“It Was Good”
Another word that was very meaningful for me as I read Genesis 1 was the word “good”. Six times the writer says that God looked at His creation and said that it was good. And I want us to think about this today – the earth that God created is a good place.
Now, when I was at school, our English teachers used to all rant to us about how poorly we grasped the English language if we used the word ‘good’ in our stories or essays. We were always told to find another word instead of just the boring old word ‘good’!
But perhaps in this case, the word ‘good’ is the perfect word. For God to look at something and consider it good means it was truly good. And hear this: creation is good because it is a reflection of the good Creator’s character.
Creation Reflects Goodness
Remember when the rich young ruler came to Jesus and addressed him as ‘Good Teacher’, and Jesus stopped him and said “only God is good!” Think about this: the earth is good because God created it, and His goodness is in it all! Here we see Him creating light which is good because God is light. We see Him creating the land in between the seas and calling it good – perhaps a picture of Him being a good, safe place in the midst of our stormy seas? We see Him calling the fruit and vegetation good – a picture of His goodness as the one who would satisfy us and feed us spiritually. And then he calls all the animals and birds and fish good too – all of His creation is good.
Perhaps this might change the way we treat the earth, if we see all of creation as good. Perhaps we would do more to care for this earth if we were convinced that something of God is reflected in each piece of His created world.
But note, right at the end of Genesis 1, God looks over all of his creation now that human beings are created, and calls it very good. It was only when his people were placed on earth that He said this – again we see that God is not just creator of lovely things, but he is a relational God, and it was the relational creations that he made that made it all very good.
People in Creation
Now I’ve heard it said that the earth would be a wonderful place it wasn’t for all the people! But God didn’t seem to see it that way. God seemed to prefer an earth with people – even though they would sin and bring a curse in Genesis 2 – than an earth without people.
And consider how the end of the Bible is about the renewal of the earth, where God dwells again with His people.
Today, look around you. See how good the creation of God all around you is. And then look at the people around you. Yes they are flawed, faulty and frustrating. But God himself preferred a very good earth with people to love and help than a good earth without them.
