God the Recreator

There's one more truth about God as Creator that I want us to look at. He is not only the Creator, but God is also the New Creator, the Redeemer.

The theologian Michael Bird explains it like this:

"A transformed people share in a transformed cosmos. Indeed, creation groans and awaits the final revelation of the children of God because it stands next in line to experience liberation from corruption in advent of the new creation.

The glorious freedom of the children of God entails the redemption of their earthly bodies and thereafter the redemption of the cosmic bodies as well. We must emphasize that this new creation cannot be viewed in isolation; it is bound up with a constellation of other prophetic hopes, such as the expectation of a new Davidic king, a new covenant, and an outpouring of God's Spirit as instruments of renewal.

In all cases, God makes his people new from the inside out, and a world dies and is born anew around them."

Bird also says this: "Christ becomes the Creator of the new order only because he was already the Creator of the original order."

And: "Similarly, the Spirit that moved over the primeval chaos in the old creation now moves in the hearts of men and women in the new creation."

God created everything good.

Clearly, it is not all good right now. Whenever you engage in this lesson, I am unfortunately confident the headline news of the day is reporting on great suffering and unspeakable evil.

The good news is that the Creator is not okay with this. He is not going to allow this to continue forever. He has already begun to renew Creation, which is emphatically demonstrated by the Resurrection of Jesus.

And now, you and I are part of God's new Creation. We pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." One day, earth will once again be perfected, as it comes under the complete rule of God, just as it is in heaven.