Posts Tagged creation

Q. Who created heaven and earth?
A. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The following verses have been cited as contradictory regarding the Creator of the universe:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

“Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, I, the LORD am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone,” (Isaiah 44:24)

“There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” (John 1:6-10) [NOTE: If you are confused by the English translation, notice that if you continue reading through to verse 15, “He” and “Him” in the last sentence clearly refer to Jesus Christ, not John the Baptist.]

“Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)

Any contradiction seen there clearly results from a misunderstanding about the Biblical concept of the Trinity. Yahweh, Yeshua and the Holy Spirit form the Triune God. In the docu-comedy film Religulous, a Jesus reenactor at the Holy Land Experience impressed Bill Maher by offering the different properties of water (ice, liquid and vapor) as an analogy for the three different dimensions of God. Now, picture water being supernaturally in its three different stages at once. The analogy is imperfect, but certainly helps convey the mysterious concept of the Trinity.

Q. According to Genesis, were humans created before the animals?
A. No.

The passages in question proceed as follows:

“God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” (NASB)
– Genesis 1:25-27

“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him.’
Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.” (NASB)
– Genesis 2:18-20

It requires a great stretch in basic reading comprehension to visualize a contradiction between these passages. The first chapter of Genesis gives a chronological record of the creation of the universe. The second chapter sums up the record within the first few verses, and then repeats the story in more detail (beginning at Genesis 2:4).

The 18th verse illuminates the reason and significance behind the creation of the woman. In the rhythm of a narrative, the fact about animals being created is recalled in order to emphasize the distinction between humans and animals.