The Creation Report

by Larry Dickens

(1) When? Who? And What Happened?

In the field of journalism, the news reporter’s job is to tell what happened.  Ideally the function of the historian is the same. The fundamental differences are (1) the reporter reports on the events of the time while the historian writes of past events and (2) the historian has the luxury of being able to write volumes while the reporter is often very limited to column inches of space available. The reporter of news is therefore quite concise in his presentation.

The news reporter will often begin with a lead paragraph designed to answer “just the facts.”  He always answers the questions who and what and when and where... and, if possible and when appropriate, he answers how it happened and why it happened.

Who did it? What happened?  When was it done? And where did it happen?  Those are the interrogatives which when answered supply the information that the readers need.... to tell the facts of real events.  This is the way real events are told and it is the beginning of the correctly written historical record.

Now let me turn to the Bible. I never cease to be amazed by the succinctness of the Holy Spirit – indeed how brief the library of God’s Word is and how completely our God tells us all that we need to know (the news) in such few words!

Look at the beginning of the good news of the inspired record.

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  In the beginning (when) God (who) created (what happened) the heavens (where) and the earth (what).

Now let us briefly examine the Bible answers to these news worthy questions about creation.  We begin with “when” The answer is “in the beginning.”  That tells us that matter is not eternal.  Matter, energy, all things, and life itself have not been going on, in some kind of recycling of universes (or lives), for an infinite amount of time.  God’s report is that there was a beginning. There was a time before which the heavens and the earth did not exist, and there was a time after which they did exist. That time is called “in the beginning.”

When?

In the beginning of “when” In the beginning of things – the beginning of the creation. In the first chapter, it is in the beginning of “days.” Genesis one is divided into six days and the day is defined by its first usage.  Genesis 1:5 “And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.  And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”  The inspired reporter continues in Genesis 1:8, “And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.” Again we read Genesis 1:12 of “a third day” and so forth, until we come to the end of the chapter.

Then he wrote in Genesis 1:31 “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” 

Genesis 2:1, “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.

2 and by the seventh day God completed his work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which He had done.

3 then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all his work which God had created and made.”

All six days of creation were “in the beginning.” The chapter begins with it and our Lord used the same word to describe the creation of man on the sixth day. In Mark 10:6 Jesus said, “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.”

Such an expression does not reasonably fit some event occurring millions or billions of years after the first day.

Who?

The second question is “who” And the answer is God. God’s existence is not argued and God is not a part of the things created. God is eternal. God is spirit. God is not made of the matter that He created.

God, the Creator, is found in many passages in the Bible.

Ps 148:3 Praise Him, sun and moon;

Praise Him, all stars of light!

4 Praise Him, highest heavens,

And the waters that are above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the LORD,

For He commanded and they were created.

Isa 42:5   Thus says God the LORD,

Who created the heavens and stretched them out,

Who spread out the earth and its offspring,

Who gives breath to the people on it,

And spirit to those who walk in it, 

Isa 45:11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:

“Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons,

And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands.

12 “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it.

I stretched out the heavens with My hands,

And I ordained all their host.”

My Lord Jesus confirmed the truthfulness of the inspired reporter’s words in...

Matt 19:4 “And He answered and said, "Have you not read,   that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,”

And again, as Paul wrote of Christ:

Col 1:15 And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.

16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him.  

The gospel writer, John, also identifies the Christ as God, the Creator.

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God.

3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

The use of “Word” implies intelligence, because it takes intelligence to convey thoughts using words, and with intelligence comes design.

What happened?

No one else and nothing else has ever brought anything into being. For brevity,  we will combine the “what” and “where” questions in the usual question; “What happened?” What did God do? He created the heavens, the earth, and all things.

God’s act was creating.  Creation was the making of things, all things, out of that which did not before exist. Creation is not procreation.  Creation is not making again that which already exists – not naturally nor by mutation. Creation is not manufacture.  Manufacture is the synthesis of a thing from the parts which make it up. To create is to make all things... from no pieces, from no parts, out of nothing. To create is to put into being all things, with all their parts, fully functional, operational, working just exactly as the creator intended.  Is that not the meaning of “and it was good” 

This is the issue in the conflict between atheistic evolution and the Biblical record. This is the reason there is no place in the heart of Bible believers for theories of theistic evolution.

Nature did not create nature. Things did not and do not create things. Things were created by God.  As John reported, “apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”     The inspired reporter of Genesis 1 answers these critical questions: When? Who? What? and Where? The very method of the language indicates the passage to be a report of events which literally took place. To question the historicity of the text is to question the authenticity of the text, because if the passage does not consist of facts reported, it could only belong in the realm of fiction.

(2)How Did God Create All Things?

Now we come to the next question: How? How did it all come into being? 

I have a paper from one who wrote. “Genesis 1 tells us that God did it, but Genesis 1 one does not tell us how God did it.”  His error is that he quit reading too soon. Genesis 1:1 tells us that God did it... but the rest of the creation record (chapters 1 and 2) tell us exactly that. The rest of the text is a detailed account of how God did it.

How did God create it all? Note the following:

Genesis 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

...6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

7 And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

...9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

...11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation,...” (etc)..and it was so.

...14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens ...” (etc) ..and it was so.

...20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly...” (etc).. and God saw that it was good.

...24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind...” (etc) .. and it was so.

...26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” ... and we read about man for the next several verses... to the end of verse 30, “...and it was so.”

Now read verse 31:

31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

Did you get it? What does the chapter say about how God created the heavens and the earth? In every case and on every day, God said ... and it was so.. and it was good!  To be “good” it must have been created just as He had said.

Now note briefly other passages?         

Ps 148:5 Let them praise the name of the LORD,

For He commanded and they were created.”

Again the psalmist wrote:

Ps 33:6 “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made,

And by the breath of His mouth all their host.

The gospel writer, John, also identifies the Christ as God, the Creator. ..and he does it by calling him the Word (logos)!

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God.

3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

You can no more separate the how of the process of creation -- that is, Deity speaking into existence all things --than you can separate the creation process from the One “who became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

The problem with men... natural men... carnal men... is that we keep trying to put natural processes and natural law into God’s doings which are and which were separate from natural processes.

It is not just that we (especially we who are scientists), are incapable of explaining, by natural processes, the how’s of what God did to create. It is simply that God did not use natural processes; so therefore, natural processes can not explain at all. I could as easily explain how Hezekiah’s sundial backed up, how Jesus turned water into wine, or how Jesus said to Lazarus “Come forth” and it was so , as to explain how “God said... and it was so” scientifically.

Let us study carefully this naturalistic error (the error of looking for natural explanations of God’s actions) in another text and on another subject.

Some of the Christians in Corinth had rejected the idea of a general resurrection. In the first of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes his arguments... including the vanity of their faith and the apostles being false witnesses of Christ if the dead are not raised.  The problem was that Paul was teaching a general resurrection; but some of the Corinthians didn’t believe in it. In verse 35 we read of their objection, “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’” (1 Cor. 15:35)

   It’s a great question... if you are a naturalist! How do the bone fragments and dust in the grave or a few ounces of ash from cremation come to life again ... naturally? How does the resurrected body come from the dust?  You see... they thought,  since they had no natural explanation whatsoever, then the doctrine of the resurrection must have been false.

Read the Holy Spirit’s answer:

1 Cor 15:36 “You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;

37 and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.

38  But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.

Why did God create the heavens and the earth? God created the earth as a temporary place for man’s habitation.  Man is the last and the crowning glory of God’s creation.

Gen 1:27 “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

One of the greatest questions about human life is why God would be so concerned about man. The writer of Hebrews quotes the Eighth Psalm.

Hebrews 2:6 “...one has testified somewhere, saying,

"What is man, that Thou rememberest him?

Or the son of man, that Thou art concerned about him?

7  "Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels;

Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor,

And hast appointed him over the works of Thy hands;

8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. "

And what did God do? He sent His Son to die on Calvary’s cross for the sins of man! He saved man according to His unfathomable riches. The salvation of man demonstrates God’s manifold wisdom.

Eph 3:8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ,

9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things;

10 in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

Please note: the revelation of God’s wisdom through the church is directly in this verse linked to “God, who created all things.”  God, the Creator, is also God whose riches are unsearchable! The Gospel of God includes the creating God did.

We read about the scheme of redemption in Ephesians one.

Eph 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.”

God’s spiritual plan preceded the foundation of the world. The creation of the heavens and the earth was not the end of the plan – only the start!  The physical or temporal is just the means which the Creator used to make possible the spiritual and, ultimately, the eternal.

So what was the purpose of the creation of all things? The answer is that ultimately God might receive the glory of all that creation!

Rev 4:11  “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.”

Rev 5:13  And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever."

The logical question is: how can we give the proper glory to God, the Creator, if our “view” of creation places mother nature at any point in the place of Father God?  

Number two, the question is why! Why did God make the universe so large – so great! – so overwhelming in its size! Why did He create so much matter and so very much space?  What are the Bible answers?

Ps 8:1 O LORD, our Lord,

How majestic is Thy name in all the earth,

Who hast displayed Thy splendor above the heavens!

Ps 19:1 The heavens are declaring the glory of God;

and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.

Isa 55:8  “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.

9  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

And we turn to the New Testament:

From these passages, we know that God made it so great so we would know how great He is! So we would sing “How great Thou art!” and mean it. From the vastness of the universe to the intricate design of the smallest cell we see and then we praise the great power of a creative God! He made it great so we might “get a feel” for how much greater His thinking is than ours. 

The Holy Spirit revealed in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal Power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

We can perceive the infinite power and divinity of God through our understanding of the vastness of nature, and we have no excuse to do otherwise. So now in modern times, we see a vastness greater and a design intricacy which ought to make us be even more in awe of the infinite power of God than previous generations ever imagined.

Again, He made it great, so that we might appreciate the preeminence of Jesus Christ, the Word of the creation, Himself!

Finally, Why did He make it by His word?

Psalm 148:5 “For He commanded and they were created.” Why did God make it my saying “Let there be... and it was so”

The answer to that “why” question is also simple. He made it “how” He did – to demonstrate the great power of His spoken word.  

In 2 Corinthians 4, we read about gospel preaching. 

2 Corinthians 4:1  “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart,

2 but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,

4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake.”

You know that the gospel is God’s power to save (Romans 1:16). The gospel is the message! The gospel is a “word-message”.  Now read the text!

6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

It was God who said “light shall shine out of darkness...”

Recall Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”   It is the same God who has revealed, with the same great force and power, the gospel of Jesus Christ – “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

Let’s keep this simple. 

Number one: God’s word had power...then!

Number two: His word has power.... now!

Number three: God’s word caused the creation...then.

Number four: His word, today, causes the new creation.

You see, if you take the power from the word of creation, you take the power from the word of the gospel of Christ!  If you take away the power of His word to cause creation, you take away the power of the gospel to cause the new creation. The Holy Spirit has already drawn the parallel in 2 Corinthians 4:6.  

This is why the record of the creation matters. This is the answer to why it matters what we believe about how God created the heavens and the earth. God wants us to be impressed with the power of His word; so he told us how He created the heavens and the earth! 

1 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2  in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world” (Hebrews 1:1). 

Let us all believe the inspired reporters record of the creation ...to be impressed with the power of God’s word, not just to create man in the beginning, but to be impressed with the power of His Word to save mankind.

Published in the AFlorida College Magazine”, Volume 5, Number 1, Summer 2003

Originally Presented in chapel at Florida College

January 21-23, 2002