SPOKEN HIGHLY OF
God created all things to be very good. While sin has entered the world and kept things from being the way they should be, as believers we can trust that he will make all things very good once again. The God who created all good things through his Word is the God who is recreating things to be even better through his Word.
As we read the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, two truths are emphasized. First, God creates through the power of his Word. Through the power of his Word alone, he brings all things into existence and then begins to order things suitably for life, to make a universe that resounds his glory, and where those made in his image would respond to his Word with their own words of worship. Second, everything God created was good. The light was good, the waters and sky were good, the land was good, the plants were good, the sun, moon, and stars were good, the fish and the birds were good, and the animals were good. Add in human beings and it was all very good.
We know that we live in a Genesis 3 world, not a Genesis 1 world though. God has not forgotten or abandoned his good purposes for his creation or us. When our first parents sinned, God came to them not just with a word of judgment, but a word of promise, that one day a descendant of the woman would stomp the serpent’s head and put an end to sin (Gen 3:15). When the people of earth turned away from God, he came with a word for Noah, promising to bring grace and deliverance through an ark to deliver his people (Gen 6:13–21). God came with a word of promise for Abram, that one day his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand in the sea, and that all nations of the world would be blessed through him (Gen 12:1–3). God brought his Word to his people in the Law and the Ten Commandments, he brought his Word through the prophets, and when the time was right, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The descendant of the woman came as the living Word of God here to save us (John 1:1–3).
When Jesus tells us to repent because the kingdom of God is at hand, when he tells us to follow him, to come and see him, it’s because life is found in him. In him, everything, ourselves included, will once again not only be good, but very good. Not as it was in the beginning but better. God created us to be his people and he created this world to be his good kingdom, and God is still at work to bring about his purposes in us and through us.
