Creation: A Place of the Reign of God and Worship to God

God’s story is the true story of the world and shows up all other stories as failing or false. Genesis 1 was not written in a vacuum but in the midst of other creation stories of the Ancient Near East. It carefully refutes their claims and gives us insight into what God wants us to know.

Typically, these other creation stories would include many gods involved in creating often in conflict with each other, nature itself being deified, and matter being evil. But what do we see in Genesis 1?

1.      One God is solely responsible – he creates by his powerful word and without opposition.

2.      God is distinct from creation – even the sun, moon and stars are created entities. And yet God is committed to it.

3.      All creation is good (“And God saw that it was good”) – the goodness of the created order is affirmed. There is no flaw in God’s work.

One of the common things in certain other ancient creation stories is that the gods were trying to build their kingdoms and then temples as a sign of their victory. Over against this Genesis 1 could be showing that God is constructing the whole world as his scintillating cosmic temple-kingdom. He acts as King by ordering into being and naming everything in creation, and then ruling over it in Sabbath rest. His intent is that everything in creation will reflect his will as an expression of his kingship.

The Spirit is often seen in the Bible as playing a role in building the tabernacle or temple (cf. Exod 31:1–11). Here the Spirit is hovering over the surface of the deep, being portrayed as the architect of God’s cosmic temple. The mention of the sun and moon as “lights” may be referring to the lamps used in the tabernacle. And on the sixth day, God places humanity as his image in his temple as a sign of his royal authority. The world, therefore, is designed to reflect God’s kingship and his glory, and our role as human beings is to participate in seeing this temple-kingdom grow.

What this shows us is that this good creation is designed to be a place of God’s reign and of worship to him. The story of the Bible, as it progresses, looks forward to the fulfilment of this reign when all things offer God the worship as they align with him. Psalm 148 calls on all that God has made to praise him,

Let them praise the name of the LORD,

    for his name alone is exalted;

splendour is above the earth and the heavens.

Willingly obeying God and offering him worship is where we find true life and freedom, and it is into this story that he welcomes us. Obedience to God and worship of God are frequently linked in the Bible because we serve what we worship (e.g. Luke 4:8; Rom 12:1). We are called to live in God’s temple-kingdom in devotion to him. Let us be channels for God’s order, harmony and life to come into the world such that it increasingly becomes a sacred place honouring him.