Biblical Creation Thoughts

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

The consistent echo of the whole Bible is that God is the Creator, He created all things and He did it day by day in a literal 24 hour period for six days and rested on the seventh to institute the Sabbath rest for mankind as a memorial of His creatorswork and after sin, as a memorial of His salvation from Egypt for Israel and sin for the believer since the believer enters His eternal [death] rest symbolically with Christ who died literally in 31 CE and was in the grave on Sabbath during that event on behalf of sinful mankind.

Sovereign creative power of Christ makes sun and moon darkened

The coming of the Lord at the Second Coming will be so great and awesome that the Lord will kick-off a series of cosmic and geo-events that the earth will tremble, the heavens tremble and the sun and moon darken.

If you are willing to believe Joel 2:10-11, also 30-31, that suddenly Christ will switch off the sun, moon and stars to signal His nearness of His coming, then you might as well add to the tray the Creation ex-nihilo concepts of Genesis 1 for your faith.

Ecological events are from the hand of God

Joel 2:21 points out that they should not fear but jubilate for magnified is the Lord to do and then in verse 22 Joel listed wilderness that have become covered with grass and trees produces fruit. The Latter Day Rain event of the Holy Spirit is a creative event in the Hand of God for He gave you the teacher for justification and He shall bring down [future tense] for you rain, the early rain [Holy Spirit in Acts 2] and the Latter Rain in the first instance (barishon) (Joel 2:23). The granaries that will be filled with the harvest are the evangelical success of harvesting at the end of times (verses 24ff).

Recreation of the new earth after the Hell event

Joel 3:17-18 explains to us that the Lord shall be in the Heavenly Jerusalem or heavenly Zion with His people and perfection exists already for them since no stranger shall any longer [eternal term] pass through there. At that time, with the Hell event finished, since they are the strangers to God’s perfection, God will recreate the earth “and it shall come to pass on that day that the mountains shall drip with wine and the hills shall flow with milk and all the springs of Judah shall flow with water and a spring shall emanate from the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim (Joel 3:18). Wine is not alcohol since in the Bible alcohol is looked bad upon. Milk may refer to the color as we have the expression of David’s prayer about his since “wash me white as snow” in Psalm 51. Shittim is the biblical Shittim zone since it is this earth that God is going to recreate as He originally intended it to be before sin entered it.

Creative Word of God during the Hell event

Amos 1-2 depicts the list of nations that will be affected during the Hell event in the eschaton. The Lord shall roar from heavenly Zion, and from heavenly Jerusalem shall be His voice “and the dwelling of the shepherds shall be cut off and the heads of Carmel shall wither” (Amos 1:2). The Lord lists all He is going to do: send fire (Amos 1:4), break (Amos 1:5), cut off (Amos 1:5), He will return His hand and they will be lost (Amos 1:8).

An interesting aspect of the creative power of God is in Amos 1:14a-b “And I [Lord] will kindle a fire [Hell] in the wall of Rabbah [Ammonite zone] and it shall consume its palaces”. The Lord started the fire and the fire finishes off the work. The direct agent is the fire and the indirect starter is the Lord. If Creation was this way that the Lord by Theistic Evolution just kick-started the process, it would have been described in Genesis 1 in the same creative process manner.

Creative act of God raises up prophets

Amos 2:11 God blames Israel that He “raised up some of your sons as prophets”. God raises up His agents for Him. In a sinful world and environment, this is a creative act of God.

Creative revelations of God in an uncertain Future

In this world of sin with uncertainties as to the Future, God reveals His plans to His faithful and does nothing, no creative act on this earth or the future, unless He revealed His secrets to His servants, His prophets (Amos 3:7).

Creative destruction of the wicked and creative support of the righteous simultaneously

In the Hell event God will visit (paqad) evil and it will be destroyed, cut off, fall to the earth, smitten, be lost, shall end (Amos 3:14-15). But with creative revelations He reveals His future deeds to His faithful as we have seen in Amos 3:7. As a shepherd saves a lamb from the mouth of a lion or even pieces thereof, so Israel will be saved from those enemies of the Lord (Amos 3:12).

Creative acts of God causes rain and draught

Amos 4:7 says that God withheld the rain from Israel and He caused it not to rain on another city. God even tactically select within a valley one field to be watered and another to suffer draught. However, plagues and pestilences are not from the Hand of God but from the omission of His supportive Hand. In a sinful world, the world would fall apart if it was not for the supportive grace of God keeping the evil alive. Alive not to be evil but to turn from evil. But, leaving them to their free choice He does from time to time step aside and allow Satan to run His course and cause evil and havoc like plagues. For many people this is a difficult concept to grasp. In a doublet of 2 Samuel 24:1 in 1 Chronicles 21:1 the anger of the Lord is equated as Satan stood up. They are opposites and do not work together is cooperation. God is Sovereign ruler and power and when God choose to step aside, evil automatically flows in to bring destruction. In this sense, God sent a plague. By stepping aside from His good support of a zone.

Typical Hell actions in Sodom and Gemorrah destruction was creative

Amos 4:11-13 puts the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah together with the creation of a remnant since “you were like a brand plucked from burning”. This Hell event is only reality “because look, He forms mountains and creates the breath and declares to man what his speech is, He makes dawn into darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth, the Lord God of Hosts is His name”.

Lord a creative consuming Fire to those who are His enemies

Amos 5:6 indicates that those who do not seek the Lord for them He may “break out like fire” and “it consume with none to quench it”. It is the evil people (Amos 5:7). He can do this because of His creative power: “He Who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns darkness into morning, He darkens as night, He Who calls the water of the sea and pours it on the face of the earth, Lord is His name” (Amos 5:8).

Creative act of God raises up a nation as agent for His purpose

Nations are regarded as originating by themselves in socio and political ways but Amos 6:14 indicates that sometimes such a nation is used by God as agent to accomplish His plan. “For behold I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, says the Lord God of Hosts, and they shall oppress you “.

Creative act of God formed locusts

In Amos 7:1 Amos saw God forming (yozer) locusts. The disaster in Amos is prophetic time disaster so God created it for that purpose. The locust period of Joel and the Latter Rain concepts are intertwined. Amos also knows about that. The Latter Rain of Joel 2:23 refers to a period of forgiveness of sins and it occurs before the door of mercy closes all chances of evangelism since God wants to complete this world history at that time. In Acts 2 was the early rain mentioned also in Joel 2:23 and interpreted by Peter as such, with the outpouring of the Spirit and the subsequent success in harvesting. What Amos is saying, is that the locusts were formed by God at the “beginning of the latter rain” (Amos 7:1 halaqesh). This Latter Rain will be after the Kings harvest. The King’s harvest may refer to the Early Rain event that signaled the King of Kings entering as priest and advocate on our behalf in the Heavenly Sanctuary. In essence King of Kings but functioning as priest and advocate until the Investigative Judgment by the unfallen worlds is completed and the Heavenly Sanctuary cleansed of all questions regarding sinful man’s right into heaven (Daniel 7). God formed the nations or locusts from the early rain times 31 CE until the future Latter Rain. It is the time of the Kings harvest, meaning, the harvest or evangelism of Christ’s believers. When the faithful suffers in the Time of Jacob’s trouble in worldwide persecution, Amos was shocked at this and said to the Lord in Amos 7:2 “O Lord God, Forgive now. Who shall arise Jacob, for he is small” meaning that the remnant is small during this difficult time (Daniel 12:1). The way the Lord is going to deal with this was shown to Amos and it was by Word: “and behold the Lord God calls to contend by fire” (Amos 7:4). The fire consumed the Great deep (tehom) and the field. This is also a creative act of God. In verse 7 the Lord turned Amos’ eyes back to his own time and own people’s conditions.

Endtime vision of Amos 8 has creative acts of God to punish the wicked

Corrupt economic practices by the First World Order shortly before the Time of Trouble (Amos 8:4-6) since the “pride of Jacob” is mentioned in verse 7, the Lord will unleash a series of creative acts as punishment: “I will cause the sun to set at midday and I will darken the land in a day of light” (Amos 8:9). There will be mourning and it will be bitter. The hunger for the word of God in Amos 8:11 was seen by the Middle Age Rabbi Redak as between 70-1070 + 405-39 BCE = 369 years – (70+39 = 109) = 260 =1260 years “that refers to all the days of the Second Temple and our present exile” (Redak’s commentary to Amos 8:11).  However, in our calculation this 1260 years of hunger for the Word of God was between 538-1798. Migrations will result (Amos 8:12). The extinction in Amos 8:14 ends with finality “shall fall and no longer rise”.

No escape from the creative hand of God

Even if NASA projects take people to Mars in order to escape this world or even attempt to escape the Hand of God, “if they ascend to the heavens, from there I will bring them down” (Amos 9:2). The same is said by God in Obadiah 1:4 “If you go up high like an eagle, and you place your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord”.

Creative hand of God touches the land and it quakes

Amos 9:5 says that the Lord “Who touches the land and it quakes”.

Creative hand of God is a city builder

Amos 9:6 explains that God “Who built His upper stories in Heaven and has founded His company on earth”. John 14:1-3 Jesus expounded the same theology that He is going to prepare a place for them. God built New Jerusalem and other places and there is enough homes for everyone. God is a builder in heaven.

Creative acts by speaking

Amos 9:6 says that God is the One “Who calls to the water of the sea and pours it out on the face of the earth, the Lord is his Name”. Tsunamis can be called by God to appear. That is a fact.

God create a new heaven and earth

Amos 9:13-15 explains the Utopic period when His remnant shall “no longer be uprooted” from upon the land. It is referring to the eschaton when God will bring in everlasting wellbeing to His faithful. That is why the absolute terms are used here, which is not just metaphors but reality and literal reality in the future. Never means never.

Destruction of the Wicked will not be by evolution but by a creative act instantaneously

The concept of evolution cancels the presence of God. Not even by His final dealings with sin, by destruction, does God have in mind evolution. There is a day that He will destroy: “Shall I not in that day, says the Lord, destroy” (Obadiah 1:8).

Creative fire by the Word of God

Obadiah 1:18 explains that the faithful [Jacob] and [Joseph] shall be like fire in the eschaton that will ignite the evil in their final eradication. There shall be no survivors on that day “for the Lord has spoken”. What God says will happen. Because at Creation God spoke and it was. We know it is the eschaton since in Obadiah 1:21 he explains that those who are saved shall ascend upon mount Zion, which is a reference to the New Jerusalem from Heaven, they shall judge for a millennium the house of Esau, also mentioned in verse 18, and that before the final eradication of which verse 18 is talking about. “And the Lord shall have the kingdom” (Obadiah 1:21) means that God will give the kingdom to Jesus after the Door of Mercy closes, when Jesus finishes his High Priestly function.