INTRODUCING GOD: GOD THE CREATOR
WHAT IS THEOLOGY AND WHY IT MATTERS
Theology is an admittedly difficulty. It is such a large and deep topic that has been literally studied by professionals, faithful unprofessional, believers, and non-believers for literally centuries that it can seem intimidating.
Should you start with the Bible because that is the source material and it makes sense to establish reliability for your source material before discussion? Do you start with Jesus because, "In the beginning was the word"? Do you start with General Revelation because it came before the special revelation we have through scripture? We are starting with God: Theology proper. From Theos, Greek for God, and the suffix -ology, for studying you get the study of God. We are starting here because our statement of Doctrine starts here and what we want to do is sharpen our understanding so that it makes a difference for us a leaders in the Church.So why study God? Why does theology matter? Is it just for academics or what difference will this make in my local church for me as a leader?
- A solid understanding of God is important for understanding the rest of our worldview. Big ideas such as salvation, Christian living, and holiness all the way down to how you view yourself and others around you hinge on your view of your beliefs about God.
- We also believe that one of, if not the, most important thing we do as Church and ministry leaders is clarify doctrine and protect against heresy. Now heresy conjures up images of that most unexpected Spanish Inquisition or seeing if accused witches in Salam Massachusetts sink or float but teaching and correcting understating about who God is and what he has done changes life for the better. We don’t talk about it much in those terms but a warped, or heretical, mental picture of God has done a lot of real, practical evil in this world. Properly understanding your God and your relationship to him provides the foundation for everything else we believe.
First, we must understand that what we do in studying God and doctrine is Biblical. While there are many great theologians and all readings of scripture are dependent of interpretation to some degree, our study of God finds its basis, justification, and final authority as based in the Bible.
Second, it is important to mention that our approach is systematic. It builds a system of beliefs and understanding by surveying the whole of scripture.
Third, Theology in general and especially here as church leaders is very practical. As I already said, correct doctrine is essential to your and the people you shepherd relationship with God. How many people have led broken, unfulfilled lives because they believed lies about who God is and what he has done? It is not that understanding and putting your beliefs into a system will save you but it can help you wrap your mind and heart around truth so that you might have the courage and firm foundation to share it in word and deed.
The bottom line is that it Matters.
WHERE DO WE START?
So as I have already mentioned, it is difficult to find a place to start. So what we are going to do is loosely follow the pieces of our statement of faith for how we are going to talk about God while filling in and expanding on some of pieces that are a little big to fit into our statement of faith.
I'm not going to lie. The 'who' of God is a big topic but God is not unknowable because he has chosen to make himself know through numerous ways that we will eventually discuss. The academics call this the incomprehensibility of God. He is infinite so you can't know everything about him but the fact that he has revealed himself should be comforting and encouraging. The two big categories that this falls into is being able to know God through what he has done and his personality.
Outline: With that in mind, we are going to be diving into God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sustainer, The God who loves (personality) and moving to more distinctive pieces of God as Father, Son, and Spirt; if we have the time.
GOD THE CREATOR
God the Creator: God as creator is fundamental to understanding who he is and who we are. Just about every single piece of Theology and decision making thing that we do as leaders in the Church has and always will, hop back to God's character and intention during Creation. Let's read Genesis 1-2.
Talking about Theology and Creation gives us a number of important elements that are distinctive to what we believe and who God is.
- God Created Ex Nihilo (Latin - Out of Nothing)
- The fact that God created all that he did out of nothing seems elementary but is very important. The Old and New Testaments both stress that God created multiple times. Many different authors include references to creation ideas about God existing before anything else
- In Paul's Letter in Ephesians 1:4; 2 Thess 2:13, Romans 1:20; 4:17
- In other sources like Hebrews 4:3; 9:26; 11:3, 1 John 1:1, Revelation 3:14
- These repeated expressions testify that God was preexistent. Here before creation. This helps us see the power of God in that he simply has to will situations to be and they immediately come into existence and proceed has he has created. We also see that Creation is an act that originates in God from who he is and is not driven by any other force or being outside of himself. That is a stark rebuke of the heretical ideas or popular images that a created being like the adversary or devil is in some way an equal or competitor with God.
- The fact that God created all that he did out of nothing seems elementary but is very important. The Old and New Testaments both stress that God created multiple times. Many different authors include references to creation ideas about God existing before anything else
- There is not a single thing in creation that was not made by God
- And we will mention it here, without getting ahead of ourselves, that we see in John 1:1-5, "He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make". While this is about Jesus, the Son, he is God and we will explore that more when we talk about the Trinity, but there is a trinitarian aspect to creation as well.
- Most importantly: Creation of The Heavens, Earth, and Humanity was all for God's Glory
- God did not have to create. He choose to out of love and did so that it would glorify him and spread his image. The imago dei or image of God will be something that we can explore more during a discussion about humanity, sin, or salvation but it is absolutely crucial to what we do as believers and leaders to understand that our creation intent was to give God Glory.
MAJOR CONCLUSIONS:
Understanding God the creator gives us a few big implications for our understanding of who he is, who we are, and by extension how that mental framework practically influences us as leaders
- That Everything that is not God has derived its existence from him. There is no ultimate reality outside of God our creator. There is no room for competing worldview beliefs such as those about dualism. (like yin and yang)
- That nothing was made intrinsically evil. While the problem with Evil is it's own separate topic I'd be glad to discuss, we know definitively that in creation, everything that came from God was good. He says it five times (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25). And then when he made man it was Very Good. So toss out any competing ideas that that the body and spirit are separate and the body is bad (that’s asceticism and it's in the background of the happenings of the New Testament).
- Following number two, that we have a responsibility being a part of creation. We cannot justify evil behavior on how we were created. Sin is not an excuse for freedom. Nor can we blame society or human relationships in how they were originally created because they were part of what God made Good.
- Everything and everyone has value. God brought everyone into this world and gave it all a place. While the fall has left its mark, we can say without a doubt that God loves all of creation, not just certain parts of it. Not just the people, the environment, and everything else. There is a lot more rabbit trails that I personally get excited about to run down as this connects to God's creation mandate given to his first created people but we can save that for the doctrine of humanity.
- That if our God is a creative God he is still active and working throughout history and today. We are not told God ever stopped being a creative God. (Colossians 1:17) We are told he rested, but never that he stopped being active. God's plan and design is always under his watchful eye from the beginning, through what it took to get Jesus here and onward. Even today. That gives me great comfort in a world and life that looks like a random garbage dump of chaos at times.
In conclusion: God created everything. It was created to glorify him. That never changes. God's glory should be our number one concern as leaders.