Though we cannot understand these mysteries, we can at least feel them, and know them by faith as true when we read the Scriptures and experience the presence of the Lord Jesus in our lives, through His Holy Spirit. And in our study of creation, we do well to remember that all three persons of the godhead participated in the work of creation and now participate in the work of conserving, or saving, their creation.
Since it is the second person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who “declares” God to us (John 1:18) as we see Him on the earth in His incarnation, hear Him speak through the Scriptures, and sense His presence through the Holy Spirit, it is His work of creating us and then redeeming us from sin that we wish to emphasize in this chapter. Therefore, when we speak of God, whether as Creator or Redeemer, in a very real sense we are speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.
King of Creation
The most important of all truths, the foundation of all doctrine, the beginning of all reality, is the fact that God in Christ is Creator! There is no possibility of really knowing the fullness of anything until we first know that the origin and meaning of everything is God. What He does is right, and what He says is true — by definition! (See John 14:6.)
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” These opening words of the Bible constitute what is at once the most simple and the most profound statement ever made. This is the most widely known sentence ever written, easily understood by the simplest child, yet inexhaustibly compatible with the most advanced scientific comprehension of the universe. The eternal God created time in the beginning of time. The infinite God created the unbounded space of the heavens. The omnipotent God created the elements of matter comprising the earth and all other systems within the space/time cosmos. The transcendent God created, for He was prior to created time and external to created space. The Creator is an eternal, infinite, omnipotent, transcendent Being.
Furthermore, God is both personal and omniscient, capable of creating spiritual and intelligent beings who in turn can examine and comprehend the intelligible universe that He created. And since He created both the universe and the creatures who must comprehend it, it is clearly necessary that acknowledgment of Him as Creator must precede any meaningful study and understanding of His creation.
When the primeval words of Genesis 1:1 were first spoken and recorded (most likely to and by Adam himself), there was no need to defend them, for there was no one who disbelieved them. But then, through Satan (and man’s disobedience), sin came into the world. In heaven, at the very throne of the King of creation, one of God’s created spirit beings, the anointed cherub Lucifer, rebelled against his Creator (despite the revealed fact that he had been “created” — Ezek. 28:15). Lucifer sought to “exalt his throne” and to be “as the most High” (Isa. 14:13–14); therefore, he was cast down by God to the earth (Ezek. 28:17), the dominion of those human persons whom God had created “in his own image” (Gen. 1:27) — and for whom Lucifer and all other angels had been created to be “ministering spirits” (Heb. 1:14).
On earth, as “that old serpent” (Rev. 12:9), Satan led the first man and woman (Adam and Eve) to follow his own rebellious desire to be “as gods” (Gen. 3:5), and since that tragic time all mankind has shared in Adam’s primeval (or original) sin, “worshiping and serving the creation more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever” (Rom. 1:25). In the minds and hearts of men, God is no longer King, and, therefore, they are “without God” (literally “a-theists” — Eph. 2:12). They now love “the things that are in this world” (1 John 2:15), and “walk according to the course of this world” (Eph. 2:2), serving “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), but there is no hope for men in this world (Eph. 2:12).
Nevertheless, it is Lucifer (now become Satan, the devil, the adversary) who has been dethroned, not God! God is still on His throne, the eternal King of creation.
It is important to note in Scripture just a few of the many references to God as King. He is “a great King” (Mal. 1:14), an “everlasting King” (Jer. 10:10), and is “the blessed and only Potentate” (1 Tim. 6:15).
1 He is the King of time, for He created time: He is “my King of old” (Ps. 74:12) and “sitteth King for ever” (Ps. 29:10).
2 He is the King of space, for He created infinite space. He is “King of heaven” (Dan. 4:37), the “King invisible” (1 Tim. 1:17), who “hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host” (Neh. 9:6), although even “heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee” (2 Chron. 6:18).
3 He is the King of matter, for He made all “things” in space and time. He is “King of all the earth” (Ps. 47:7), and all “give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne . . . saying, Thou art worthy . . . for thou hast created all things” (Rev. 4:9–11).
4 He is the King of energy, for He has energized and empowered an infinite and eternal universe. God is Light, the “King of glory” (Ps. 24:10), “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto” (1 Tim. 6:16).
5 He is the King of life, since He is “the King immortal” (1 Tim. 1:17), “who only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16), and He is the One who “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25).
6 He is the King of all the angels, the host of heaven, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven . . . whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers” (Col. 1:16). He is “the King, the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 14:16).
7 He is the King of all nations, both “the King of Israel” (John 1:49) and “King of nations” (Jer. 10:7, literally “King of Gentiles”).
8 He is the King of all the redeemed, those who have been “translated . . . into the kingdom of his dear Son” by “redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). Therefore, He has become also the “King of saints” (Rev. 15:3), and He will one day be universally acclaimed as “King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14; 19:16).
Since He created all things, He is indeed the king of all creation, the potentate and sovereign, Master and ruler, Lord and judge of all things. As His creatures, we can only acknowledge His authority, trust His wisdom, believe His Word, obey His commandments, receive His grace, accept His salvation, and praise His name!
But the sad, strange thing is that there are multitudes of people who rebel against His authority, refuse His salvation, and even deny His true existence as the only personal Creator God. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:22–23).
In every age people have been unwilling to believe in God as Creator and to submit to His authority, so they have invented lesser gods to serve. They have given the created world itself the attributes of deity, stupidly, rebelliously believing that the universe is the ultimate reality. They have “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the [creation] more than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25).
Of course, the only alternative to creation is evolution, whether it be the naive evolutionism of ancient polytheism (which deified the forces of nature as heavenly “birds and fourfooted beasts and creeping things”) or the more modern evolutionism of the Darwinians (which invests such impersonal processes as mutation and natural selection with imaginary creative powers). No imagined substitute for the Creator, of course, can really create anything, and the only explanation for the age-long compulsion of men to believe in such counterfeits is that “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Rom. 1:28). They have “imagined a vain thing” (Ps. 2:1).
But whether or not men believe in the great King of creation, He still is the Creator. “For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:3–4).
The believer in evolution (whether in the pantheistic polytheism of the ancients or the naturalistic humanism of the moderns) is described in the Bible as “without