God's Blueprint for Family
I believe that Genesis 1 & 2 is less about creation and more about the Creator. This is a passage, not just about the beauty of the heavens and the earth, but about the beauty of God.
Throughout the creation narrative, God is revealed. As Psalm 19:1-2 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (see also Romans 1:19-20).
Creation reveals God’s eternal nature as he exists before the beginning. It reveals his power as he creates everything out of nothing. It reveals his authority as he speaks light into being. It reveals his presence as he is intimately involved in his creation, even naming the light, darkness, and sky. It reveals his goodness as he calls into existence, day after day, things that are divinely decreed as “good.” It reveals his provision as he provides oxygen, water, and food for every living creature he creates.
It reveals his creativity as he makes the fragrance of roses, the colors of the sunset, the crystals of the diamond, the force of an ocean wave, and the peaks of the Himalayas. It reveals his wisdom as he puts into place things like gravity, blood clotting, photosynthesis, human reproduction, thermodynamics, immune systems, solar systems, and DNA.
And it reveals his purpose as he fashions man and woman in his image for his sovereign reasons. How overwhelming to see God’s purpose for his creation of man, woman, marriage, family; for his heart for the family, his purpose, his blueprint, to be exposed before us, that we might embrace it and bring it through the front doors of our homes.
God’s design for the family is good (Genesis 1:31), and God’s design for the family is one man, one woman, one flesh (Genesis 1:22-24). Let the family not just read the creation narrative as historians or theologians, but let us also engage this all-too-familiar story as architects delighting in the original plans of the creator, that we may, by his grace, build a Gospel Family!
Jonathan Williams is the founder of Gospel Family Ministries and the Senior Pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church, a multi-ethnic church of 44 nations located in Houston, TX.
