God Creates (KT 3)

To maintain a proper outlook on our Christianity, we should keep in front of us two foundational ideas about God—who he is and what he does. God is one in his shared essence of truth, goodness, and beauty, and the activity of the three persons of God is to act always and only in love. The Apostle Paul tells us that these ideas—God’s essence and his activity—may be referred to as his divine nature and his eternal power. We read in Romans 1:20 (TEB—The Essential Bible): “For since the creation of the world, God’s unseen reality—his eternal power and divine nature—has been clearly perceived, being understood through what has been made, so that no one is without excuse.”

The fact that we can perceive God’s nature of TGB and his active power of love instructs us that God purposefully provided that revelation. He did so because he created for relationship with us, his image bearers. In fact, the very definition of love is the giving of self for the benefit of relationship. This definition includes three important elements that lead us into its full meaning. First, love involves a sense of sacrifice—it requires giving up the promotion of self alone. Second, it seeks to provide benefit—a kindness that extends beyond the self. However, this sacrifice and kindness rise to love when they are given for the purpose of enhancing relationship. Love, then, is not merely about doing good or giving; it is about fostering and strengthening relationship. This is why God created—for love’s sake, for relationship.

Genesis 1:1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. This verse may give us pause when we see “heavens” in the plural rather than the singular “heaven.” Isn’t the writer distinguishing between earth (our abode) and heaven (God’s dwelling place)? Actually, no. The Hebrew term is plural because the writer is referring not just to the sky (the atmosphere where birds fly and clouds drift) but also to the celestial heavens beyond, which contain the sun, moon, and stars.

Old Testament writers sometimes spoke of “heaven” as God’s dwelling place, but this was more functional than theological. Since God sees everything everywhere, it was natural to think of him as having a vantage point from which he observed all things. Just as we climb a ladder or stand on a rooftop for a broader view, or scale a mountain for the widest perspective, ancient people thought of God as dwelling in the heavens for the ultimate view. This is reflected in Psalm 33:13–14: “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth.”

However, God does not actually dwell in a place called heaven somewhere in the sky. First, he created the heavens, meaning he must exist beyond them. Furthermore, God is omnipresent. In John 4, Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman highlights this truth. When she asked whether Samaritans should worship on Mt. Gerizim or whether worship should be in Jerusalem, Jesus responded that the time had come for people to worship anywhere. He explained, “God is spirit,” meaning he is present everywhere. Worship is not about location but about recognizing that God is always with us. Similarly, in Matthew 4:17, Jesus says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” again indicating that heaven is about God’s presence, not a physical place.

Returning to Genesis, Moses wrote that God created the heavens and the earth not to describe a divine dwelling place but to emphasize that God created everything—the earth, the sky, the sun,

Forming and filling

Genesis 1:2 introduces two key ideas. First, immediately after creating all physical material from nothing, problems arose—the earth was formless and empty. God immediately set out to bring order. He addressed the problem of formlessness by creating structure:

• Day 1: The domain of light and darkness

• Day 2: The sky and the sea

• Day 3: The land and vegetation

Then, he addressed the problem of emptiness by filling these domains:

• Day 4: The sun, moon, and stars for the domain of light and darkness

• Day 5: Birds and fish for the sky and sea

• Day 6: Animals and humans for the land and vegetation

But this process of forming and filling was not merely about organization—it was about care. Genesis 1:2 also tells us that God was “hovering” over the surface of the waters. The Hebrew word rachaph (hovering) appears only three times in the Old Testament, including in Deuteronomy 32:11: “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.” This image of nurturing fits beautifully with how The Essential Bible renders Genesis 1:2: “Even then, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, nurturing the deep toward life, like a mother eagle over her young.”

This shows that God was not merely creating like an artist but was creating with deep care and love—giving of himself for the benefit of the relationship that would come with his image bearers.

THE Purpose of Creation

The entire creation process was relational. Isaiah 45:18 confirms this: “For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty but formed it to be inhabited.” All of Isaiah 45 highlights God’s relational purpose, showing that creation was not just about biological life but about moral, relational beings who could know and worship him.

Colossians 1:16 (TEB) affirms this: “For in him as perfect image bearer, all things were created—things in the heavens and things on the earth, things seen and things unseen, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were brought into being through him as the means of creation and toward him as the fulfillment of its purpose.” As God, Jesus participated in creation and, as the perfect man, is also its ultimate purpose.

Even before human existence, God’s love was evident. Ephesians 1:4–5 (TEB) states: “For in his love, he established beforehand that we who have received his forgiveness would also be brought into full restoration, set apart to be whole and blameless in his presence. In love, he determined in advance that through Jesus the Anointed One, we would be reclaimed as his own—restored as sons and daughters with the full inheritance of his family—according to the delight of his will.” Creation was always about relationship.

Humanity as Image Bearers

When we think of creation, we often focus on physical production. But creation also includes God’s image bearers. God created for love relationship, which required that his creatures be made like him—as image bearers. Genesis 1:26–27 states: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’ So God created the human in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.”

Image bearing includes many things, but the first aspect seen in verse 26 is that humans were meant to rule as God rules—to maintain creation according to God’s TGB. Additionally, verse 27 highlights the singular/plural dynamic of humanity’s existence: just as God is three-in-one (three persons in one essence of TGB, so too are humans multiple individuals (in our souls) sharing a common essence (physical creation).

Humans, like God, have desires—for truth, goodness, beauty, existence, and relationship. But unlike God, when we use our essence and desires, we tend toward self-exaltation. To correct this, God reveals himself as the source of TGB, giving us conceptual intelligence to understand truth, a sense of morality to understand goodness, and an appreciation of aesthetics to understand beauty. When we comprehend his TGB and align our desires with his essence, rather than our own, our self-exaltation transforms into love.

God’s act of creation was always about relationship, leading us into love.