God’s greatest creation is His masterwork and a manifestation of His affection for humanity; it is an expression of His desire to be known through an enthusiastic global response of praise (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20). God’s gift to Himself is creation, and like any good gift, it calls for a party to celebrate it.
According to the Bible, God did not make the world address some unmet requirement. So that His majesty might be seen, He made the world (Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 60:20; Romans 11:36). When attempting to describe God’s majesty, biblical authors teeter on the brink of words as they try to do justice to an infinitely great and glorious God who beyond human comprehension.
God’s glory is the insurmountable resistance of His unfathomable splendor, power, love, and wisdom to the confines of any human understanding and interpretation.
The Creation Story
The tale of creation is presented in the Book of Genesis. We can find references to God’s creation and His purposes elsewhere in the Bible. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had a wonderful time together as three unique individuals.
God created the heavens and the earth, the sun, the moon, constellations, and all living things, including humans, over six days from nothing (Genesis 1:1-31).
And everything was good (Genesis 1:31).
The first humans, Adam and Eve, were the masterpieces of God’s creation. God created them to perform the role of royal priests in His garden temple, the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15; see also The Bible Project’s article “The Royal Priests of Eden”).
While Adam and Eve were enjoying themselves in the beautiful Garden of Eden, God put them to the test. The only tree they weren’t allowed to eat from was the one that showed them good and evil (Genesis 2:16).
The challenge set by God involved making a decision. Adam and Eve had a choice: either they would serve God as His royal priests, abiding by His rules and regulations, or they would disobey Him and partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God warned that Adam and Eve would die if they disobeyed His command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Disobedience carried the death sentence.
Eventually, a serpent found its way to Eve as she was nurturing the garden. The snake said the forbidden tree was a source of great strength. It was the key to freedom from God’s duty because it revealed good and evil to people. That would render them gods (Genesis 3:1-5). So Adam and Eve, taken in by the serpent’s lies, ate the fruit from the tree and paid the price.
They learned the meaning of good, evil, being nude, and feeling ashamed. God kicked them out of paradise and into an existence of toil, hardship, and waiting. With the threat of death looming over their heads, God promised salvation through a child descended from Eve who would vanquish wickedness, death, and the devil.
The fall of Adam and Eve brought about a new order in the world. God’s perfect creation was tainted. Humans drain the planet of its natural resources for their benefit, creating industries and civilizations with a hard time upholding justice. The decision to partake of the fruit from God’s tree of knowledge has caused all the ills in the world.
God is mending His broken world through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. God is busy trying to fix His broken world. But when Jesus returns a second time, God will renew the world and make it a perfect place.
Christians’ Divergences And Shared Beliefs
Christians have debated the earth’s age, the type and duration of the days in Genesis, God-guided evolution versus “theistic evolution,” and the Bible’s account’s place in its Ancient Near Eastern setting. Historically, Protestants and Evangelicals have maintained a wide range of opinions, but they have recently come to a consensus on five basic tenets:
- A personal God created the universe.
- There was nothing here before God created the universe.
- God created a wonderful and good universe.
- God made an actual Adam and Eve from the concept to completion.
- Humans willfully disobeyed God, ushering in an era of suffering and death.
Recognizing and Celebrating God’s Majestic Work
The reason God made humans is so that they can adore God in part through experiencing and serving the rest of creation. We were created to take pleasure in and give thanks to the Creator for all his wonderful gifts to us, the universe, and all in it.
God desires that you experience Him through the world He made.
To demonstrate His majesty, God created the universe (Isaiah 43:7; Isaiah 60:20; Romans 11:36). Also, God’s glory is revealed to us through the universe (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20). Feasts were instituted for Israel in the Bible as a way to honor God’s kindness as the source and creator of everything.
In addition to the Sabbath (Exodus 16:23), the New Moon Feast (Exodus 23:16, 34:22), the Feast of Firstfruits (Exodus 23:19; Deuteronomy 26:2; Nehemiah 10:35-36), and the Feast of Harvest (Exodus 23:16, 31:15, 35:2) were also celebrated (Numbers 10:10, 29:6; 1 Samuel 20:5; Psalm 81:1–3).
God’s creation testifies to His benevolence and love, giving Christians a means of rejoicing in God through His handiwork. Meditation, prayer, and other contemplative disciplines can help us appreciate God’s handiwork in the natural world.
God made this world for your enjoyment.
In Isaiah 25:6, the prophet describes the moment after God’s eventual victory over death as a time of great rejoicing, marked by a banquet featuring fine delicacies and vintage wines. A similar event, called the wedding supper of the lamb, is mentioned in Revelation 19:7-10. Jesus celebrated marriages and feasts throughout his career by comparing the Kingdom of God to a wedding.
A holy God opposes all forms of gluttony (Isaiah 28:1; Matthew 23:25-26; Proverbs 23; Ephesians 5:3,18; Titus 1:7). Festivals, banquets, and taking pleasure in God’s creation are not forbidden by God. A healthy Christian spirituality takes pleasure in God and the world He made without succumbing to excess in any form.
Bible studies, prayer gatherings, neighborhood clubs, and missions to the needy are only some examples of the many events built around love, community, and pleasure that can be spiritual disciplines and methods to appreciate the world God created.
God desires that you take good care of the world He made.
God made us in His image so that we would represent Him and share in His attributes of goodness, justice, and love (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8:4-8; Hebrews 2:5-8).
Then God entrusted them with a charge to protect the planet. Humans are God’s royal priesthood, symbolized in the Garden of Eden by the assignment of Adam and Eve to care for God’s garden (Genesis 2:15; Exodus 19:6; Revelation 1:6, 5:10).
Given their role as God’s servants, humans are obligated to protect the world God created. This entails ensuring that every community’s underprivileged and the outcasts are taken care of (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 15:11; Isaiah 61:1; Matthew 25:34-40; Galatians 2:10; James 2:6).
In light of this, it is consistent with Christian principles to strive for just and ecologically responsible economics and to construct societies that maintain safe business operations, fair labor regulations, justice, and empathy.
Community outreach, social service, ministries to the poor, and ecological movements are just a few examples of the many secular activities that can also be spiritual practices and means to care for the world God made.
Final Thoughts
God created the world to display His magnificence. This doctrine is fundamental to Christianity and breathes life into Christian worship and devotion. Christians are called to protect, celebrate, and delight in God through creation because God is its creator.
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