Maker of heaven and earth

Introduction

Last week we spent our time on the first line of the Nicene Creed, where we confess our faith in one God, the Father Almighty. We thought about how there’s only one God and not many gods. And we thought about how he’s the Father. But since the word ‘Father’ is relational and always implies another person, then to confess our faith in God the Father leads us to confess our faith in God the Son who comes from the Father. And we also believe in God the Holy Spirit who comes from the Father and the Son. And so, there’s more to God than the Father, because the one God we worship is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And we also thought about how the Father is almighty. And that means that not only can he do all things according to his will, but he rules over all things. He is the Most High God and he reigns over all. However, the Father does not rule over the Son and the Spirit, because they too are almighty, since all three persons of the Trinity possess one and the same divine being. And finally we thought about how, through faith in God’s Son, we are adopted into God’s family. And so, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. We are not children of God by nature, but by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ who is God’s Only Begotten Son.

Today we come to the second line of the Creed where we confess that the Father Almighty is the maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And so, when we say the Creed, we are confessing and proclaiming that God the Father is the Creator of all.

Biblical witness

This is revealed to us right at the beginning of the Bible where it says in the very first verse that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And then it goes on to tell us how the earth was formless and empty when God first made it and how God went on to shape it and to fill it with plants and trees and with fish and with birds and with animals and then, and last of all, with humans.

There are many other places in the Scriptures which tell us that God made all things. For instance, in Job 38, the Lord asks Job if he was there when the Lord laid the earth’s foundations. Just as a builder lays the foundations of the house he’s building, so the Lord laid the foundations of the earth.

Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. And so, the sky above is the work of his hands. He made the sky as well as everything else. In Psalm 104, the psalmist praises God for stretching out the heavens like a tent and for setting the earth on its foundations and for making the dry land as well as the moon and the sun and the night and the day and for all living creatures.

In Proverbs 3, we read that, by wisdom, God laid the earth’s foundations; and by understanding, he set the heavens in place. In Isaiah 40, it says that the Lord is the everlasting God and the Creator of the ends of the earth.

In Acts 14, Paul explained to the people in Lystra that God made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. And he’s the one who gives us rain from heaven and crops in their seasons and who provides us with plenty of food and fills our hearts with joy. Furthermore, in Acts 17, Paul told the Athenians that God made the world and everything in it and he gives all men life and breath and everything else. And in him we live and move and have our being.

In Revelation 4, the twenty-four elders around the throne of God worship God because he created all things and by his will they were created and have their being. And in Revelation 21 and 22, we learn that God — who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning — will one day recreate the heavens and the earth.

Those are only a sample of the verses which tell us that God is the maker of the heavens and the earth. However, lest we think creation was the work of God the Father exclusively, we should also note that in Genesis 1 it says that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters at the time of the creation. This implies that the Holy Spirit was involved in the work of creation. And in John 1, we learn that God the Father made all things through the divine Word, which is John’s title for God the Son. Paul also tells us in Colossians 1 that all things were created by the Son of God: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things were created by him and for him. And so, whatever powers that exist — whether invisible powers like angels and demons or visible powers like kings and emperors — exist because of God the Son.

The Scriptures therefore make clear that creation is the work of the whole Trinity. Nevertheless it is entirely fitting that the Creed should assign the work of creation to the Father Almighty, because the Father created all things through his Son and by his Spirit.

Since no human was there in the beginning when God made all things, then God had to tell us what he did in the beginning. He had to reveal it to us in his word. And, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, it is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command. It is by faith in God our Creator and in what he has revealed to us in his word that we understand that he made all things. And whenever we say the Creed, we are confessing that we believe this is true. We are committing ourselves to this and we are proclaiming it.

All things

What are we committing ourselves to? We’re committing ourselves to the belief that the Father made all things. So, the expression ‘heaven and earth’ means everything. It refers to the whole of creation from top to bottom and everything in between. We believe that God made the heavens above and all that they contain, including the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets. And he made the earth and all that it contains. It all comes from him. He made all things in the beginning and he sustains his creation continually.

We’re also committing ourselves to the belief that God made ‘all things visible and invisible’. When the Creed mentions the invisible, it’s referring to the angels and demons which we cannot see. It’s referring to all those spiritual powers which Paul refers to in Colossians 1 and in Ephesians 1. It also refers to time, which we cannot see, but which is part of God’s creation. God himself is eternal. Everything is eternally present to him. And he created time and he uses it to display his glory. And then, when the Creed mentions visible things, it’s referring to everything else. And so, we’re committing ourselves to believing that God made all things.

However, when we say that God the Father made all things, we don’t mean that God the Father made the Son or the Spirit, because the Son and the Spirit were not created. They are God and therefore they are eternal like the Father: the Son is eternally begotten from the Father; and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.

And God did not create evil. He did not make sin. Sin is not something which has been created, because sin is not a thing, but it’s the absence of what is good. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so evil is the absence of goodness. And when I fail to do the good which God created me to do, then I am sinning against him and doing what is evil in his sight.

And so, God the Father made all things apart from God the Son and God the Spirit who are God and who are eternal. And he did not make evil, because evil is not a thing. But God the Father made everything else.

Creator-creature distinction

So, we’re committing ourselves to the belief that the Father made all things. That leads us into affirming what is called the creator-creature distinction. So, imagine a line and on one side of the line there’s God the Creator: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And on the other side of the line, there’s everything else. And the Creator and his creation are very different from each other, because God is infinite and eternal and unchangeable. Being infinite, he is not restricted or limited in any way. Being eternal, he is without beginning and end and everything is eternally present to him. Being unchangeable, he cannot change, because he cannot cease to be who he eternally is. That’s the Creator. On the other hand, everything created is finite and temporal and changeable. I’m limited in every way. For instance, my strength and knowledge and wisdom are limited; my skills and abilities are limited; and I’m limited to being in one place at a time. And then I’m temporal and not eternal, because I exist within time and I have to wait for things to happen; and once they happen, they are in the past and gone for good. And I’m changeable: I’m not the same as I was when I was born and every day I’m changing: improving in some ways and deteriorating in other ways. And what is true for me, is true for everyone and every other created thing.

The Creator and his creation are not the same. And so, there are two levels of being: there’s God on one level and there’s everything else on another level. Some people think there’s only one level of being and it’s the physical world around us. And so, when we die, that’s it, because our physical life in this physical world is over. But Christians believe that there are two levels of being and that the world around us and what we can see is not all there is. There’s more, because there’s the created order and there’s God the Creator. And there’s this life and there’s the life to come which people will spend either in hell or in the new heavens and earth. And between this life and the next, there’s the Day of Judgment, when every person who has ever lived will stand before our Creator to give an account of ourselves and of what we have done with the life he has given us.

That’s the creator-creature distinction which flows out of our belief that the Father made all things.

Creation from nothing

When we say the Creed, we are committing ourselves to the belief that God made all things, visible and invisible. And when we say the Creed, we are also committing ourselves to the belief that the Father made all things from nothing. This is so, because before God created the heavens and the earth and all things visible and invisible, there was nothing else apart from God. Some people believe that God created all things from himself so that the universe is a kind of emanation from God and is therefore part of him. And other people believe that God must have started with something. There must have been some pre-existing eternal matter which God used to create the heavens and the earth. And, of course, there are also those people who say that there is no God and who believe that the universe is either eternal itself or that it came to be by chance. But when we say the Creed, we’re committing ourselves to the belief that God made all things from nothing. So, he didn’t make it from himself and he didn’t make it from pre-existing eternal matter. He made it from nothing. Once there was absolutely nothing apart from God. And then, having begun with absolutely nothing, God made all that exists. And what he made was very good.

Conclusion

And as I’ve said before recently, God did not have to make the heavens and the earth. God is the Blessed Trinity. He is infinitely and eternally and unchangeably happy. He did not need to make us and he would not have been any less happy or fulfilled or glorious if he did not make us. And so, when he made us, it was out of his overflowing goodness and love. Our life is a gift from God. And as our Shorter Catechism teaches us, he made us to glorify him and he made us to enjoy him for ever. And we will enjoy him for ever when he brings us into his presence in the new heavens and earth, where we will be made perfectly holy and perfectly happy as we behold his glory for ever and for ever. And there we will praise the Father Almighty for not only making us but for saving us by his Son and recreating us by his Spirit.