus has an

ontological divinity. His being, his essence, his very nature is one with God. This is to


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be compared with an ethical divinity, in which Jesus is valued or aligned with God—as

evidenced in what he does. This may at first seem obvious to those who have been

nurtured in the Christian environment, but today it simply cannot be assumed that men

and women truly understand the Christological implications of John’s incarnational

theology.

Springing from this doctrine of the high divinity of Jesus—a divinity anchored to

preexistence—comes a host of theological themes that I must press home when I apply

this text. John’s understanding of revelation lifts Jesus’ words above those of a prophet

and any human being. The voice of Jesus becomes the voice of God. It is for this

reason that Jesus can tell Philip that seeing him is equivalent to seeing the Father

(14:9). This is also why Thomas, at the close of the Gospel, can give Jesus the high

acclaim, “My Lord and my God” (20:28). In a similar fashion, John’s understanding of

redemption now becomes a divine work that parallels Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians

5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” Redemption is thus no

divinely inspired human event that sets out to placate God. Redemption is God himself

at work in the world, achieving his own goals for repairing the consequences of sin and

bringing humanity back into relationship with himself. (TNAC, John, Gary M. Burge, pp. 51-52, 54-56, 62)

Craig Koester adds these additional insights that connect John 1:1-18 with Genesis 1 and 2.

Basic to John’s theology is that God has created all things through his Word. Referring

to God’s Word the prologue says, “all things came into being through him” (1:3a).

This too echoes the biblical creation story. The main verb is egeneto, which is used

repeatedly in the Greek translation of Genesis: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there

was (egeneto) light’; “God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters’ …and

it was so (egeneto)” (Gen. 1:3, 6-7). Throughout the biblical account of creation, God

speaks and things happen; his Word forms the world.

John uses this biblical language to establish a pattern of relationships between God and

others. God and his Word are simply present at the beginning. Their existence is taken

for granted. By way of contrast, the world comes into being. It is not self-generated or

ultimate. It owes its existence to the God who called it into being. The prologue does

not speculate about what God might have been doing before creation — though Jesus

will later disclose that God’s glory and love existed before the world was ever made

(John 17:5, 24). Instead, the prologue helps define God’s relationship to the world.

God is the Creator; the world is created. The world may claim independence, but this is

not the case. Its existence depends upon the Word of God.

Emphasizing the scope of creation, the prologue says that without God’s Word “not one

thing came into being” (1:3b). This is important given John’s sharp distinction between

what is above and below, between heaven and earth (3:12, 31). Readers can get the

impression that the earth is inherently evil, unlike the celestial sphere above. John

contrasts flesh and Spirit, what is of this world and what is not of this world (3:6; 8:23).

Readers may infer that the flesh and the world are intrinsically bad, while the Spirit and

the otherworldly realm are good. Yet this is not the view of the Gospel writer.


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God is the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth. The world and the flesh are

limited and perishable, yet they belong to God’s creation and are not essentially evil.

The Word can become flesh because the flesh itself is fashioned by God. The created

order does not, in itself, yield any sure knowledge of God. Yet upon entering the

world, Jesus calls upon things that can be seen and heard and tasted to bear witness to

the unseen God who sent him. Water jars filled with wine, bread made from barley,

shafts of light striking the eye of a blind man — all become vehicles for revelation.

When teaching, Jesus invokes images of flowing water, a shepherd and sheep, a vine

and a vinedresser, so that aspects of the creation are used in witness to the Creator and

his gifts.

Thus far the prologue has said that the Word of God has given things existence. Now it

says that in God’s Word was “life,” which is something more (1:4). Life is pictured as

a light for human beings, and it is central to John’s understanding of God’s identity and

purposes. God “has life in himself,” which means that his life is not derived from any

other source (5:26). God has life and God gives life. This gives readers a basic sense

of who God is. Human beings, in contrast, do not have life in themselves. If they are

to live they must receive life from God. This means that in John’s Gospel life is

understood relationally. To have life is to relate to the God who is the source of all life.

Life has multiple dimensions in John’s Gospel. One of these is physical. Those who

are alive physically have hearts that beat and lungs that breathe. Since God’s Word is

the source of physical life, this is an essential feature of the ministry of Jesus, the

incarnate Word. He restores the health of a boy dying of a fever, so that the child

“lives” (4:50-51). Giving bread to a hungry crowd, enabling a paralyzed man to walk,

giving a blind man his sight, and calling Lazarus out of the tomb — all of these reveal

the power of the life-giving God.

There is also a dimension to life that goes beyond the physical. To have true life is to

know and trust God and his Word. The prologue develops this idea by tracing the

coming of the Word into the world. Those who have life “know” God through his

Word (1:10). This is a positive form of relationship. Knowing can simply mean that

someone has correctly absorbed information, but knowing God is more like knowing a

person. It involves a recognition of identity, a discerning of the truth about someone.

Knowing has a cognitive dimension, yet it is not limited to this. To know God through

his Word is to “receive” him, as one welcomes a person into one’s home (1:11). It is to

“believe” in the Word, which means trusting God himself (1:12).

The Gospel recognizes that there may be disjunction between the different facets of

life. Physically, all people receive life from God, yet that does not mean that everyone

has the life that comes through faith. People who can breathe and move have the

capacity to turn away from their Maker. They can reject the Word of God that brought

them into being and refuse to believe in him (1:10-11). They can receive the gifts of

food and healing that sustain the body, while repudiating the giver (5:14-16; 6:26-36).

All people are related to God as his creatures, yet faith is life-giving in a way that

alienation from God is not. People can be alive physically and yet dying relationally.


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The Gospel also recognizes that true life begins while the heart beats and the lungs

breathe, yet it has a future that extends beyond physical death. Therefore, true life is

often identified as “eternal life” (e.g., 3:15; 4:14; 5:24). Eternal life begins now, in

faith, and it continues beyond death through the promise of resurrection. Life in the

present can be called “eternal,” as faith brings people into relationship with the eternal

God. People are not inherently immortal, and even those who believe will die. Yet the

relationship with God is not terminated by death. God does not abandon believers but

gives them a future through resurrection.

Human beings are created with a need for life, and they pursue what they think will

bring it. So if life comes from God, as the Gospel says it does, then questions about life

are ultimately questions about God. This inherent need for life makes the matter of

God inescapable. The issue is not whether people will seek life — that is a given —the

issue is where their pursuit of life will take them and how this relates to what God is

doing. … (The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel, Craig R. Koester, pp. 30-32)

Two of the earliest and most commonly embraced creeds of the early church are the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. These represent attempts by the early church to respond to the need for explicit statements of fundamental truths that every Christian would believe as well as statements to combat teachings that were seen as divisive and not consistent with what God had revealed through the Old Testament and through the teachings of the apostles. The historical background for each creed given below and the statement of the creeds comes from the Book of Confessions published by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Notice that a fundamental belief that was explicitly stated in each creed is that God is the creator of all that is, both seen and unseen.

Although not written by apostles, the Apostles’ Creed reflects the theological

formulations of the first century church. The creed’s structure may be based on Jesus’

command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit. In a time when most Christians were illiterate, oral repetition

of the Apostles’ Creed, along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments,

helped preserve and transmit the faith of the western churches. The Apostles’ Creed

played no role in Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the early church, Christians confessed that “Jesus is Lord” but did not always understand the biblical context of lordship. The views of Marcion, a Christian living in Rome in the second century, further threatened the church’s understanding of Jesus as Lord. Marcion read the Old Testament as referring to a tyrannical God who had created a flawed world. Marcion believed that Jesus revealed, in contrast, a good God of love and mercy. For Marcion, then, Jesus was not the Messiah proclaimed by the prophets, and the Old Testament was not Scripture. Marcion proposed limiting Christian “Scripture” to Luke’s gospel (less the birth narrative and other parts that he felt expressed Jewish thinking) and to those letters of Paul that Marcion regarded as anti-Jewish. Marcion’s views developed into a movement that lasted several centuries.


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Around A.D. 180, Roman Christians developed an early form of the Apostles’ Creed to refute Marcion. They affirmed that the God of creation is the Father of Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was buried and raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where he rules with the Father. They also affirmed belief in the Holy Spirit, the church, and the resurrection of the body.

Candidates for membership in the church, having undergone a lengthy period of moral and doctrinal instruction, were asked at baptism to state what they believed. They responded in the words of this creed.

The Apostles’ Creed underwent further development. In response to the question of readmitting those who had denied the faith during the persecutions of the second and third centuries, the church added, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” In the fourth and fifth centuries, North African Christians debated the question of whether the church was an exclusive sect composed of the heroic few or an inclusive church of all who confessed Jesus Christ, leading to the addition of “holy” (belonging to God) and “catholic” (universal). In Gaul, in the fifth century, the phrase “he descended into hell” came into the creed. By the eighth century, the creed had attained its present form.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

In the first three centuries, the church found itself in a hostile environment. On the one hand, it grappled with the challenge of relating the language of the gospel, developed in a Hebraic and Jewish-Christian context, to a Graeco-Roman world. On the other hand, it was threatened not only by persecution, but also by ideas that were in conflict with the biblical witness.

In A.D. 312, Constantine won control of the Roman Empire in the battle of Milvian Bridge. Attributing his victory to the intervention of Jesus Christ, he elevated Christianity to favored status in the empire. “One God, one Lord, one faith, one church, one empire, one emperor” became his motto.

The new emperor soon discovered that “one faith and one church” were fractured by theological disputes, especially conflicting understandings of the nature of Christ, long a point of controversy. Arius, a priest of the church in Alexandria, asserted that the divine Christ, the Word through whom all things have their existence, was created by God before the beginning of time. Therefore, the divinity of Christ was similar to the divinity of God, but not of the same essence. Arius was opposed by the bishop, Alexander, together with


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his associate and successor, Athanasius. They affirmed that the divinity of Christ, the Son, is of the same substance as the divinity of God, the Father. To hold otherwise, they said, was to open the possibility of polytheism, and to imply that knowledge of God in Christ was not final knowledge of God.

To counter a widening rift within the church, Constantine convened a council in Nicaea in A.D. 325. A creed reflecting the position of Alexander and Athanasius was written and and signed by a majority of the bishops. Nevertheless, the two parties continued to battle each other. In 381, a second council met in Constantinople. It adopted a revised and expanded form of the A.D. 325 creed, now known as the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed is the most ecumenical of creeds. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) joins with Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestant churches in affirming it. Nevertheless, in contrast to Eastern Orthodox churches, the western churches state that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but from the Father and the Son (Latin, filioque). To the eastern churches, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son threatens the distinctiveness of the person of the Holy Spirit; to the western churches, the filioque guards the unity of the triune God. This issue remains unresolved in the ecumenical dialogue.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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