I recently reread the creation story in Genesis. Whether you believe in the literal 6 days to create the universe and everything in it or hold to a more metaphorical interpretation that embraces evolution and intelligent design doesn’t really matter in the context of appreciating the creation story. The account in Genesis provides a glimpse into the person and attributes of God.
The phrase that stands out the most to me is, “God saw that it was good.” This phrase is repeated seven times in Genesis chapter 1. Many other tales of creation ascribe to a yin-yang version — that there were good things and evil things created at the same time to balance them. Still others suggest that everything was neutral and that in creation itself there is neither good nor evil. The Hebrew/Christian version of the story is the only one that says that all things in their original created form were good.
This tells us that God is good. As followers of Christ, this may seem like an obvious statement, but in light of understanding who God is, this point is crucial. God is good, and everything he created must be good, not because it has some function or use, but simply because he made it.
“God’s pronouncement transcends the mere usefulness to us of creation because the evaluation of creation’s goodness came before anyone could use it … The universe was made by God, it conformed to His nature, reflected His image and therefore was pronounced ‘good’ … Our God is infinitely, perfectly, immutably, essentially, primarily, and necessarily good.” [Ned Bustard, It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God]
When sin entered the world, the good things that God created were frustrated and bound to decay and suffering. The Bible tells us that even creation “waits in eager anticipation” to be “liberated” and “brought into the glorious freedom” of God’s redemption (Romans 8:18-23). This, however, does not negate that fact that everything God created is good, and that the evil that entered the world just perverts God’s goodness.
“…evil is not a real thing at all, like God. It is simply good spoiled. That is why I saw there can be good without evil, but no evil without good … Evil is a parasite. It is there only because good is there for it to spoil and confuse. [C.S. Lewis, The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves]
The beginning of the world, the beginning of creation, came out of God’s eternal goodness, and while the sin and evil that entered the world seek to confuse and spoil that goodness, I believe that goodness is what God desires for his creation, and therefore, for us, too. If we truly pursue him, even as he pursues us, perhaps we will begin to see some of his goodness return to his creation.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” ~ Romans 8:18-23
