The Creative Work Of God

God’s continuing work can be seen in the incarnation of Christ and his redemptive work. “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God…God created the things we can see and the things we cannot see…everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else and he holds all creation together” (Colossians 1:16, 17). Not only is Jesus the exact representation of God, but he is God himself who worked with the Father in creating the world – the sustainer of everything (Hebrews 1:3). “Because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan” (Ephesians 1:11). This means that, “his will may be disobeyed, but his ultimate purpose cannot be frustrated, for he overrules the disobedience in his creatures in such a way that it sub serves his purpose” (Akin 2014, 235). Here we can clearly see God’s sovereignty and that we can rest in the truth that Jesus is Lord and God is in control. God’s involvement in our lives goes even deeper and shows us that he is personal and wants relationships with his creation. He not only spoke with Old Testament figures such as Adam, Abraham, Isaac and Moses, he held relationships with them through guidance and even discipline (Genesis 1:28, 3:8, 12:1, 26:5; Exodus 11, 19, 20, 33:11). Amos 4:13 says that God reveals His thoughts to man. We often

The Bible shows God’s existence in creation in the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, and Romans. Job 12:7-10 says, “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” The Bible also gives an example of the design argument.

When you look around and gaze at the beautiful creation before you, do you reflect on how amazing God is? God made the creation, man, and everything surrounding the two. There are many different worldviews. This paper will focus on the Christian worldview. The Christian worldview involves God, humanity, Jesus, and restoration.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor expanded vastly on the idea of work and the way God sees it as well as it's purposes. Chapter 3 begins with Keller describing to us our greatest work given to us by God namely our call to "fill the Earth and subdue it”. He expands on this idea of "subduing” the Earth by explaining it as more of a cultivation process. This idea makes the task itself more of a caretakers responsibility rather than a conquerors territory. We are God's representatives called to follow His pattern of development by fulfilling our individual callings. Keller also includes that we are called to creativity just as God called Adam to come up with names for the animals he wants us to create just like Him. and again

Humankind was created in the image of God; He gave them like characteristics such as compassion, love, and faithfulness. In Genesis 3 we learn of the Fall of Humanity, which introduces not only sin into the world but also pain. (“Lecture 3”, 2015) After the Fall human nature is then scarred by sin, humans are born sinful by nature. In Genesis 4 Cain brings murder into the world; from here we see humanity relentlessly depart from the wisdom of God. (“Lecture 3”, 2015) Only by accepting Jesus Christ into their hearts, can they atone for their sins and get right with the Lord.

Therefore, during this chapter we have a tendency to see why man is fallen and therefore the starting of God’s set up of redemption is

“Something that the Lord Made” is a movie based on true events that depicts a young black man named Vivien Thomas, who is a carpenter wants to become a doctor. One day, his white employer Dr. Alfred Blalock found out Vivien has a great talent of medicine. Dr. Alfred Blalock offers Vivien to work as a lab assistant with him, and they successful perform an open heart surgery of fixing blue baby syndrome. The greatest part of this movie is not only about the Vivien and Dr. Blalock’s achievement of performing open heart surgery, it is their friendship, ambition and creative break down the racial boundaries and social discrimination.

After working on his creation “for nearly two years” and eventually bringing his creation to life, “the

Albert Wolters, in his article “Fall from Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview,” describes the whole curse of sin in the human existence by the sequence creation-fall-redemption and argues that only God can redeem this currently “worldly” creation corrupted by evil as an external “parasite” in the God´s perfectly-created earth. In the first part, Wolters explains that the original plan of God was to make earth to be very good, but then the original sin corrupted this holy world affecting “creation as a whole.” (53) This was way, sin corrupted human behavior. However, the consequences of fall extend further human behavior because sin also corrupted the non-human things like the arts, science,

Chapter 5 describes Genesis, how by Adam and Eve's decision to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. All of what God created was then infected by sin. Causing nothing He created to work "as it should. Sin leads to the disintegration of every area of life" (Keller 85). Genius describes how God created humans for work, but not since sin has been entangled to every single area of life. We are "suffering the natural consequences of working against" our design, (Keller 86), or "painful toil" (Genesis 3:17). We often experience feeling of fulfilment for a short moment and then it seems to all fall apart. This is "because of a lack of ability and because of resistance in the environment around us." (Keller 90). But as Timothy Keller states, he is "grateful to God for the glimpses He's given" for these glimpses are how " work was intended to be" (92) as should we be grateful as well.

After this, he decided that earth was to be a moral proving ground for the matter that he arranged. The final state (after death) is decided based upon how the arranged matter lived its life on earth. This moves into the salvific account of God. There is a salvation through grace, after works are accounted for. This shows that God is not even the ultimate being. If creation was already formed, then who/what formed it initially. God is no longer a powerful being but a superior figure that obtained this specific form of holiness sooner than we did as pre-existing

Wolters states that the created order will be reformed, renewed and restored, this is seen as “creation regained” (12). Worldview is function as our guide to life (5). The terms also introduced are structure and direction. Also Wolters capitalizes on the terms “sacred” and “secular” realms.

In order to solve this issue other philosophers hold that God is everlasting, instead of eternal, he, like humans, is a temporal being who exists within time and has a past present and future

When I first read the 8th affirmation, I completely disagreed entirely with his statement that God is still creating. I thought Him resting on the seventh day meant creation was complete. After thinking about this subject, I realized that I was not present on the seventh day, so I am new creation. Every newborn baby is a great example that He is still creating today. Psalm 139:13 quotes, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." After we are knit together, He breaths life into us according to several verse including Genesis 2:7, Job 27:3, and Job 33:4. Therefore, new life is evidence that His creation continues.

As we look back in history we can see many beginnings, but the beginning referred to in this verse is a beginning that defies understanding to the extreme. We see one of the most amazing creations in this world in a newly born child, yet that creation pails in comparison to that of the creation on the world. Look around you and imagine nothing. That’s the way in was before the Lord gave us the first of many gifts that have been bestowed upon the human race.