Theology Central

A respected colleague writes to ask why this electronic bulletin is named In the Nick of Time, or, to give its proper name, ΤΩ ΧΡΟΝΟU KAIΡΩ. He claims that he has often wondered about this question. Furthermore, he is sure that others would like to hear the answer.

Of course, a publication has to be named something. Whoever went to the library and asked to see an untitled book or periodical? If someone did publish such a document, it would be indistinguishable from other untitled books or periodicals. Readers would be forced to resort to some sort of ad hoc titling, such as “I’d like to see the untitled blue book,” or “Where can I find the untitled magazine from the National Forum?” Titles, whether formal or informal, are unavoidable.

The Nick (which is the—ahem—nickname we use) is one in a series of publications that I have produced in successive ministries. Long ago, when I was still in college, I was learning under a pastor in a small-town church that was located on that city’s Wall Street. The church needed a periodic informational mailing for upcoming events, and we called it the Wall Street Eternal. Later, as a pastor, I published a monthly paper printed on gold-colored paper. In a nod to Archer Weniger’s Blu Print, I called my publication the Gold Leaf.

While pursuing PhD studies I edited a bimonthly publication that was sent out by the Iowa Association of Regular Baptist Churches. Bob Humrickhouse was the association representative in those days, and we called the paper Ruminations. It included a hint of pungency that not everyone appreciated. I’m told that those who didn’t like it referred to the publication as Bauder’s Barf. The IARBC stopped printing it shortly after I made a comment about being an “unregistered” regular Baptist, then opining that it was not only possible but perfectly acceptable to be a regular Baptist without joining a fellowship like the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. Incidentally, I stand by that thesis.

In the Nick of Time had its origins about twenty years ago. I was the relatively new president of Central Seminary, and I hoped to achieve a couple of goals through the new publication. First, I thought that we needed increased exposure among potential constituents, particularly students and pastors. Second, I wanted to experiment with a digital publication that could be distributed widely for minimal cost. Third, I wanted something more than a blog: I wanted a piece that would go directly to readers’ inboxes, and I wanted something that would be reviewed by the Central Seminary faculty before it went out. Fourth, I wanted a publication that would not be mine alone, but that other professors and friends of Central Seminary could write for.

Beneath all these goals, however, lay a deeper concern. I sensed that certain great ideas that had once been widely accepted within my circles were losing their hold on the imagination of the coming generation. Fundamentalism, with its emphasis on primary and secondary separation, was one of those ideas. Cessationism—the insistence that God is not granting miraculous gifts today—was another. Dispensationalism and its implied eschatology was another. Conservatism (both religious and political) rightly understood was still another. Liberal learning was another of the great ideas that I hoped to foster. Surrounding all these concerns was yet another great idea: the commitment to reasoned discourse.

By 2005, I suspected that all these ideas were poorly understood, even among the most Rightward evangelicals. The time was ripe for them to be re-articulated and defended. I wanted the new publication to do just that.

Because the hour was late and the ideas were slipping away, I felt a sense of urgency about the new publication. Barely enough time remained to make the case for these ideas, to reassure the wavering, and perhaps even to retrieve some who had already given up on the ideas. That was when my reading brought me across the happy expression, ΤΩ ΧΡΟΝΟU KAIΡΩ.

Literally, the translation would be “In the of time time.” The phrase, however, uses two different words for time. The word kairos views time as opportunity, while the word chronos views time as measurable. The first involves the quality of time, while the second measures its quantity. Thirty minutes is always thirty minutes: that is chronos. But thirty minutes spent getting a root canal does not feel the same as thirty minutes watching the Super Bowl. That is kairos. (In fairness I should note that my wife might view the root canal and the Super Bowl as nearly equivalent.)

So, what does ΤΩ ΧΡΟΝΟU KAIΡΩ mean? It means doing something at the most opportune (kairos) moment (chronos). The equivalent English idiom is in the nick of time, and it describes exactly what I wanted the new publication to be. ΤΩ ΧΡΟΝΟU KAIΡΩ is a last-moment plea to cling to or return to the great ideas.

If the situation seemed dire in 2005, it appears almost desperate now. The last vestiges of civil discourse are waning. Conservatism has been invaded by demagogues who despise genuinely conservative principles. Liberal learning has been canceled, to be displaced by indoctrination and bullying in the very centers that were supposed to maintain a commitment to education. Fundamentalism, cessationism, and dispensationalism have become nearly insignificant within the evangelical world. Allegiance to these and other great ideas continues to dwindle.

So, is it time to stop publishing In the Nick of Time? Or is it time to modify its stance and approach? Quite the contrary. In his essay on “Francis Herbert Bradley” in Selected Essays, T. S. Eliot writes that we sometimes defend lost causes, not because we can win, but because we are trying to keep something alive. If the great ideas are true—and I believe they are—then it is time to explain them, model them, and defend them better than ever before, so that they will remain available when a future generation again takes interest in them.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Life Is the Time to Serve the Lord

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Life is the Time to serve the Lord,
The Time t’insure the great Reward;
And while the Lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest Sinner may return.

Life is the Hour that God has giv’n
To ‘scape from Hell, and fly to Heav’n;
The Day of Grace, and Mortals may
Secure the Blessings of the Day.

The Living know that they must die,
But all the Dead forgotten lie;
Their Mem’ry and their Sense is gone,
Alike unknowing and unknown.

Their Hatred and their Love is lost,
Their Envy buried in the Dust;
They have no Share in all that’s done
Beneath the Circuit of the Sun.

Then what my Thoughts design to do,
My Hands, with all your Might pursue;
Since no Device, nor Work is found,
Nor Faith, nor Hope, beneath the Ground.

There are no Acts of Pardon pass’d
In the cold Grave, to which we haste;
But Darkness, Death, and long Despair,
Reign in eternal Silence there.

In spite of the fall, humans still have the responsibility to exercise dominion over the earth and to subdue it. Sadly, none of us has ever seen unfallen people exerting dominion over an unfallen world. Nobody knows exactly what that would have looked like. Instead, we find ourselves fighting both the chaotic element that has been introduced into nature and the predatory element that is now part of us.

Yet we have no choice. We have no other world in which to live. We must eat and drink. We require shelter and clothing. We must devise these goods and whatever else we need from the natural materials that are available to us. To survive, we must bend nature to our wills. The only question is how best we can do that.

Answering that question is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. For an answer to be true and useful, multiple considerations must be reckoned upon. These considerations are like the pieces of the puzzle. They must be fitted together, hopefully without forcing any of the pieces. As they fit together, a picture will begin to emerge.

Several important pieces are already on the table. Let me review a few of them. The world is created, and therefore the Creator and not the world is ultimate. The created order is fundamentally good in the sense of being useful or beneficial. Humans are part of the created order, but unlike the rest of creation, they are made in the Creator’s image and given dominion over other things. This dominion includes the responsibility to “subdue” creation: that is, to advance its order and utility. Because humans sinned, an element of disorder and evil was introduced into both creation and human dominion. Consequently, human oversight of creation has been weakened and twisted, but not eliminated.

Each of these pieces is vital to the puzzle. If any is neglected, the picture will be distorted or incomplete. Now, two more pieces of the puzzle need to be placed on the table. The first is that the created order gains its value from more than just its utility to human beings. It is also valuable as a partial but important revelation of God’s character.

The Scriptures teach that “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork” (Psalm 19:1). God reveals Himself so clearly in the things He has made that those who reject Him are without excuse (Rom 1:19–20). According to these texts, what God has revealed through nature includes His glory, His eternal power, and His divine nature. Natural revelation is not sufficient to lead someone to salvation, but it presents God so clearly that people who reject Him will rightly be held accountable.

God is a maker, and makers leave the marks of their personhood upon the things they make. Carpenters and plumbers reveal how skillful and careful they are by the work they do. Beethoven’s symphonies have a different character than Tchaikovsky’s. Breughel the Younger paints in a very different mood from Rembrandt, though the two are near in space and time. Makers stamp their character into the things they make. So it is with God and the creation He has made.

King David was able to perceive God’s activity even in the brokenness of the world. In Psalm 29 he traces the path of a devastating thunderstorm as it rolls in off the Mediterranean and assaults the forests and hills. Such storms are part of the disorder that has troubled creation since the fall. Yet David persistently names the thunder as “the voice of Jehovah,” and he sees in this storm the marks of God’s power and majesty. He calls upon his readers to

Give unto the LORD, O ye mighty,
give unto the LORD glory and strength.
Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name;
worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

For the biblical writers, nature was enchanted. It was, in a sense, haunted. Creation is not God, but it displays His handiwork. While sin has brought genuine disorder and calamity into the world, the eternal power and divine nature of God still shine through. Even in its fallen state, creation should move people to shout glory to God.

This is my Father’s world,
He shines in all that’s fair,
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

When Christians approach the natural order, they should never treat it as God. They should, however, treat it with tender care, because it is a medium through which God has seen fit to make Himself known. They should be reluctant to damage the created world in ways that would permanently reduce its beauty and majesty. In fact, beauty and majesty are among the good things that humans should try to advance as they promote increased order and utility within the world.

Beauty and majesty do not require pristine preservation. Yes, an unplowed prairie is beautiful, but so are green fields of corn and beans alternated with pastures of clover dotted with red cattle. Wildflowers are beautiful, but so are the gardens of Schloss Schönbrunn or Château de Fontainebleau. There ought to be room on the planet for both natural and cultivated beauties. Christians who hold a right view of creation will try to ensure that there is.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Psalm 29

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Give to the LORD, ye sons of fame,
give to the LORD renown and pow’r;
ascribe due honors to His name,
and His eternal might adore.

The LORD proclaims His pow’r aloud
o’er the vast ocean and the land;
His voice divides the wat’ry cloud,
and lightnings blaze at His command.

He speaks, and howling tempests rise,
and lay the forest bare around:
the fiercest beast, with piteous cries,
confess the terror of the sound.

His thunders rend the vaulted skies,
and palaces and temples shake.
The mountains tremble at the noise,
the valleys roar, the deserts quake.

The LORD sits sov’reign o’er the flood;
the Thund’rer reigns forever King;
but makes His temple His abode,
where we His awful glories sing.

We see no terrors in His name,
but in our God a Father find.
The voice that shakes all nature’s frame,
speaks comfort to the pious mind.

God made humans as mediatorial rulers to rule over creation. In the beginning, God made the world at a relatively lower level of order. Throughout creation week, He brought it to higher levels of order. At the end of the week, He delegated the task of further ordering creation to humans, placing the entire world under their feet (Heb 2:8a). The created world can never truly flourish without human oversight.

Nevertheless, as the writer to the Hebrews notes, humans are not presently exercising their dominion in anything like its complete form (Heb 2:8b). While vestiges of human mastery survive, the world is not flourishing. Rather, it is filled with disorder, pain, and death.

The reason for this disparity is described in Genesis 3, the story of the fall. In the original creation (Gen 1–2), God placed humans on probation. This probation consisted of a single prohibition: they must not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). If they did eat of that tree, they would immediately pass under sentence of death.

This prohibition seems odd. Why forbid a piece of fruit? The answer lies in the significance of the tree.

On the one hand, it was a literal tree. It had literal fruit (not an apple!) that could be viewed, plucked, and eaten. At this level, God’s prohibition acted as a blunt test of obedience. To obey, humans must abstain from the fruit. To eat was to disobey God’s law and consequently to become treasonous rebels against the king who had appointed them as His mediatorial rulers.

On the other hand, the tree pointed to something more than itself. Its name implies its significance: it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (bad). The “bad” in this designation contrasts with the “good,” and the “good” must be understood in context. Throughout creation week God declared that what He had made was good. How was it good? Not in the sense of moral rectitude, but in the sense that everything God made was useful and beneficial—specifically for humans.

Only once did God say that something was “not good” (Gen 2:18): it was not good for the man to be alone. In other words, God perceived a void or deficiency in His creation. A good was absent. God helped the man to see the deficiency by having him classify or name the animals. This was an exercise in comparison that led the man to realize that he was one of a kind. Then God put the man to sleep, and from the man He made a woman, whom He brought to the man. The man’s reaction was ecstatic, recognizing the oneness between himself and the woman (Gen 2:23). The implication is that when the creation lacks a good, God can be trusted to supply it.

This episode provides a context for the temptation in the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and bad was not only a literal tree but also a representative case. For humans to eat the fruit would mean that they had chosen to understand or define good and bad for themselves rather than to trust their Creator. This act would represent not only a rejection of the Creator’s law but also an attack upon His very character. Humans would be announcing that their Maker was untrustworthy, and that they were rejecting His provision of the good so they could choose the good for themselves.

When the first couple ate the fruit of the tree, they were declaring independence from God. But God is life, and to become independent of Him was to separate themselves from the source of life. How could the consequence be anything less than death?

The results of that first sin were both widespread and devastating. Two results are of special importance here. First, human sin brought death into the created order (Rom 5:12). Because humans were God’s mediatorial rulers with dominion over the world, the world was changed by human sin. It now “groans and travails” until the second coming of Jesus, when it will be restored (Rom 8:19–23). In the meanwhile, destruction, suffering, and death pervade creation. Sin has introduced a very large element of disorder into the world.

This disorder reaches into the human body itself. The first sin brought the sentence of death, and with death came everything that leads to it: debility, decay, disease, dementia. As Paul says, “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom 8:23). This penalty has descended upon the entire human race.

The second result of the fall affects human character, which has become twisted. As God’s vice-regents, unfallen humans were created in untried, mutable holiness. They were capable of sin but disposed toward God. Since the fall, their disposition has been reversed. They intuitively reject God, and because they reject God they cannot rightly accept those who are made in God’s image. Here is the origin of what poet Robert Burns called “man’s inhumanity to man.”

Many and sharp the numerous ills
Inwoven with our frame;
More pointed still, we make ourselves
Regret, remorse and shame;
And man, whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,
Man’s inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn.

As Paul puts it, humans are now “filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom 1:29–32).

Every aspect of human nature has been subverted so that all people are now totally depraved. While they are still capable of natural good and not yet as evil as they could be, they nevertheless think, feel, and choose wrongly toward God. In their rebellion against God, they also think, feel, and choose wrongly toward each other and, indeed, toward the created order itself. They have become predators, exploiters in the bad sense of that term. Worst of all, they find ways to wrap their predation in the garments of virtue. They make themselves feel good about their destructive choices.

Consequently, human dominion faces a double problem. The first part of the problem is that much of the created order has slipped out of the human grasp, so that creation revolts against humans. The second part of the problem is that they too often view the created world (including each other) either as a thing to be pillaged for the satisfaction of their fallen appetites or else as a God-substitute to be worshipped in His place. Whether there is a solution to this problem will be the topic of a future essay.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Deep Are the Wounds Which Sin Hath Made

Anne Steele (1717–1778)

Deep are the wounds which sin hath made
Where shall the sinner find a cure?
In vain, alas, is nature’s aid,
The work exceeds all nature’s power.

Sin like a raging fever reigns,
With fatal strength in every part;
The dire contagion fills the veins,
And spreads its poison to the heart.

And can no sovereign balm be found?
And is no kind physician nigh
To ease the pain, and heal the wound,
Ere life and hope forever fly?

There is a great physician near,
Look up, O fainting soul, and live;
See, in his heavenly smiles appear
Such ease as nature cannot give!

See in the Savior’s dying blood
Life, health, and bliss, abundant flow!
‘Tis only this dear, sacred flood
Can ease thy pain and heal thy woe.

Sin throws in vain its pointed dart,
For here a sovereign Cure is found;
A cordial for a fainting heart,
A balm for every painful wound.

The creation account of Genesis 1–2 is indispensable for a right understanding of both God as creator and the world as His creation. It is also essential for a right understanding of human beings in relation to both God and the created world. What the Bible teaches is that humans have something in common with God, but they also have something in common with creation.

What they have in common with creation is that humans are creatures, like birds, stones, trees, and stars. If they are creatures, then they are not God. They are not absolute. They are not ultimate. Their being, purpose, and nature does not and cannot exist in themselves. They are the handiwork of someone greater and wiser than they. Someone else has designed them, and their design fits within an even larger design. Human beings can expect to find their fulfillment and joy only in completing their design within the great design.

Human ability to complete their design within creation, however, hinges on what they have in common with God. Yes, people are like other created things in important ways. In other ways they are more like God: out of all His creatures God has made them in His own image and likeness (Gen 1:26–27).

What is God’s image and likeness in humans? The answer to this question is widely disputed. Nevertheless, the verses that narrate the creation of the human race (Gen 1:27–28) offer a clue. Verse 27 offers two descriptions of how God created humans: (1) in His image and likeness, and (2) as male and female. Verse 28 then expresses two blessings that God placed upon humanity: (1) to reproduce and fill the earth, and (2) to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. In this structure, being made as male and female is what enables humans to reproduce and fill the earth. Being made in God’s image is what enables them to subdue it and exercise dominion. In other words, exercising dominion is a large part of what it means for humanity to be made in God’s image.

This point is enlarged by David in Psalm 8. In view of the immensity of the universe, David asks why God should even pay attention to humans. His answer is that God has made humans a little lower than ’elohim; He has crowned them with glory and honor (5). Specifically, God has made them “to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet” (6). Commenting on Psalm 8:6, the writer to the Hebrews observes that if God put all things under their feet, then God left nothing in creation outside of human dominion (Heb 2:8).

This dominion over creation is no light thing: God authorizes humans to “subdue” the created world. The term translated subdue (kavash) is a strong word. It means to enslave or to dominate. It is used of Israel conquering the land of Canaan (Num 32:22; Josh 18:1). It is also used of Haman attempting (as Ahasuerus believed) to rape Queen Esther (Esth 7:8). The word has the idea of wrestling someone into compliance against that person’s wishes.

This is the authority that God has given humans over the earth. Evidently, the original creation as it came from the hand of God remained unfinished. God created the world at a relatively lower level of order (Gen 1:1) and then brought it to a relatively higher level of order. Even so, parts of the created world were not yet as God intended them to be. Rather than arranging those parts Himself, God made humans responsible to bring increased order into the created world.

God’s plan was never to govern the world immediately. Rather, He created intermediaries who would do the work of governing on His behalf. He intended to fill the world with these God-like creatures who would continuously bring creation to higher and higher levels of order. These creatures would not have the power to create out of nothing, but they would have the ability to take the pre-existing materials of the world and to arrange those materials so as to force them to become more useful.

Human beings are those God-like creatures. They are created in God’s image and likeness. They are created to exercise dominion everywhere and over everything within the created world. Nothing on planet earth is exempted from their authority.

Not only do humans have dominion over the whole world, but the world is also made for the benefit of humans. God created the heavenly bodies for signs, seasons, days, and years (Gen 1:14), but only humans tell time. God made trees that were pleasant to look at and good for food (Gen 2:8). Both humans and animals consume fruit for food, but human beings are the only creatures who can derive pleasure from gazing upon the beauties of creation.

At a later point, God even gave humans explicit permission to kill animals for food (Gen 9:3). In other words, human dominion includes the authority to use and even to displace other parts of creation in the interest of human flourishing. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly: God never intended the created world to be preserved in pristine condition. He always meant it to be ordered, arranged, and used by humans, without a priori restriction.

Since humans are made in God’s image, they also have one other privilege. They have the capacity to enjoy their relationship with the Creator. They are granted the blessing of being able to listen to “the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). Of all God’s creatures, they alone are more than servants. They are made to trust God, to obey Him, and to commune with Him. As later Scripture expands on this point, it shows that humans are made to treasure God’s perfections and His presence, reflecting praise back to Him in a relationship of worship.

To be made in the image of God, then, is to be oriented in two directions. On the one hand, it involves trust in, submission to, and worship of the Creator. On the other hand, it involves the exercise of dominion over creation, subduing it so that it reaches greater order and utility for human flourishing.

Worship and dominion are the core of the image of God. Humans stand as mediatorial rulers—kings and queens—over God’s world. To damage either worship or dominion is necessarily to damage both, and that is exactly what has happened. God’s image-bearers have rejected their obligation to trust, submit to, and worship Him. Consequently, their exercise of dominion has been severely hampered, though it has not been removed. Understanding how sin has damaged dominion will require another discussion, this one centering on the fall.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright

Ambrose (340–397); tr. Louis Benson (1855–1930)

O Splendor of God’s glory bright,
from Light eternal bringing light,
O Light of light, light’s living Spring,
true Day, all days illumining.

Come, very Sun of heaven’s love,
in lasting radiance from above,
and pour the Holy Spirit’s ray
on all we think or do today.

And now to Thee our pray’rs ascend,
O Father, glorious without end;
we plead with sov’reign grace for pow’r
to conquer in temptation’s hour.

Confirm our will to do the right,
and keep our hearts from envy’s blight;
let faith her eager fires renew,
and hate the false, and love the true.

O joyful be the passing day
with thoughts as pure as morning’s ray,
with faith like noontide shining bright,
our souls unshadowed by the night.

Dawn’s glory gilds the earth and skies,
let Him, our perfect Morn, arise,
the Word in God the Father one,
the Father imaged in the Son.

The opening verse of the Bible has profound implications for a right understanding of God. Its implications for a right understanding of the created world are just as significant. Together with the following chapters, it provides a necessary and adequate foundation upon which humans can erect their view of creation.

The course plan for Foundations of Right Thinking 101 is very simple: God made the world. The created order is His handiwork. He is the Creator. The world and all that is in it are His creatures. They owe their existence to Him. God is eternal. Creation is not. God is infinite. Creation is not. God is absolute. Creation is not. God exists in and from Himself. Creation does not.

The world had a beginning. Once upon a time it did not exist. Then it did. Had God not chosen to create it, the world would never have been. It might not have been. Its existence depended entirely upon God’s good pleasure. Its ongoing existence depends upon the sustaining activity of God. As the writer to the Hebrews states, God the Son is the person who is “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). The apostle Paul adds that in Christ, “all things consist” or hold together (Col 1:17). The existence of the created order is contingent and derived.

The world is not God. Nothing in the world—no created thing—is God. No combination of created things can ever become God. Therefore, no created thing, and no combination of created things, must ever be worshipped. Such things must never be assigned an importance that is equal to or greater than God. They must never be accorded the kind of devotion that God alone deserves. To worship any created thing is to become an idolater.

People worship created things whenever they treat those things as if they were valuable in themselves. The true value of each created thing depends upon its connection to something greater than itself. Ultimately, the value of the whole created order is contingent upon its connection to God. Creation as a whole, and each created thing in particular, is always a means to an end. Only God is the end, the goal, the telos. If we detach any created thing from its proper role in serving God, and if we begin to treat any created thing as if it were somehow an end in itself, separately from or even alongside God, then we turn that thing into an idol. We worship it.

We must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength because there is one and only one true and living God (Mark 12:28–34). Since creation is not God, we must never love any created thing with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We must love creation only insofar as we can love it in connection with and service to the God who it was made to serve.

The world is finite, time-bound, and contingent. Nevertheless, it is good. It is good because He who made it is good. It is good because the Maker, reviewing His handiwork, pronounced it good. In the narrative of Genesis 1, God declares His creation to be good no less than seven times. The last, seventh time, He declares it to be very good. Humans must never treat the created order as if it were evil. Neither should they denigrate God’s good creation as if it were unworthy of their attention and involvement. When, on the seventh day, God rested (Gen 2:2–3), He was not “resting up” as if He could be tired of creating. Rather, He was delighting Himself in the goodness of all that He had made. For humans to refuse to acknowledge and appreciate the goodness, beauty, and utility of the created world is to despise the Creator. This, too, is idolatry.

Those who make things leave their marks upon the things that they make. Similarly, God has left the impress of His person upon His poiema—the things He has made (Rom 1:19–20). Even though God Himself is spirit and invisible, His work as Creator makes certain aspects of His character obvious within the created world. These include His eternal power and His theiotēs or divine nature. This stamp of God’s character means that people do not even have to reason backward from creation to Creator; instead, they confront the personhood of the Creator by merely living and breathing in the world. For human beings, not knowing God is not possible, even if they reject that knowledge and invent alternative explanations (Rom 1:21–25).

God’s creation of the world was not meaningless, random, or arbitrary. God had a purpose in creation, and everything He made tends toward that purpose. The creation narratives repeatedly use the language of purpose. When God declared creation to be good, it had to be good for something. Specifically, the celestial lights are for seasons, days, and years. The sun and the moon are supposed to govern day and night. God gave herbs and fruit for food. God placed humans in the garden of Eden for a declared purpose.

The meaning and purpose of the world is not found in itself. It is found in the purpose of the Creator. When the created world is used according to the Creator’s purpose, His creatures will flourish. When it is used contrary to His purpose, their flourishing will be hindered. The word used is important. Creation must be used, and not merely enjoyed, because its purpose is fulfilled in right use. But it must be used rightly, and that right use is tied directly to the presence of humanity within the created order.

To understand the meaning, function, and use of creation, then, one must understand God’s creation of humanity. One must understand where God has placed humans within the created order, and one must grasp the role that God has given humans to fulfill. Consequently, having discussed God and creation, we must next turn attention to the nature, purpose, and destiny of human beings.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Praise the Lord! Ye Heavens, Adore Him

Richard Mant (1776–1848)

Praise the Lord! ye heavens, adore Him,
Praise Him, angels in the height;
Sun and moon, rejoice before Him;
Praise Him, all ye stars of light.

Praise the Lord—for He hath spoken;
Worlds His mighty voice obeyed;
Laws which never shall be broken,
For their guidance He hath made.

Praise the Lord—for He is glorious;
Never shall His promise fail;
God hath made His saints victorious,
Sin and death shall not prevail.

Praise the God of our salvation,
Hosts on high His power proclaim;
Heaven and earth, and all creation,
Laud and magnify His name.