Keith’s Blog

RTG (8) - Creation and its Creator

(FYI this entry is part of an going discussion entitled ‘Rediscovering the Gospel’ (RTG) so you might want to read some of the previous entries before starting here.)

For me, the masterpiece of Jesus’ message begins with the simple, yet utterly profound declaration that you and I are not alive today on this revolving planet by accident. We are here because this incredible creation in which we find ourselves has been carefully and deliberately willed into existence by an even more incredible Creator. As the very first verse in the Bible puts it, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) Plato and the Gnostics are wrong.

And not only is the world here because God wants it to be; you and I are as well! Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that having overseen the formation of the rest of our planet and its occupants, God then said: “Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness… So God created human beings in his own image; male and female he created them.” There is so much for us to learn from these verses – and Jesus clearly affirmed their content in his own teaching (eg Matthew 19:4-6) – but, for now, it is sufficient for us to realise that the Gospel thus begins with God himself and the fact that we ‘are’ because we are, in fact, His.

Many of us are fascinated by the ‘how?’ of creation, and past and ongoing studies in such fields as geology, cosmology, palaeontology and genetics provide us with an abundance of awe inspiring learnings and insights. The manner in which our world appears to have been formed and how it has developed and evolved over the millennia is absolutely mind-blowing – and we still understand only a tiny little piece of the overall picture.

But beyond the ‘How?’ lies in each of our hearts the instinctive yearning to understand the ‘Why?’ and in the message of Jesus that second question is conclusively and majestically answered.

The joyous beginning of that answer is that you and I exist because there is a God out there who has created our world and who has created us; even more than this, we exist because this God made this incredible world just so that we could be made; we are not here by accident; we are not here by illusion; we are here because of Him.

The Gospel begins with the good news about Creation and its Creator.