Creation Ordinances

 

“There is nothing new under the sun,” declared the Qoheleth, King Solomon, more than three millennia ago (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Indeed, even the most pressing hot button issues in our culture today are anything but unprecedented or new. So, for instance, the fractious debates over gender, race, and sexuality, diversity, inclusion, and equity, are merely the aberrant manifestations of a much greater and deeper issue: cosmology.When the Apostle Paul describes the Gospel, he begins at the very beginning: “These things are evident to all men since the creation of the world.” Indeed, he asserts, “Christ is before all things and in Him all things hold together.”

It should not surprise us then that when as Christians we profess our faith, we too have historically begun at the beginning: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”

Of course, the Gospel of John begins at the beginning, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And then, there is the opening declaration of the Old Testament, “Bereshith bara Elohim hamaim hashamayim: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The Genesis account of creation details with stunning clarity God’s purposes and intentions for His world. In the first two chapters prior to the calamity of the fall of man, God’s perfect design is described in a series of mandates or ordinances. The promise of the Gospel is that Christ is restoring every broken thing, that He is making all things new, that He is ushering in a new creation. Thus, the great redemptive work is the restoration of those original ordinances. Genesis does not merely describe the past estate of a now fallen old creation, but also the future estate of a redeemed, restored new creation. The ordinances therefore point us to the cosmic aim, the goal for which “all creation groans and waits” in anticipation.

In the midst of cultural chaos and disintegration, it behooves us to study these creation ordinances. Indeed, to approach the issues of gender, race, and sexuality from any other context reduces magisterial questions to little more than a spitting match of subjective prejudices and preferences. Thus, Ranald Macaulay has charged that, “Failure properly to relate the Gospel Commission of the New Testament to the Commission of Genesis (the Creation Mandate) lies behind much of Evangelicalism’s current weaknesses and internal conflicts.”

The first creation ordinance is the preeminence of the pre-existent, sovereign God: In the beginning God” (1:1). The second creation ordinance is ex nihilo creation: He made all things out of nothing (1:1). The third creation ordinance is the creator/creation, the creator/creature distinction: the Spirit hovered over the formless void (1:2). The fourth creation ordinance is pro-existence: having made all things He declared them “good” and even “very good” (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).

The fifth creation ordinance is orderly distinction: He made all things “according to their kinds” (1:12, 24-27). The sixth creation ordinance is ordered time: He made the day and night, the days, months, and years, as well as all the celestial bodies that measure out those times and seasons (1:17-19). The seventh creation ordinance is the sacred teeming of creation, swarming across the earth (1:20-21). The eighth creation ordinance is the blessed multiplying fruitfulness of all living things (1:22). The ninth creation ordinance is the imago dei: man made in the image and likeness of God. The tenth creation ordinance is the binary, cisgender nature of man: male and female He made them (1:27).

The eleventh creation ordinance is the call for the man and woman to fill the up earth with their progeny, with their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren (1:28). The twelfth creation ordinance is the responsibility of family stewardship: they are to subdue the earth (1:28). The thirteenth creation ordinance is the cultural mandate to exercise the servant leadership of dominion (1:28). The fourteenth creation ordinance is the bounty of culinary delights: food to eat (1:29). The fifteenth creation ordinance is sabbath rest: He blessed the seventh day and made it holy (2:3-4) 

The sixteenth creation ordinance is linear history: the generations of the heavens and the earth mark out the trajectory of history (2:4). The seventeenth creation ordinance is creative calling: the man and woman were to work and keep the garden (2:15). The eighteenth creation ordinance is co-regency: naming and ordering the creatures (2:19). The nineteenth creation ordinance is the sacred bond of marriage: man and woman able to declare, “You are bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (2:23). Finally, the twentieth creation ordinance is the cornerstone of the family: the man and woman are to leave and cleave (1:24).

Understanding these twenty ordinances is the first step forward in repudiating the age-old heresies of salvation by legislation, salvation by medication, and salvation by education. Understanding these twenty ordinances enables us to see the battle lines: men and nations are in rebellion against each of these ordinances. Define the ordinances and you’ve defined the assault on our civilization.

Thus, at the nexus of the current cultural crisis, it is vital that we look beyond this moment to those enduring, eternal truths which afford us with providential perspective and prophetic perspicuity.

The ordinances remind us of God’s original, perfect design and they point us forward to the restoration of every broken thing. They afford us a glorious agenda for both resistance and reformation.