We Believe: The Doctrine of Creation and Fall
God’s story begins with creation.
It is the first fact recorded in the Bible and the theological foundation for all that follows.
It establishes the sovereign-personal Triune God at the center of the universe and reveals that everything and everyone is dependent upon and responsible to him.
Psalms 24:1-2 NIV
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.”
It reveals who man is and what eventually goes wrong in the story of redemption.
The fall is introduced in Genesis 3 and is expanded through Genesis 11.
Moses goes to great lengths to highlight just how sinful sin is.
There are hints of redemption in these chapters, but the primary role of this section is to detail the depth of evil in the human heart.
“Genesis lays the groundwork for all human ills in a fallen world; we are dislocated within ourselves, dislocated from each other; dislocated from God. Personal fragmentation, social tension, and spiritual alienation are now the parameters of life on earth.”
-Alec Moyer
This is essential if we are to understand redemption.
We can only know the greatness of God’s provision when we know the magnitude of our debt.
Focus: We believe God created all things, visible and invisible, out of nothing, and all very good. He sovereignly sustains and governs creation for his glory and the benefit of his creatures. God created humans in his image, male and female, to know, love, and glorify him in covenant relationship and to serve as stewards of the earth. The first man, Adam, sinned against God, resulting in alienation, death, guilt, shame, and a curse upon the earth. Separated from God and subject to his judgement, all humans have inherited a sinful nature from which they cannot save themselves.
God made all things good.
God governs everything he made.
God made humans in his image.
Humans rebelled against God.
All humans are sinful.
God made all things good
We believe God created all things, visible and invisible, out of nothing, and all very good.
Genesis 1:1, 31 ESV
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
The idea of one all-powerful God who created everything was not understood or believed in ancient cultures.
They assumed there was a pantheon of gods who carried different levels of responsibility for creation and sustaining the cosmos and the creatures in it.
The world, they believed, was the result of some cosmic conflict between warring deities.
The created world was a result of violence.
Therefore, the material world was evil - or, at best, neutral.
The biblical story proclaims something radically different and new: one all-powerful God created everything with intentionality and delight.
Rather than wrestling with other deities for supremacy, the God of the Bible is supreme.
Isaiah 44:6-8 ESV
“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.””
Rather than creating the world and its creatures through killing competitors, God creates through speaking and breathing life.
To embrace this claim today is to push back against the idea that the created world and its creatures were a cosmic accident - the chance result of chemical and physical processes.
To embrace this claim today is to affirm that creaturely existence is neither meaningless nor accidental but rather full of purpose, goodness, and beauty.
“There’s not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord of all, does not exclaim, ‘ Mine!’”
-Abraham Kuyper
God governs everything he made.
He sovereignly sustains and governs creation for his glory and the benefit of his creatures.
Nehemiah 9:6 ESV
“You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.”
It is not enough to simply claim that God created all things.
God could have created everything and then left creation to manage itself, which is the fundamental idea behind Deism, assuming that we merely operate by the laws of nature.
The Bible clearly gives a different picture of God intimately involved with his creation, governing all things according to his will and sustaining his creatures - great and small.
Most ancient societies believed that the gods governed the earth and, as a result, acknowledged their dependence on the gods (or God) for rain, good crops, and material benefits.
In our modern scientific age, we are often insulated from the creaturely vulnerability and utter reliance on God’s sustaining world in creation.
It is usually in natural (or man-made) disasters that we modern humans are reminded that we are not lords of creation.
God is.
And that is fortunate because humanity does not have a good track record of governing itself and the earth.
In the midst of life’s flights and storms, I enjoy reminding people why we should not worry - because if we have been reconciled to God in Christ, we know who is in control and all things work for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8).
God made humans in his image.
God created humans in his image, male and female, to know, love, and glorify him in covenant relationship and to serve as stewards of the earth.
Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
What does it mean that God made humans in his image?
Clearly, the Genesis author is not referring to physical resemblance - like children resembling their parents.
The image of God (often referred to by its Latin name “Imago Dei”) is first mentioned in Genesis and then expanded on by the other biblical authors.
Man possesses characteristics that separate him from the rest of creation:
Intellectual: Man is aware of self and can think, reason and learn. He can communicate verbally using complex, abstract language. He has an innate creativity that manifests in art, music, literature, science, and technology. He can calculate and perform logical and analytical functions. He can design, create, and invent.
Ethical: Man can distinguish between right and wrong. He can make real moral choices.
Emotional: Man can feel anger, love, compassion, grief, and the entire range of human emotions.
Teleological: Teleological derives from the Greek word telos meaning end or purpose and logos meaning the study of something. Teleology is the study of ends and purposes. It assumes that life is heading somewhere rather than in meaningless circles. Man has a longing for purpose and responsibility. He has immortality; he will not cease to exist but will live forever. He has not only a physical body but also an immaterial spirit and can act in eternally significant ways.
Relational: Man can have a relationship with God. This means he can relate to God, pray and praise him, and hear him speaking his words. He can develop relationships with other humans and experience community.
God created us to reflect his glory, to see the latent potentiality within creation, and “be fruitful and multiply.”
This means that each of your days you are meant to be a joyful adventure as you walk with God and cultivate your corner of the world, as a vice-regent, just as God would!
Humans rebelled against God.
The first man, Adam, sinned against God, resulting in alienation, death, guilt, shame, and a curse upon the earth.
Genesis 3:9-11 NKJV
“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?””
What transpired at this moment of rebellion, and what does it mean?
First, Adam and Eve doubted God’s goodness.
In trying to usurp God’s authority, they felt shame, vulnerability and disorientation, ultimately separating themselves from and trying to hide from God.
Second, humanity’s rebellion had widespread consequences.
For Adam and Eve, the results of disobedience manifested in their relationship with God, one another, and creation.
This is how sin affects all humans.
It separates us from God and people.
It harms us and those around us.
*It infects our souls, institutions, our communities, and ecosystems.
It is like a deadly virus spreading in a densely populated city.
It is like a toxic chemical poured into a river that spreads without limit and kills whatever it touches.
Have you seen this in your own family, life and community?
What started with such promise in Genesis 1 and 2 plunged into a hopeless abyss.
Only a new Adam can save it.
All humans are sinful.
Separated from God and subject to his judgement, all humans have inherited a sinful nature from which they cannot save themselves.
Romans 3:10-12 NKJV
“As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.””
What is clear from the earliest pages of the Bible and any era of human history is that all humans are sinful.
This is an empirical fact.
Think of the wars, the murders, the lies, the adulteries, the rape, the greed, the tyranny, the selfishness, the thievery, the slander, the hatred, the factions, the lack of forgiveness and the like.
Throughout Scripture, we are awakened to the reality that we are not only sinful because we find ourselves in a hostile environment filled with sinful people and sinful systems.
We are sinful because we have inherited that nature from our ancestors.
*Sin affects us not only from the outside in, but also from the inside out.
We call this “original sin.”
What this means is that:
Because the one triune God is the creator of us all, his commands and law of God apply to all of us, no matter where we are born, how we were raised, what we were taught to believe or presently think of God.
It also means that it is not everyone else’s sin that matters while yours does not.
Sin is a big deal, even it is not seen as such in our culture because its results separate us fro God and one another.
God wants to help us, wants to save our families, communities and nations, but the prerequisite is that we turn from our sin to Jesus at the cross.
Isaiah 59:1-8 ESV
“Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders' eggs; they weave the spider's web; he who eats their eggs dies, and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched. Their webs will not serve as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.”
As King Solomon finished dedicating the temple in Jerusalem, the Lord gave him this exhortation as an encouragement for us all:
2 Chronicles 7:13-15 ESV
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.”
The very things for which we judge others, we often do ourselves, or commit some manner of other sin for which we try to excuse ourselves but for which we are still guilty.
Romans 2:1-11 ESV
“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.”
There is no discrimination.
God does not play favorites.
*No one and no sin gets a pass.
*We are all in need of a Savior.
This search for a righteous one is the fundamental narrative thread of the Old Testament.
When will he come, and from where?
And how will we know him?
Romans 3:19-26 ESV
“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
We are all called to repentance and faith at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:23 ESV
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
We must be born again.
John 3
So, in light of this:
Why is it essential to have a worldview shaped by the biblical account of creation and what are the results of denying the biblical account of creation?
What is the image of God, and why does it matter that we believe and embrace it?
What are the consequences of human rebellion in our relationship to God, others, and the creation?
