In the Beginning...
Revisiting the Creation
Recently, the Danthonia youth choir performed selections from Haydn’s ‘Creation’ oratorio. A joyous work that draws on Genesis, the Psalms, and Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ for lyrical inspiration, ‘The Creation’ is a reminder of God’s great love, and of his plan for each of our lives.
Haydn’s portrayal of Adam and Eve (represented by a bass and soprano soloist) is particularly poignant for the way it captures both the exuberance of their God-bestowed love for each another and the life teaming around them, and the simplicity of their praise for their Creator.
This message is one today’s world actively attempts to block out. Yet, as Johann Christoph Arnold writes in his book Sex, God, and Marriage, we will be hard-pressed to find true peace and purpose in life unless we embrace the mystery that we are created in God’s image.
The following paragraphs are excerpts from the book’s chapter ‘In the Image of God’.
God said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, and all reptiles that crawl upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him, male and female. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase; fill the earth and subdue it.”
(Genesis 1:26–28)
In the opening chapter of the story of creation we read that God created humankind – both male and female – in his own image, and that he blessed them and commanded them to be fruitful and to care for the earth. Right from the start, God shows himself as the creator who “saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Here, right at the beginning of the Bible, God reveals his heart to us. Here we discover God’s plan for our lives.
Many, if not most, twentieth-century Christians dismiss the story of creation as a myth. Others insist that only the strictest, most literal interpretation of Genesis is valid. I simply have reverence for the word of the Bible as it stands. On the one hand, I would not think of arguing away anything in it; on the other, I believe scientists are right in cautioning that the biblical account of creation should not be taken too literally. As Peter says, “With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Pet. 3:8).
Exactly how human beings were created remains a mystery for the creator alone to unveil. Yet I am sure of one thing: no person can find meaning or purpose without God. Rather than dismiss the creation story simply because we do not understand it, we need to find its inner, true meaning and rediscover its significance for us today.
In our depraved age, reverence for God’s plan as described in Genesis has been almost completely lost. We do not treasure the meaning of creation enough – the significance of both man and woman as creatures formed in the image and likeness of God.
What does creation “in God’s image” mean? It means that we are to be a living picture of who God is. It means that we are to be co-workers who further his work of creating and nurturing life. It means that we belong to him, and that our being, our very existence, should always remain related to him and bound to his authority. The moment we separate ourselves from God we lose sight of our purpose here on earth.
Everything created by God gives us an insight into his nature – mighty mountains, immense oceans, rivers, and great expanses of water; storms, thunder and lightning, huge icebergs; meadows, flowers, trees, and ferns. There is power, harshness, and manliness, but there is also gentleness, motherliness, and sensitivity. And just as the various forms of life in nature do not exist without each other, God’s children, too, male and female, do not exist alone. They are different, but they are both made in God’s image, and they need each other to fulfil their true destinies.
Already in Genesis, chapter 2, we read about the importance of marriage. When God created Adam, he said that everything he had made was good. Then he created woman to be a helpmate and partner to man, because he saw that it was not good for man to be alone. This is a deep mystery: man and woman – the masculine and the feminine – belong together as a picture of who God is, and both can be found in him. Together they become what neither would be apart and alone.
Increasingly today, marriages are seen as experiments or as contracts between two people who measure everything in terms of their own interests. When marriages fail, there is almost always the option of no-fault divorce, and after that a new attempt at marriage with a new partner. Many people no longer even bother to make promises of faithfulness; they just live together.
In Genesis, God commanded, “Be fruitful and increase.” Today we avoid the “burden” of unwanted offspring by means of legalized abortion. Children are viewed as a bother; they are too expensive to be brought into the world, to be raised, to be given a college education. They are an economic strain on our materialistic lives. They are even too time-consuming to love.
Is it any wonder that so many in our time have lost hope? That so many have given up on the possibility of enduring love? Life has lost its value; it has become cheap; most people no longer see it as a gift from God. Without God, life is absurd, and there is only darkness and the deep wound of separation from him.
We will find healing only if we believe firmly that God created us and that he is the giver of life, love, and mercy. As we read in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
In God’s son – in Jesus – the creator’s image appears with utmost clarity and finality (Col. 1:15). As the perfect image of God, and as the only way to the Father, he brings us life and unity, joy and fulfilment. Only when our life is lived in him can we experience his truth and goodness, and only in him can we find our true destiny. This destiny is to be God’s image; to rule over the earth in his spirit, which is the creative, life-giving spirit of love.
For further reading…
Click here to download Sex, God, and Marriage as a free ebook from Church Communities’ Plough Publishing House (http://www.plough.com).