21. GOD’S SUSTAINING GRACE OVER HIS CREATION

By Dr. Earl Parvin, 3/7/22

The question surfaces, that when Elohim finished creating His masterpiece [mankind] and placed them in the Garden of Eden on Earth, which was made to be inhabited [Is 45:18], and “God finished…He rested” [Gen 2:2], is that what He is still doing? RESTING AND ENJOYING what he called “superlative?” [Gen 1:31] for it is. Or is He actively sustaining & “superintending” it [Job 38:33]? God is speaking to Job here and queries him, “Can you set up God’s DOMINION over the earth? The word in Hebrew “mishtar” comes from “shatear” which actually means to “superintend or rule.” The question seems to imply that is exactly what He IS DOING.

            Tragically, there are those who call themselves Christians who believe and teach that God created the “primeval ocean” [Gen.1:2 tehom] and then foolishly allow Evolution to take over and rule God out as unnecessary after that. Foolishly, they allow other Scriptures to be ignored. Consider the following:

Job 34:14-15. Elihu is speaking to Job, setting up a situation which God would not ever do. “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.” It would appear that God could be construed to be sustaining His creation, and without it man would not have the power of procreation.

Col. 1:16-17 [The apostle Paul is writing to the people of Colosse] “For in him [Christ] all things were created: [ektisthe aorist 1] things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been CREATED [ektistai] through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things “hold together” NIV or “consist” KJV. There are several emphases in this passage:

A. The verb “created” is used twice with the same root verb [kitizo]. The one difference in the first reference is the useage of the aorist tense which conveys the meaning that the action only took place one time and was completed at that time. Thus, Paul is seeking to convey that creation took place all at once, not in many aspects over a long period of time by trial & error as in “survival of the fittest.”

B. In Paul’s second useage of the term “create” he clearly uses the same root, but he goes to the trouble of inflecting it differently. The verb [created] is past tense [ktizo] indicating when it was done.

C. But the verb is also in the PERFECT tense, indicating “there is more meaning here.” This construction adds the action is not only done in the past, but the action also continues on into the present [that is why he dropped the aorist tense, with all other inflections left unchanged]. There is more.

D. Why is the verb also in the PASSIVE VOICE? It means that there is another agent involved…GOD.

E. Paul goes on in v. 17 to proclaim that “In Him [God] all things “consist” [KJV] or “hold together” [NIV] {GK. Sunistemi}.” This compound Gk. word means “to stand with,” in the Perfect tense. In other words we have the meaning that God is standing with His creation, holding it together. Job has already indicted what would happen if God were not still involved. We would return to dust...not “star dust,” as some would have it.

NOW LET US PUT THE EMPHASIS WHERE IT BELONGS. God is the Architect who superintends the execution of His blueprints or plans “But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations” [Ps 33:11], by His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ [Gen 1:32]. The materials Jesus used are those the Architect provided and put in storeage in a pool of universal solvent [H2O] in which the elements were placed in suspension or solution. The energy being expended in the project is that put there by the Holy Spirit. In the fullness of time, Jesus said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” [Gravity at work?] {2 Peter 3:5 adds: “by God’s word, …the earth was formed out of water and by water}.”
 The Architect inspects the finished project and happily signed off saying, “superlative” [Gen 1:31]. The Natural laws were obvious that the Son established by creating everything according to the blueprint, or after its own kind [Gen 1:11, 21, 24]. So I summarize: The above passages clearly conclude that the One who made it all happen is still maintaining those Natural Laws [which the Evolutionist finds so important to rule God as redundant] are being upheld by the One who made or established them. He is not still RESTING, just finished and now sustaining the laws whereby it was accomplished. He is actively sustaining those laws whereby His Son Jesus Christ said, Let be [Gen 1:… and it is, by the Word of His mouth. [Ps 33:6] “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” [Ps 33:9]