The Necessity of Creation

The Bible begins with an amazing claim:

"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth." - Gen. 1:1

Is it just a poetic view of a majorly complex moment or series of events that the writer of Genesis states because of his simplistic understanding of God? Did the universe really form itself in some extended period of time based on an explosion and gasses, and hardening, and waiting, and growing, and evolving, and experimenting, and survival of the fittest? Or did God just say "Let there be,..." and there was?

Is it even important that we hold any belief in this matter as Christians, or is this just some silly cause with which people with nothing better to do consume themselves?

Let's look at the claims of scripture about creation, and how central it is to our faith.

Man was created in God's image (Gen. 1:27). The value of mankind, of each life as a reflection of the Creator, rests on this truth. We are not mere animals. We are the image of God, Himself!

God was grieved that He had created man when He sent the flood (Gen. 6:7) His right to destroy what He had created defends His continued holiness through this flood. Otherwise, He was just a murderer, and necessarily unholy.

All of Psalm 148 is about creation praising its Creator. This is merely a poem if there is no Creator, and the statements made therein are not necessarily true. At what point is scripture allowed to lie and still be a "Holy Word"?

ISA 40:28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
ISA 40:29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
ISA 40:30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
ISA 40:31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.

If part of this scripture is untrue, all of it is. God cannot give you rest. He cannot renew the weary. And hope in Him is futile.

Revelation 4:11 tells us that the 24 elders fall to the ground and lay their crowns before God saying that He is worthy to receive glory, honor and power because He has created all things. Had He not created all things, He would not be worthy of honor and glory and power.

And Romans 1 tells us that wicked men surpress the truth of God for a lie; that truth which has been shown through what has been made (Rom. 1:20) so that men are without excuse. In other words, it is wickedness in men that would cause us to try to prove that creation is nothing more than an accident of "Nature". God has revealed Himself through what He has created, period. He exists. Creation is His evidence that He is there, and that He is God.

This is why so many work so hard to prove that everything just happened by nature: If we can take away the testimony of God, Himself, we rid the world of the very evidence that God exists. The theory of evolution is much less a scientific effort than it is a spiritual quest. To excuse all the sinful acts that the world loves so much, mankind is pouring its best efforts into "proving" that there is no God.

And if there is no creation, there is no "New Creation" as spoken of in 2 Corinthians 5:17. We are still the same lost, wasted, sinful beings we have always been, and our faith is futile.

But God did create everything in the beginning, and He continues to control all of His creation. This truth is solid, and cannot be compromised.