What’s the Difference Between True and False Faith?
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What’s the Difference Between True and False Faith?

Creation Matters {Belgic Confession, Article 12}

This article is the thirteenth installment in our series "Christian, What Do You Believe: The Belgic Confession of Faith." Find the whole series here.

The doctrine of creation is a watershed truth. Rain that falls even slightly to one side of a great divide will be channeled far away from rain that falls on the other side, forming very different bodies of water. In a similar way, belief in creation will lead to an entirely different worldview than belief in non-creation. If God made the world then it belongs to him and reveals his thoughtful design, purpose and order. If the world has no creator then everything simply is. There is no ultimate moral standard and no grand end toward which history is moving.

Scripture’s first words establish divine creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The doctrine of creation tells us where we came from and begins to explain why we are alive and how we should live.

Affirming Creation

The common view today is that the world is nothing more than a random, meaningless, ever-evolving formation of molecules. But this is an assumption. Science cannot prove that this world made itself. In fact, it takes faith to believe that the universe came into being by a cosmic accident. By a different kind of faith—trust in divine revelation—Christians in every age have understood “that the universe was created by the word of God” (Heb. 11:3).

God created everything by his spoken word, by the breath of his power. He used no pre-existing materials; there were none. “What is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:3; cf. Rom. 4:17). Everything that exists is an idea of God come to life. “For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!” (Amos 4:13). All creation bears the stamp of God’s glory (Ps. 19:1). He has given “all creatures their being, form and appearance” (BC 12).

This includes even the things we cannot see. Divine creation teaches us something that materialism cannot detect: there is a spiritual world that God governs just as he oversees the physical world. For example, God made angels to “be his messengers and serve his elect.”

In fact, all of creation should “serve man, in order that man may serve God.” Creation is for our use in bringing honor to the maker.

What makes God’s act of creation so praiseworthy is that he didn’t have to do it. God created “When it seemed good unto him.” Most of us don’t have that kind of freedom in our work. We work when we must. But God was under no compulsion to create. He might have chosen never to make anything. He did simply because it seemed good to do so. Michael Horton puts it this way: “Creation is the result of a free decision and activity of intratrinitarian love, the product of an extravagant exchange of gift giving between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”

What does this mean for us?

Applying Creation

Creation matters profoundly. Here are just three reasons why?

Creation Assures Us That Life Is Not Meaningless

With an evolutionary mindset, we are all simply matter in motion. It is left to us to create positive meaning—that’s a heavy burden. But in creation God gave “all creatures their being, form, and appearance, and their various functions for serving their Creator.” We work, in all areas of life, not simply to survive but to honor God. Creation teaches us to find joy and satisfaction in our work even as God finds joy in his. And because every created thing can be traced back to God, creation teaches us the proper way to work and steward the fruit of our labors. Humans are not the purpose of creation, but we have the great privilege of using God’s world in a way that respects his creative intent. God “still upholds and governs [all things] for the service of mankind, to the end that man may serve his God.”

Creation Leads Us to Worship Our Savior

As we witness the rampant perversion of God’s good world, we feel the magnitude of human sin. And we ought to realize that we are part—even the cause—of that pollution. Should the creator of all things care about such tiny, broken parts of the universe (Ps. 8:3)? But he does. He has visited us with a Savior, the same being who first made everything. The creating Spirit remakes us and retunes us to love and desire God’s majesty. Nature itself prompts us to say, “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power” (Ps. 147:5). “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Rev. 4:11). God interrogated Job to help him marvel at the creator’s majesty. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). The doctrine of creation stirs us to rejoice in our maker (Ps. 149:2).

Creation Reminds Us of God’s Constant Care

Our sufficient God was eternally and meaningfully existing before we came on the scene. We can rely on him because he doesn’t need us. God “sustains and governs [all creatures], according to his eternal providence and by his infinite power.”

One of the ways God cares for us is through the angels who “serve his elect.” They are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14). The creator cares for us now and teaches us to look forward to the new heavens and earth.

Creation is one of those doctrines that changes everything. It forms a connection between God’s work and ours. It provides a foundation for stewardship. It grounds human creativity, exploration, and cultivation in God’s creative work. It advises us to believe in divine providence. It can rescue us from either worshiping creation or disparaging it. It helps us appreciate our physicality even while we wrestle against our finitude. It teaches us to find our lives in God.

So in our skeptical age, let’s believe in and argue for biblical creation. But let’s not only believe and proclaim the doctrine. Let’s let our strongest argument be the thoughtfulness, diligence, and humble confidence with which we apply our faith in our creator God.


Footnotes

  • Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 329.

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William Boekestein

William Boekestein is the pastor of Immanuel Fellowship Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has written several books and numerous articles. He and his wife, Amy, have four children.