Tag Archives: creation

Uncreation – Genesis 6:1 – 7:24

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When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” Noah, however, found favor with the Lord (Genesis 6:5-8, CSB).

Sixteen hundred years after Adam and Eve’s initial act of corruption the moral and spiritual condition of humanity had declined to the extent that God was ready to destroy His creation–or at least the part of it that breathed.

But, to gain the full impact of the story of Noah’s ark, it is helpful to understand some of the wordplay between the creation story and the flood story.

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The Good, The Very Good and The Not So Good – Genesis 2:4-25

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And God saw that it was good….And God saw that it was good…. And God saw that it was good…. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good…. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 1:18, 21, 25, 31, 2:18, CSB).

Seven times in Genesis 1, God observed His creation to be good. In Genesis 1:4 after He had spoken light into existence, God declared it to be good. In vs. 1:10 after separating the water from the land, God called that good. After creating plant life in vs. 1:12 God saw that it was good. In vs. 1:18 after setting the solar system in place and spinning the earth on its axis to create seasons and night and day, God calls that good. In vs. 1:21 after creating animals to populate the water and the air, God determined that to be good. In vs. 1:25 after populating the land with animals and insects, God calls that good as well.

Then, after creating humanity as the capstone of His creation (vs. 1:26–30), God observed all He had made and declared it to be not just good but very good.

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Creation Story: Part 1, The Naked Truth – Genesis 1-3

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Adam&EveInGardenOfEden“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25, NIV).

Lately, I’ve been considering and re-considering the Creation Story in the first chapters of Genesis.

When I read the Creation Story, I think I typically read it from a scientific point of view, looking for explanations of human origins. But, the more I read it the more I’m convinced that neither the writer of the Creation Story nor the Spirit of God who inspired the writing of the story was trying to provide a scientific explanation of the beginnings of the universe and origin of human beings.

So, what I believe the story is about is relationship and restoration. Human beings were created in the image of God to live in eternal relationship with Him. They defied God and turned to their own devices and because they were created in the image of God, their defiance was a spiritual defiance of cosmic proportions, which impacted the whole created order. Thus, only God could bring restoration to His created order and to His eternal relationship with people.

When read without the baggage of scientific interpretation, the Creation Story provides considerable spiritual insight into the human psyche and the character of God. It may not exactly explain in scientific terms how the universe began, but it does give a good explanation of why we are the way we are.

In fact, the Creation Story exposes the naked truth about human defiance of God’s order and God’s response to this defiance.  In the Creation Story Adam and Eve roamed completely naked in the Garden of Eden where God placed them to live. I guess you could say that the Garden of Eden was the world’s first nudist colony!

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Divine Labor – John 5:17,19

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caution-god-at-work“But Jesus responded to them, ‘My Father is still working, and I am working also’ … ‘I assure you: The Son is not able to do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does these things in the same way” ( John 5:17, 19, HCSB).

This somewhat cryptic response to the Jewish religious leaders was given by Jesus as a defense for healing a man on the Sabbath who had been sick for 38 years.

So why did Jesus answer their accusations in this way?

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