Created, Formed, Made, and Established

“For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:18)

First God creates, then He forms His creation. The entity (the creation) first has to be, it has to exist before God can form it into what it is that we know. It sounds odd and confusing. But take for example the creation of heaven and earth from the first chapter of Genesis.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

God is the first cause, the first mover. He is the originator, the starting point of all things. Tracing heaven and earth backwards to their creation and foundation, you can go no further back than God. There is nothing before God. God is the sole reason and cause for their existence.

It is important to understand when it comes to creation, God did not take something that was, that already existed and caused it to become something else. He did not take from something to formulate a new thing. He didn’t combine or mix existing materials to create a new and different thing. God creates out of nothing. What once was not, now is. God caused the heaven and earth to exist out of nothingness. This is very significant to understand; God needs no pre-existing matter, material, or substance to create a new thing from nothing.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3) 

God, "calleth those things which be not as though they were" (Romans 4:17)

God “created” in that He caused (the act of) existence (being).

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3)

But we must take a step backwards from the point of existence. God must first have knowledge of a creation before He can create it. It is impossible to create something without knowledge of it. We must think metaphysically (beyond the physical) to understand the picture complete.

Not only must God have knowledge of that creation to be able to create it, He must also have the will to do, and the capacity to act upon that will. All of this (and more) show that life, the universe and everything is not a random act, for that would be, as we have shown, simply impossible. What this does prove is intelligent design. There is a supreme being who can premeditatedly bring things into existence at will.

Anything created was created because God wanted it to exist. Anything created was created in accordance to how God wanted it to be. God, “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” (Ephesians 1:11b). Stress the word, “all” in that last sentence.

“Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.” (Psalm 135:5-6)

Thomas Aquinas addresses these facts in his books Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG).

“Now, that the order of the universe be by chance is impossible, since it would follow that the consequences of the order would all the more be by chance.” (Aquinas/SCG 1.78.5)

“From what has been said it follows that God acts, in the realm of created things, not by necessity of His nature, but by the free choice of His will…. But God is intelligent by His essence….Therefore, He acts by His intellect. But the intellect does not produce an effect except by means of the will, whose object is a good apprehended by the intellect and which moves the agent as an end. God, therefore, acts by His will, not of natural necessity.(SCG 2.23.1&4)

“That God acts for an end can also be evident from the fact that the universe is not the result of chance, but is ordered to a good, as Aristotle makes clear in Metaphysics XI [10]. Now, the first agent acting for an end must act by intellect and will, for things devoid of intellect act for an end as directed thereto by another…..the right ordering of a thing to a due end requires knowledge of that end and of the means to it, and of the due proportion between both; and this knowledge is found only in an agent endowed with intelligence. But God is the first agent; therefore, He acts, not by a necessity of His nature, but by His intellect and will.” (SCG 2.23.6)

We’ve talked about before and after God brought heaven and earth into existence. Let’s look at exactly what it was that He created, for it definitely was not the Garden of Eden to start with.

It is difficult to really grasp just what that creation, that existence was, for they were, “without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep”

A more literal translation would be, “without form, in a confused state, a void, and obscurity was upon the empty abyss.” That sounds like a whole lot of nothing, doesn’t it? And whatever that nothing was doesn’t seem too bright, beautiful or cheerful does it?

“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Water is often a representation or a sign of danger and turmoil. Water can mean something of, “danger, violence, and of transitory things”. (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon)

The “waters” were a dangerous transitory thing. But notice that nothing positive occurred with this entity called heaven and earth that God created until “the Spirit of God moved”. (Remember, God is the first cause and first mover)

“Moved” from the verse in Genesis, means to flutter or shake. It was God’s Spirit in motion that causes this formless, shapeless entity to transition into what we know and recognize today.

God created, He brought into existence the “parts and pieces” so to speak, and then formed them into His desire.

“God seems at first to have created the elementary principles of all things; and this formed the grand mass of matter, which in this state must be without arrangement, or any distinction of parts: a vast collection of indescribably confused materials, of nameless entities strangely mixed….. When this congeries of elementary principles was brought together, God was pleased to spend six days in assimilating, assorting, and arranging the materials, out of which he built up, not only the earth, but the whole of the solar system.” (Adam Clarke)

On the seventh day God “ended” His work and He “rested”. I bring this up from Genesis 2:2 simply to point out that folks are usually left with the impression that God stopped and took a break after creating heaven and earth. It is believed by many that the rest was to recover from His work. After-all, who could blame Him, right? I would imagine that creating everything in a week would be a bit strenuous.

But when the Bible says He ended His work, it means He accomplished His task and purpose. Capacity and potential had been exercised and achieved. And when He “rested”, it wasn’t a recoup and recovery period. This is a reference to ceasing activity and being still.

OK, we’ve just taken a massive detour from the verse Isaiah 45:18. Let’s bring it back on in.

We have pretty much covered the first three of the “Created, Formed, Made, and Established and we threw in premeditation on God’s part including knowledge, will, and capacity. This leaves us to talk about, “Established”.

God not only creates life, He sustains, maintains, and upholds or “establishes” it as well.

“The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.” (Psalm 16:5)

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” (Isaiah 41:10)

Through His Son Jesus Christ, God upholds, “all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3)

Not only does God have an active participation in supporting our lives, but His participation carries over into all things created as well.

“By him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17B). “Consist” comes from the Hebrew, “Synistemi“. It means to bring or band together, to unite parts into one whole” (Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon).

Do you remember the song, “He’s got the whole world in His hands”? Well, God does, literally! Remove God from the picture and there is nothing, literally. All creation stops. All life stops. Everything ceases to be.

God thought about it and then desired you, me, heaven, and the earth. He then moved forward and created, formed, made, and even to this day, has an active role in, “establishing”, supporting, and maintaining His creation. With the knowledge of all this, how could anyone possibly question intelligent design? How could anyone call intelligent design a theory and then turn right around and call the big bang theory fact?

Things get real goofy when you take God out of the equation.

Bill Hitchcock