What is Creation

What are some theories about creation?

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

This is what we believe about creation; God’s word details is; but there are layers to creation

All of Genesis 1 gives us the detail of creation; day and night, water and land and heavens, plants, stars and seasons, sun and moon, animals; and he calls all of these things good

But then we get to verse 26 and we see God create man; read 26-31

What are some distinctions that we see about God creating man? image of God, male and female, be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion.

man is not equal with animals, we are created in the image of God and nothing else is

God created the world and everything in it and he did it out of nothing; before creation, only God existed, nothing else. There is no time or space before creation.

This means that even though God created everything, he is distinct from creation; he is not a created being; but he is not distant from his creation; he created man and breathed life into him, he walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, Jesus came and was with man, the Holy Spirit is given to those who believe.

This answers the question “what is creation”; but why did God create

All of creation was created to give glory to God

Psalm 19:1 ESV

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

Not only the world was created for it, but we were too.

And because God is creator, he is worthy of our praise; Revelation 4:11 “11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.””

Did God need more glory? No, all the glory he ever needed is found in the trinity, but he did made all of creation to show his greatness, to demonstrate his excellence, and to delight in his work. God delights in us because we are his creation

Creation views; I find that there are only 3 views that you could really reason with a biblical world view and still consider the bible to be authoritative

Historic Creationism - believes that the earth was created by God and we don’t know how long it sat before God created the rest. After that, they believe in 6 literal days of creation. it leaves open the possibility of an “old” earth while still having a “young” creation

Young Earth - believes that God created everything in 6 literal 24 hour periods. Believing this and using the timeline in scripture, this would mean you believe all of creation is less than around 10,000 years old.

Old Earth - takes a stance that we don’t really know if the days depicted in Genesis are our 24 hour days so creation could have lasted thousands to millions of years

I honestly lean towards a young earth view and believe that it was 6 literal 24 hour periods of creation because scripture says that after each day, there was evening and there was morning; and if God can form a full adult man from the dirt, he can make scientist believe the earth is millions of years old

My goal for this is to have a solid view of creation, so what are some things that we must believe about creation?

God comes first - before anything else, there was God; he is not created but he is the creator

God speaks - the first thing he does is speak; he continues to speak to us through his word given to us in scripture

God created everything

There is only one God (3 persons, 1 God)

Man is made in God’s image - therefore all human life is valuable

Man is stewards over creation - we need to take care of it as best as we can

Creation is to glorify God

Rest is biblical