Why are we here?
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” – Genesis 1:1
The biggest miracle in the Bible occurs in the first verse: God created the heavens and the earth. If God created everything out of nothing, including time, space, and matter, then all the other miracles of the Bible are possible.
And that’s the point of this verse: to lay the groundwork for God’s involvement in humanity.
One of the reasons the idea of a Creator is attacked/dismissed comes down to accountability. If God created us, then He has the authority to tell us what to do and to judge us accordingly. Without God, we can live our lives as we choose.
Mark E. Moore, in his book Core 52, states that to understand why we are here, we need to understand the answer to three questions.
Who created this world?
Moore points out that the Bible teaches that God is three in one—Father, Spirit, and Son—and Genesis 1:1-3 provides of glimpse of each.
The Father is seen in verse one as the architect of creation. Moore says that every other ancient Near East creation story assumes that physical matter is eternal, not God, and their gods fashioned the world from existing matter.
But the Bible presents God alone as eternal.
“Hence, the universe is an extension of God, not vice versa. This Christian worldview stands in opposition to all worldviews that assert matter as eternal rather than God.”
The Holy Spirit is seen as the engineer of creation in verse 2: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Moore says the Hebrew word for hovering expresses a vibration; that the Spirit quaked to bring order out of chaos.
Jesus is the builder of creation, according to Moore. Genesis 1:3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-16 tells us that Jesus is the Word of God and that He created everything.
Why did God create this world?
Psalm 102:18 says, “Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.”
Moore writes: “Every generation that God created—from our primal parents in Eden to our own unborn children—has a singular divine purpose: to bring God glory.”
Romans 1 tells us that creation shows God’s eternal power and divine nature (1:20). That includes each person. We are God’s image-bearers, whether or not we recognize or acknowledge God and His role in our lives.
How did God restore Creation?
From the moment Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, God has worked to restore His fallen creation. That culminated in Jesus dying for our sins and rising from the grave. Now when we believe in Jesus, we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Ultimately, the restoration process will be complete when God judges evil and replaces His old creation with a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21).
But it all started with Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
