Credo
16 December 2024
“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
“14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, added emphasis)
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’.” (Revelation 21:1-3)
The doctrine of creation plays a vital role in the overall shaping of one’s beliefs about God, more often than we realize. Below are several thoughts meant to guide us in our doctrinal reflection about the importance of creation.
The doctrine of creation establishes the very fundamental nature of our relationship with God—he is creator, we are creation; he is transcendent, we are not. In the opening pages of the Bible in Genesis where we are told of the ‘beginnings’ of creation, we are simply told “In the beginning, God ….”; God is eternal, we are not. God cannot not have being, we are given our being. The fundamental difference between God and us spells out why sin, be it pride and rebellion where we ‘elevate’ ourselves to be gods, or idolatry where we ‘drag’ God down to be like us, is so offensive to him.
The doctrine of creation, especially in its classical expression of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing—from no pre-existent matter, space or time) further establishes the truth that God brought about creation not because of any necessity imposed upon him but purely out of his divine freedom; better: because God is the one who loves in freedom. This rules out notions of pantheism (identifying God with the universe) or panentheism (God is ‘in’ or intersects every part of the universe), both notions which render the divine being as somewhat necessarily dependent on the physical creation.
The doctrine of creation tells us that creation is “the theater of the divine glory” (Calvin’s Institutes, Psalm 19). Creation, in the way it points us to someone greater than us and beyond what we can see, renders each of us inexcusable for our suppression of this “primal and simple knowledge” (Calvin). Yet, for those whose eyes have been given the spectacles of Scripture and enabled to know God as redeemer, they too come to know God as creator, namely, that Jesus Christ is the one in whom “all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).
The doctrine of creation tells us that creation serves the covenant. As Karl Barth’s useful aphorism goes: “Covenant is the internal basis of creation, and creation is the external basis of the covenant.” This point is vividly portrayed in the creational account where the creation of humanity is seen as the high point or climax of God’s work of creation. If the essence of the covenant can be summarized in the phrase “I will be your God, and you will be my people,” then the book of Revelation provides a fitting conclusion to the truth that the final dwelling place where the covenantal relationship between God and man is finally realized to its fullest dimensions is here in the renewed creation. Because God created us as embodied beings, physicality matters to him. And on that day, in the renewed physical creation, God will dwell with us and we with him, and there we shall see him face to face in the resurrected and ascended human body and face of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who alone is true god and true man.
Prayer:
“Creator of the universe,
you made the world in beauty,
and restore all things in glory
through the victory of Jesus Christ.
We pray that, wherever your image is still disfigured
by poverty, sickness, selfishness, war, and greed,
the new creation in Jesus Christ may appear in justice, love, and peace,
to the glory of your name. Amen.”
Prayer is taken from the Revised Common Lectionary, Monday of Holy Week, Year C
This article first appeared in Dwell: An Invitation to Rest, Reflect and Renew. Singapore: Impact Christian Communications, 2024.
Rev Dr Edmund Fong is a lecturer in Theology, Hermeneutics and Presbyterianism at Trinity Theological College, and an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church in Singapore.