It Was Good

When I read about the creation in Genesis 1, I imagine everything forming as if an artist was making a painting in front of me.

First he draws the earth amidst the heavens with contrasting lights and shadows. Then he fills in the large land masses and defines the waters with brilliant blue. Then with lots of green, red, blue, and yellow, he paints a brilliant array of vegetation. Now sprinkle in some stars around a full luminescent moon against the dark part of the sky. And show a beautiful sun on the other side of the world radiating warm light.

Next he takes a smaller brush for fine detail and makes some fish in the water, birds in the sky, and animals on the land (I especially like the bald eagle and the black panther).

Finally, he adds the image of the man and woman--perfect versions of the human form.

Viola!

He stands back to admire his work. "It is good," he declares.

These are not lab notes scrawled by a student in biology class. I get a little sick that we try to hammer out a science curriculum from this poetic message.

The creation poem is a powerful statement about the sovereignty of God. It makes the bold claim that instead of many pagan gods, there is only one God who made everything.

And it was very good.