God created
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| The Creation stained glass window at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Charleston, SC. Franz Mayer & Co. of Munich, Germany represented by the studios of George L. Payne of Patterson, New Jersey 1966. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
There are three main verbs used to describe God’s work of creation in Genesis. These are “create” (Hebrew, bara), “make” (asah), and “form” (yatsar). The three words are similar in meaning but each with a slightly different emphasis. None of them, of course, can mean anything at all like “evolve,” or “change,” on their own accord.
All three are used in Genesis with reference to man. “And God said, Let us make man in our image. . . . So God created man in his own image. . . . And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7).
Although the subject of creation is commonly associated with Genesis, it is mentioned even more frequently by the great prophet Isaiah. The words bara and yatsar are used twice as often in Isaiah as in any other Old Testament book and are applied uniquely to works of God. All three verbs are used together in Isaiah 45:18 in order to describe, adequately, God’s purposeful work in preparing the earth for man: “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
God created, formed, made, and established the earth, that it might be the home of men and women. But what was God’s purpose for the people who would inhabit it? Our text answers this most fundamental of questions, and once again, all three key verbs are used: “I have created him . . . I have formed him, . . . I have made him . . . for my glory.”
This biblical perspective alone provides the greatest of all possible incentives to live a godly and useful life. The reason we were created is to glorify God!
