The Good Creation
Jorge A. Muñoz
The story of creation in Genesis has an intriguing assertion:
“God saw that it was good.” However, man mistrusts his Creator
and, in his disobedience, decides to follow his own definitions
of good. As a result, sin enters the world, and for generations,
this pattern continues. But ultimately, God reestablishes what is
truly good through Jesus’s incarnation, death, and resurrection.
To live in a good creation
means
that
God’s
power is effective in our
lives and in the world.
Water Towers, Julie Joo '19
From the beginning, the Bible gives examples of God having
the power to decree what is good. In Genesis, the scripture
writer declares that “God saw that the light was good." Indeed,
each day of God’s creation ends with the phrase “God saw that
it was good,” concluding on the sixth day with the statement
that “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very
good.” Moreover, in Genesis 2 (NIV), it is written, “The Lord
God said: It is not good for the man to be alone,” which depicts
a God who desires and creates good for man’s benefit. Particu-
larly, the Genesis narrative reveals the internal dialogue of God
in the process of creation. When God "sees" that creation is
good, He simultaneously declares His judgment of it.
However, this good of which scripture speaks seems to be be-
yond the comprehension of man. Eventually man, in the form
of Adam and Eve, finds reason to mistrust in the will of God,
and in his disobedience, believes that “the tree was good for
food and pleasing to the eyes and desirable for gaining wisdom."
Here, the word “good” is used again, but through the eyes of
man, rather than God. Therefore, man, in his disregard of
God’s explicit order to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, seems to fundamentally challenge God’s defini-
tion of what is good. After this decision, death was allowed into
creation. But sin could not change what God declared from the
beginning. After the sin of man, the good that God desired for
creation was alluded to as a promise—the promise to restore the
supreme good to humanity and creation.
Three Towers, Julie Joo '19
13