Creation: A Christian's Bedrock

Have you, as a Christian, ever paused to consider what the significance of having a proper worldview is? Consider this: how many Christians today believe in a literal, six-day creation? How many think that this is a true account of Biblical creation, or if they do, that it has any real relevance concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ? I would like to take a thoughtful look at the creation account as the Bible puts it forth, and to see what kind of significance God places on a correct view of creation.

It is not coincidence that the Bible begins its account of human history and the universe’s with the creation account. Two chapters are devoted to describing the account of creation in this first of books aptly entitled “beginnings”. The Christian worldview rests on the foundation that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1. John’s gospel account, which is entirely an evangelistic gospel, begins the same way. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made,” John 1:1-3. The great Christological epistle, Hebrews, also speaks to this when the writer states: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible,” Hebrews 11:3. The Greek word for “worlds” is “aion” and can mean “world” or “age/era.” In other words, it can easily mean space/time or the foundation of our present universe. The same term is used in Hebrews 1:2 when we read: “through [Christ] also [God] made the worlds.”

Colossians 1:15-17 ascribe to Christ glory as the universe’s Creator. We read: “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him (Christ) all things consist.”  Couple this passage with one from Revelation, and we begin to gain a clearer picture as to what God thinks of an accurate view of creation in our Christian worldview, and what having a flawed view, or an erroneous one, can do to damage our witness. “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water,” Revelation 14:6-7. This injunction to preach to all people is reminiscent of the initial mandate to preach the gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19) or “to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” Mark 16:15. The term “creature” in this verse is “ktisis” and in this context means “mankind in general/ or all of mankind”. It is the same Greek word employed in Romans 8:39 where Paul addresses the security of the believer by finishing his oration that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ, using the phrase, “nor any other created thing” (NKJV) translated “creature” in the KJV. It is this everlasting gospel which must be conducted to every creature (or all humanity) and conversely those who receive this life-saving message cannot by God’s own revelation, lose it, for we are part of the created order and one of those very same “creatures” Paul makes mention of.

It should be clear at this point that God places some good emphasis on the creation account as a bedrock for a believer’s worldview. As Hebrews 11:3 informs us, creation came from nothing; it was not an evolutionary process of billions of years of progressive improvement. Numerous times in Genesis the reader is assured, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that what we see about us came in an “as-is” condition, or in His own words, “according to its kind.” Numerous compromises have been made in an effort, both ignorant and faithless, to salvage Scripture in light of Evolution’s “truth” about how the universes and life really began. At best Evolution is a tangled maze of baseless assumptions and circular reasoning; but it is dressed so well in academic clothing that many Christians have been intimidated into believing that the Bible must be in error regarding creation. So have risen the Day-Age Theory, the Gap Theory, or Theistic Evolution. Not one has come even close to honoring the God of the Bible who gave His account in Genesis, describing six days of creation, followed by a seventh day of rest. God was apparently so convinced that He had done this in six days and rested on the seventh that He made it a mandate in the Ten Commandments to the Jews. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day,” Exodus 20:11. He reiterated this commandment right before He gave to Moses the tablets on which God had personally written. Again the wording was quite literal: “It (the Sabbath) is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed,” Exodus 31:17.