Here is a quote from Dr. Al Wolters on the foundational importance of understanding God as Creator not only of the natural world (birds and trees), but also of families, politics, beauty and justice. In other words, all good things have their origin in God. He made it all, and “it was very good.” Dr. Wolters is the author of Creation Regained. This quote comes from a piece he wrote (found here) for the Spring 2010 issue of Comment magazine, which I highly recommend.
“In the biblical view, creation is everything which God has ordained to exist, what he has put in place as part of his creative workmanship. To be sure, this includes the great variety of physical entities and processes, and the enormous diversity of flora and fauna that God has created “according to their kind,” but it also encompasses much more. Creation includes such human realities as families and other social institutions, the presence of beauty in the world, the ability to appreciate that beauty, the phenomena of tenderness and laughter, the capacity to conceptualize and reason, the experience of joy and the sense of justice. An almost unimaginable variety of objects, institutions, relationships and phenomena are part of the rich texture of God’s creation.”
I’m planning to touch on this idea in my sermon this coming Sunday. But we can’t stop with Creation. If we maintain that God’s creation is comprehensively good, it follows then, that sin is equally comprehensive in its destructiveness, infecting every part of our lives, and our world–distorting our good desires, feelings, and thoughts, and also fracturing our relationships, corrupting our institutions, and destroying our neighborhoods. This sets us up for a rigorous and robust (biblical) view of redemption–that God hasn’t given up on his good world, but rather, through Christ, God is renewing and restoring all things–families, institutions, persons, schools, farms, oceans, governments, businesses, cities, societies, cultures–every square inch of our world is under the lordship of Christ, and being restored and put back together, and will one day function again as God intended.
In the words of Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'”
i ben thinking 