God and Creation

Gen 1 & 2 are the classic chapters that describe how God created the world. However, the scriptures abound with references to God's role as Creator. In fact, Creator is one of God's key identities.

Gen 6:7. Here we find the Creator already saddened at what the creation has done with their freedom. The Creator was literally grieved by the creation and regretted making humanity.

Gen 14:19-22. Abram takes an oath and is given a blessing in the name of "God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth." Part of God's "height" (separateness) is the fact that God created everything we can perceive. By contrast, we humans are lowly for we have not created much of anything by comparison.

Dt 32:6. This is the first scripture we encounter in the Bible where an appeal is made to people to behave differently in light of the fact that the LORD (YHWH) created and formed them.

Here are some Psalms that simply praise God for the fact that He created: Ps 89:12,

Here are some scriptures that describe how God is still creating, within the context of human history and within the life of the individual: Ps 51:10, Is 4:5,

Some scriptures ponder the purpose for which God created finite beings: Ps 89:47, Eccl 12:1,

Isaiah makes some particularly poignant appeals to God's role as Creator to show how we can rely on God and express how truly powerful God is and what God can do for you. Is. 40:25-31, Is. 42:1-9 (predicts Jesus), Is. 43:1-7, Is. 45:1-8, 18.

Is. 45:9-12 brings up the warning, "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground." It is amazing to me that God allows us to use the minds that he gave us to question him! Brilliant scientists spend their entire lives trying to create scenarios that explain how the universe and people came to be that eliminate the need for God. We can discover powerful principles in genetics, evolution, and the Big Bang that match scientific observation. Yet so many fundamental questions remain unanswered. These questions show how pitiful our understanding really is.

• Chimpanzees and humans most certainly have a common ancestor. Scientists have measured our genetic difference at only 2%. But what is in that 2% that gives humans the ability to have morality, consider their purpose in life, strive to achieve greatness, and desire eternity? (Eccl 3:10-11)
  
• With certainty we now know that the Big Bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago. But what caused it? Where it did come from? Why was it nonuniform? What sort of universe would we have if the quantum fluctuations had turned out differently?
• We can clone sheep and other species. But do we have a diagram for all the 3D chemical reactions that must occur? When will we be able to clone without taking advantage of an already-existing cellular infrastructure? That would be truly impressive!
• Where did life first arise? What instigated the first cell? How long until scientists create their first functional cell that can live and reproduce? Why do all living cells have a preferred stereochemistry (everything is "right-handed" instead of "left-handed")? Where did that preference arise since the Big Bang postulates that all matter was completely homogenous at the beginning?! Yet let's not forget that God has gifted nearly every human being with the ability to procreate, even if they're retarded, on drugs/alcohol, very young (Mary) or even very old (Elizabeth).
  

Creation of a new future: Is 65:17-18. This is a very comforting thought that God knows our greatest desires and is creating a place of peace for us.

God mourns the choices of the king of Tyre, also apparently Lucifer, both of whom God created: Ezek. 28:11-19

God created marriage at the beginning and Jesus appeals to this when he reminds the Jewish intellectuals of the heart behind this sacrosanct institution: Matt. 19:1-8.

In Jesus, God began a new work of creating a people for himself, eager to do what is good: Eph 2:10, Eph 2:14-21, Eph 4:20-24, Col 3:5-14, James 1:18.

Romans 1:18-31 contains one of the Bible's most powerful indictments of the human race. Idol worship is perhaps the greatest possible insult to God, where people choose to worship the created things (sun, men/women's bodies, nature, etc.) and things of their own creating (jobs, sports, money, social structures, intellectual pursuits, cars/houses, etc.) rather than the Creator. If each of us are honest, everyone of us has succumbed to idol worship in one form or another and it is a difficult sin to root out of our lives.

The New Testament contains some powerful reminders of who did the creating: Col. 1:15, Rev 4:8-11, Rev 10:5-6.

Lastly, it interesting to observe how Paul uses the argument that everything God created is good. It is humans that assign a particular meaning to certain objects and therefore they become "bad." See 1 Tim 4:1-5. Paul does not advocate that people stop listening to their consciences (quite the opposite, in fact--see Rom 14, esp. v23).