What We Believe About Creation

From Gospel Translations

Current revision as of 20:24, 30 December 2009

God's Creation of the Universe and Man

The Bethlehem Baptist Church Elder Affirmation of Faith, Part 4

4.1 We believe that God created the universe,^[1] and everything in it,^[2] out of nothing,^[3] by the Word of His power. Having no deficiency in Himself, nor moved by any incompleteness in His joyful self-sufficiency,^[4] God was pleased in creation to display His glory^[5] for the everlasting joy^[6] of the redeemed, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.^[7]

4.2 We believe that God directly created Adam from the dust of the ground and Eve from his side. We believe that Adam and Eve were the historical parents of the entire human race;^[8] that they were created male and female equally in the image of God,^[9] without sin;^[10] that they were created to glorify^[11] their Maker, Ruler, Provider, and Friend by trusting His all-sufficient goodness, admiring His infinite beauty, enjoying His personal fellowship, and obeying His all-wise counsel; and that, in God’s love and wisdom, they were appointed differing and complementary roles in marriage as a type of Christ and the church.^[12]

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10)!

NOTES

1. ↑ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).
2. ↑ The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers (Psalm 24:1-2).
3. ↑ By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible (Hebrews 11:3).
   But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Hebrews 1:2).
   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:1-3).
4. ↑ See note 22. Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:13-14).
   I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me (Psalm 50:9-15).
   [God is not] served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything (Acts 17:25).
5. ↑ …everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made (Isaiah 43:7).
6. ↑ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isaiah 35:10).
   His master said to him, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).
7. ↑ And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
8. ↑ Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Genesis 2:7).
   So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
   So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man (Genesis 2:21-22).
   For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).
   Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45). Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come (Romans 5:14).
9. ↑ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
   Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image (Genesis 9:6).
   With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God (James 3:9).
10. ↑ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day (Genesis 1:31).
11. ↑ See note 51.
12. ↑ Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband (Ephesians 5:22-33)
    Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).