The Triune God & Creation

Unexplored Dimensions of Our Christian Worldview

Of him, through him, and to him are all things — Romans 11:36

I.  What was God doing before he created the world?

    A.  WCF 2.2  God has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.

    B.   God’s ontological/relational independence

        1.  God neither depends upon, nor needs any other (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 5:9; Acts 17:24, 25; Col. 1:16; Rev. 4:11). God has/d no need for creation.  God desired to created, he didn't need to.

        2.  As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 1 John 4:8, 16) God experiences the fulness of personal relationship apart from creation.  Out of that fulness of relational happiness the Father, Son, ad Holy Spirit created the world and humanity.

Job's Lament - Part II

Continued from Part I

Let the day perish on which I was born,

and the night that said,

"A man is conceived."

Let that day be darkness!

May God above not seek it,

nor light shine upon it.

This is the beginning of Job's lament in which he curses the day of his birth (Job 3:1-26).  What are we to make of this?  Does Job's poem reveal sinful thoughts?  Is Job's faith wavering?  Has he gone too far?  There are many commentators who believe that this poem uncovers a sinful attitude of ingratitude and anxiety on Job's part.  Matthew Henry says,

"The extremity of his trouble and discomposure of his spirit may excuse it in part, but he can by no means be justified in it. . . . to curse the day of our birth because then we entered upon the calamitous scene of life is to quarrel with the God of nature, to despise the dignity of our being, and to indulge a passion which our own calm and sober thoughts will make us ashamed of.  Certainly there is no condition of life a man can be in this world but he may in it (if it be not his own fault) so honour God, and work out his own salvation, and make sure a happiness for himself in a better world, that he will have no reason at all to wish he had never been born, but a great deal of reason to say that he had his being to good purpose. . . There can be no reason for so vain and ungrateful a wish.  It was Job’s folly and weakness to curse his [birth] day”