Because Salvation, Therefore Creation

Summenary Ep. 5 Genesis 1:3-4 And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good…The Hebrew word “tov” is like our English word good. It suggests that if something is “good” it must be “good for something.” There is purpose. Over and over again in Genesis 1 we read that God saw what he had made and that he saw it as good/tov. So, God finds his creatures good for his purpose with them. What is God’s purpose with creation? The old rabbis had no trouble here: God created for the sake of Israel. The apocryphal book 2 Esdras 6:55 reads “It was for us that you created this world.”This is a deep mystery. But one way to get at this idea is to say that the creation account in Genesis is only told from the standpoint of God’s redemptive work in Exodus.Exodus is the purpose of creation. Robert Jenson, quoting Karl Barth, says, “Because salvation, therefore creation.” Because God willed to be the savior, he had to create something to save.According to the old rabbis, God created the world so that there could be an Israel. So that he could have his own people—his bride.The church has held the very same position on the matter. God created for the sake of the church.Ephesians 1:4–5 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will…This is what creation is good for. Creation is good for Jesus!As Paul writes in Colossians 1:16, “All things were created through him [Jesus] and for him.” God created all things for Jesus’ sake—as a gift for his Son.Robert Jenson is fond of quoting Jonathan Edwards at just this point:“There was, [as] it were, an eternal society or family in the Godhead, in the Trinity of persons. It seems to be God’s design to admit the church into the divine family as his son’s wife…Heaven and earth were created that the Son of God might be complete in a spouse.”God refuses to be God without you because he has eternally decided to be God with you—Emmanuel. This is the meaning of all creation: We are created out of nothing by God’s free grace, and we are summoned into the eternal love of Father, Son, and Spirit. We are brought into this fellowship through the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, by the power of God’s Spirit which raised him from the dead and now God has poured out that same Spirit into our hearts so that we can call on Jesus’ Father as “our Father.”We can only see the beginning and the end (goal) of creation from the middle: Jesus of Nazareth. He is the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end—only as the one who comes in the middle.When God summoned the world into existence, he said “Jesus.” And everything—from galaxies and stars, to mountains and oceans, to lions and bears, to you and me, right down to the tiniest cells and atoms—finds its meaning inside him.NOTE: If you want to read along in this series on Robert Jenson’s A Theology in Outline, you can find the PDF of next week’s reading below: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cameroncombs.substack.com