(WCF 4) Creation: “Man”-ifesting God’s Glory - James Hakim

 

As I sit down to write this article, I’m in the midst of preparing to preach Romans 8:19–22 in our congregation’s midweek prayer meeting. It’s an amazing passage that reminds us of what creation was originally supposed to display about God, and about His image-bearers. But it also reminds us that the fallen creation is subjected not to death-pangs but birth-pangs, as it labors and groans forward to the resurrection of God’s children for a new heavens and new earth.

 

The fourth chapter of our Confession is just two little paragraphs that capture this reality about the creation: it manifests God’s glory (4.1) with His image-bearers as the special manifestation of that glory (4.2).

 

Manifesting God’s Glory

 

“It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”

Just as God decreed because it pleased Him, and elected because it pleased Him, so also now He created because it pleased Him. He is God. He is under obligation to none but Himself. And this, too—the adoration, fellowship, and pleasure within the Godhead—is captured in this phrase. For this was a triune pleasure to engage in a triune work. 

 

“for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness,”

The previous clause implies what this clause plainly states: God is ultimate. Creation is not about the creature; it is about the Creator. His power, wisdom, and goodness are essential to Him—necessary characteristics of His essence. Creating does not add these to Him; it is a display that He is like this in Himself. Creating is about displaying His glory.

 

“in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible,”

God being eternal, the beginning comes when He creates. There is nothing, not even time. Then He creates; He makes of nothing. He alone is uncreated, and nothing else at all is Creator. When man treats matter as if it is so ancient that being or existence are of its essence, sinners are attributing Creator-glory to the creature. But when the Scriptures repeatedly emphasize that at this beginning Jesus was there, creating, they are declaring that He Himself is the Creator, the living God (cf. Jn 1:1–3; Col 1:15–17; Heb 1:1–2). 

 

“in the space of six days; and all very good.”

Here is an important connection between God and man. God is outside of time and infinite in power. He can create in an instant. Yet, He chooses to do so in the space of six days. Why? Because when God gives man his own work to do, God is honoring man with working according to the rhythm that God Himself followed in the creation. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of YHWH your God” (Ex 20:9–10a). “For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Ex 20:11). Just as the Sabbath was made for man (cf. Mk 2:27), so also was the six day work week. And God’s making all things “very good” helps us understand an important aspect of man’s being made in His image. Man was not just well-made; he was also made a good creature.

 

Especially by His Image-Bearers

 

“After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image”

Men and women are equally in God’s image. This is plain enough in Genesis 1:27 and even more strongly emphasized in Genesis 2:20–23. As creatures made for the knowledge of God and to be able to reflect upon themselves, man possesses a reasonable soul and was endued with knowledge. Therefore, man is a moral being, and when his creation is complete and God’s assessment is that all that He has made is “very good,” this includes the declaration that man is morally good (cf. Eccl 7:29). Man’s soul is eternal, meaning that he must have care for much more than the body that is perishing in this world that is perishing (cf. Matt 10:28). 

 

“having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change.”

This line is a wonder of theology. Man was made good, but God is not the author of sin. How did it come to be, then, that man sinned? In man’soriginally created state, man’s will was free to the extent that he could change. Being subject to change is a characteristic that belongs to all but God. When holy angels and saints come into a condition of unchanging goodness, this is not because of their own constancy, but God’s.

 

“Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God,”

The law of God is written on man’s heart, just as the knowledge of God is written on man’s heart—in part because God’s law consists of the applications for man’s conduct of the implications of God’s character. It is what He requires us to be because of Who He is and what He is like. The positive command about the fruit of the tree is something we will come to in chapter seven. It is enough for us here to note that God gave a command for the fostering of man’s fellowship with Him. Just as it belongs to God to command and to man to obey, so the command brought man into a fellowship that was continued by man’s obedience.

 

“and had dominion over the creatures.”

Man’s dominion over the creatures proceeded from his relationship with the Lord Who gave him that dominion. It is not enough to say that man’s relationship to God was primary and his relationship to the other creatures secondary. Rather, how man conducts himself in the creation is to display him as being made in God’s image. And this is a duty that man fulfills in knowledge and love to the Creator Who charged him with it. 

 

How very different is this view of creation in general, and of man in particular, from the prevailing view of the society (and even many of the churches) in our day! It is an unique blessing of being ARPs, who confess this view, that we would be spared from the blasphemy, harm, and vanity that comes by other views of creation.