Our Father who Art in Heaven
Scriptures of God as the Creator
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Psalm 24: 1-2 “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”
Isaiah 45:12 “It is I who made earth and created mankind upon it.”
Psalm 33:6 “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”
Acts 17:28 “For in him we live and move and have our being.”
James 1:18 “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.”
Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Ephesians 2: 10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”
Revelations 4:11 “For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Parker, 1993; Dowey, 1994 and Christian Counseling, 2010)
Scriptures on God as the Redeemer
Deuteronomy 7: 8 “But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
Deuteronomy 9: 26 “And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”
Nehemiah 1: 10 “They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.”
Psalm 111: 9 “He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name!”
Luke 21: 28 “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Kurz & Carpenter, 2012; Morisson, 2011; MacArthur, 2012)
Passages on God as the Creator
Genesis: 1. The creation story: This passage gives an account of God creating the world in 6 days. The start of the passage explains how the earth was formless and desolate with God’s Spirit moving around. Other than man who God created ‘manually’ or by hand, everything else was created through God commanding things into existence. This includes statements such as “Let there be light” “…Let there be a void that separates the waters in the heavens and the waters on earth…” “…Let there be creatures…” In the instance of man however, God consults with a spirit believed to be Jesus when he says, “Let us make man in our own image” then proceeds to mould man out of the soil and breathe life into his nostrils.
Job 37 -38: This is the story of Job’s sufferings and in this particular scripture he is crying out to God whom he acknowledges as his creator. God is speaking to Job and using the cataclysmic event of creation to allude to his own coming to this world. He is also asking Job if he knows the being that controls all elements such as the dimensions of the earth or the position of the clouds in the sky. God asks several rhetorical questions by asking about different elements of creation.
Acts 17: 1-26: The apostles who were preaching faced great prosecution and therefore decided to send Paul to Athens. While he was there, he came across a large number of idols that the Athenians were worshipping, a fact that greatly distressed him. He takes the opportunity to address them publicly. He starts by acknowledging the fact that these people have a penchant for religious activity. The gap in their worship however is the fact that they were not worshiping the living God. Paul tells them about God, lazing emphasis on the fact that He created the whole world, the heavens and is the source of for men.
1 Corinthians 12: 1-20 Paul had received word that there were some divisions in the Church arising from the fact that some gifts were being considered superior to others. He used the allusion of the human body to demonstrate God’s intentions at creation which were that the different parts of the body to coordinate. This was to make them understand that despite their differences, they still needed each other in equal measure (Parker, 1993; Dowey, 1994 and Christian Counseling, 2010).
Passages with God as the Redeemer
Exodus 3: 8-10 God promises to redeem the children of Israel from Egypt where they are being kept as slaves and suffering. This comes out in the instructions he is giving Moses while at the burning bush. God acknowledges that he has seen the suffering they are undergoing and now wants them to be released by the Pharaoh so that they can go to a land ‘Flowing with milk and honey.’ This new destination is tantamount to a paradise for someone who has lived a life of bondage in a foreign land. This again shows redemption because they are being taken from slavery (restriction) to paradise (unlimited freedom).
Jeremiah 50: 33-35 The context of this passage is the period when the Israelites and the people of Judah were living under oppression due to the fact that the Babylonians were holding them captive. God promises them rest and their captors will have a peril invade their land thus redeeming them.
Luke 21: 3-28 Jesus is delivering a prophecy to the disciples and talking about the end times. He narrates how nations will go to war, widespread sufferings will engulf the world and also the world will be persecuting believers actively and in a widespread fashion. He gives examples of ways in which his followers will be betrayed by close kin and also obliged to face authorities. He concludes this prophecy by telling the believers that when these are signs that God’s redemption will save them from the suffering and anguish thus keeping their hope alive.
Ephesians 2:1 -22 In the passage, Paul the apostle is preaching to the Ephesians about salvation and its implications on one’s status. He likens a person’s conversion into Christianity to the act of a Gentile being circumcised and consequently gaining full acceptance into a Jewish community. He also tells them that by accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ, God will grant them eternal solace from bondage of sin. In this new Kingdom of God, believers are saved by God’s grace rather than through adherence to the commandments. God comes out as the redeemer in this scripture because in verses 12-13, the people are reminded of how hard their life was before and this emphasizes the fact that they are in a better place now (Kurz & Carpenter, 2012; Morisson, 2011; MacArthur, 2012).
Relation of God’s work as the redeemer and as the creator
The first thing that comes out from the two passages is the fact that God’s work as creator and as redeemer work for the good of all mankind. This is because in the creation story in Genesis, he physically creates man in his own image rather than command him into existence and this means that man is special in God’s eyes. For this reason, God is always attentive to the plight of His people and this is seen in the different passages where it is acknowledged that God is aware of people’s suffering. The work of God as a redeemer begins from the very start of creation because prior to Him creating the world as we know it, it was ‘formless and desolate.’ This means that the two roles are intertwined. Both creation and redemption are manifestations of God’s power above everything else. He repeatedly promises to get people out of trouble when they have completely lost all hope and this is meant to remind them that they served a powerful God who created them and everything around them. The acts of creation and redemption are meant to strengthen the faith of believers in God. This is seen when Paul used an allegory of creation to show God’s desire for unity in the Church and also in Ephesians when preaches that God saves through his grace rather than human acts.
References
Christian Counseling 2010 . Scriptures on God the Creator. Retrieved from http://www.counseling4christians.com/Scriptures/GodCreator.html on May 7, 2013
Dowey, E. A. 1994. The knowledge of God in Calvin’s theology. Eerdmans.
Kurz, W., & Carpenter, A. 2012. Biblical Reflections on Co-Creating with the Redeemer.
MacArthur, J. 2012. Twelve Unlikely Heroes: How God Commissioned Unexpected People in the Bible and what He Wants to Do with You. Thomas Nelson Inc.
Morrison, C. E. 2011. When God Intervenes in History: The Grammar of in Targum Neofiti and Its Theological Import. Aramaic Studies, 92, 291-308.
Packer, J. I. 1993. Concise theology. Wheaton, Illiois: Tyndale House Publishers, 138, 5.
