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κτίσις (Ktisis): Creation’s Testimony to Its Maker · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the show where we well,
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  we try to take some really dense specialized research.
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  Kind of stuff that's usually stuck behind academic pay walls.
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  Exactly. And we break it down, make it
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  accessible, but without losing the depth.
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  We want to bring those insights directly to you.
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  Today we are doing a deep dive into a single Greek word.
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  The word is cretus. Cretus.
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  On the surface, it's just translated as creation.
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  Simple enough, right? But when you start looking at
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  how the inspired writers actually picked this word, how
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  they refined it and used it across, you know, the Septuagint
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  and then into the New Testament, you realize it's it's much more
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  than a simple noun. It's a theological instrument.
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  It's been calibrated really to capture something very specific
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  about God's sovereign will. And we are looking at a pretty
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  dense stack of sources here. We've got lexical studies,
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  historical theology, deep grammatical analysis, and they
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  all. Interestingly, point to the same
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  thing. This word caiotasis had to carry
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  an enormous amount of theological weight.
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  It wasn't just about saying the world was made.
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  The language had to show how God made it and what that reveals
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  about him. And these sources, they show all
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  these layers of meaning. It could be the ACT itself, or
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  the thing that results from the ACT, the creature, or even the
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  whole institutional order of the world.
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  So that brings us to the mission.
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  For this deep dive, we want to answer 1 central question.
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  How did the inspired writers choose their language to
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  communicate the absolute nature of God's creative will?
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  How did they distinguish Him from all the other ideas about
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  world formation floating around back then?
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  Because there were plenty of them.
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  Oh, plenty from, you know, things just spontaneously
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  flowing into existence to some divine Craftsman working on
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  primordial sludge. Right.
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  The Bible needed precision. It had to maintain the unique
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  identity of Yahweh as the one and only Creator.
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  OK, so let's start with the word itself.
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  Our source material lays out what it calls the Four Faces of
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  Knessis. And this is so helpful because
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  when you as a listener see the word creation in your English
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  Bible, you need a framework to ask, OK, is this talking about
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  an event, a being, or the entire cosmos?
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  It forces you to slow down. It really does.
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  You have to become a more sensitive reader of the text,
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  especially at Paul, to catch the nuance between, say, a starting
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  point in time and an actual entity.
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  So let's take the first face. This is the act of creation, so
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  the process, the founding moment itself.
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  It points to a beginning in time A.
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  Classic really clear example is in Romans 1.20.
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  Paul writes that God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, and
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  then he says Ekasui's Kuzmu. Which we translate as since the
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  creation of the world. Exactly.
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  And that little word, a apo meaning since or from it, fixes
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  chrysatisis in that verse as a definite starting point in time.
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  It's the founding action that kicked off the entire world
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  order. It's a temporal marker.
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  It is, and the sources are quick to point out this wasn't
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  something new that Paul invented.
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  This phrase was already in use. Where else do we see it?
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  In intertestamental writings like the Psalms of Solomon, so
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  this understanding of Chrysatisis is the original
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  founding moment. The starting pistol of history
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  was already well established by the 1st century.
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  OK. That's the first phase, the ACT.
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  What's the second? 2nd, and you could argue it's
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  the most common usage, defines the creature an individual
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  created thing, a being. So we move from the action to
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  the result. We do.
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  We're now talking about the object of the action.
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  And where do we see this focus on the individual creature?
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  Another one from Paul in Romans 8.39.
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  He's making this incredible list of things that could never
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  separate us from God's love. He lists height, depth and then
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  he says Tiskatisatira. Any other creature.
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  Right. And it's clear there he isn't
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  worried about the act of creation separating us.
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  He means any created entity, an Angel, a demon, a person, a
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  spiritual power. It's a catch all term for any
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  individual object that God has made.
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  But the sources also point out a subtlety here.
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  Sometimes this definition gets, well, it gets narrowed down,
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  doesn't it? It can refer specifically to
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  humankind. Yes, and that's a fascinating
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  bit of lexical analysis from the sources.
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  Look at the Great Commission in Mark 16.15 or Colossians 1.23
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  where Paul says the gospel has been preached to Pesti Kisi.
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  Literally to every creation. Literally.
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  But the context makes it obvious he's talking a humankind.
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  He means every person. Because you don't preach the
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  gospel to trees and mountains. You don't.
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  So the phrase the sources say functions idiomatically.
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  It means something. Like every kind of human, the
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  scope is limited by the context to people.
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  So just to recap, caiotisis can be the founding action or an
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  individual creature, and if you add pious every it can
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  specifically mean every human being.
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  You have to read carefully you. Do.
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  Which brings us to the third phase.
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  This is the totality or the world, the big expansive
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  cosmological meaning the sum total of everything God created
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  the universe. A passage like Mark 13.18 seems
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  to fit this perfectly. It talks about suffering that
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  existed. Echacus.
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  Since the beginning of creation here, Cassettisis isn't 1
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  creature, it's the whole created reality, the stage on which all
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  of history is playing out. And this totality is also the
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  subject of one of the most theologically loaded passages
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  about creation in the whole. Bible Romans 8.19 through 22.
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  Without a doubt. In that passage, the totality of
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  creation is personified. It's not just a static backdrop.
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  It's dynamic. It's waiting.
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  It's groaning. It's been subjected to futility.
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  The entire world is seen as this single collective entity that is
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  waiting for liberation right alongside children of God.
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  It's the whole system. OK, so that's the axe, the
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  creature, the totality. What's the 4th face?
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  This is the one the sources say is a bit more contested.
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  It is. It connects back to that idea of
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  founding it's yenetisis as an authority or a governance
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  system, an institution, an institution.
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  Exactly. The sources bring this up when
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  they analyze first Peter 2.13. It tells believers to be subject
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  for the Lord's sake to every human institution, and the Greek
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  word for institution there is. It's a.
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  Catasis. And if you link that back to the
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  verb tisho ktiso, which means to found or establish a city, then
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  it makes perfect sense that the noun in entisisis could mean the
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  result of that founding the established government, the
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  civil order. So Peter would be saying be
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  subject to every government structure founded by man, but
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  what's the argument against that reading?
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  The counter argument is just context.
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  It says that Peter might simply mean every human creature or
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  every kind of man, which would fit back into that second
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  definition we talked about. But the sources suggest that
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  with a Hellenistic background where founding a city, the
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  Echisis, was the work of a supreme ruler, the word carries
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  that flavor of institution or civil order.
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  Even if it's debated in this one verse, that connection is so
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  important. It establishes that God isn't
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  just the creator of, you know, matter and energy.
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  He's the founder of all order, civic order, spiritual order,
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  all of it. He is the original Casties, the
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  founder. It ties the raw act of making
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  something to the act of instituting and governing.
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  And that is a huge leap beyond just saying he made the trees.
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  It means he is the source of all legitimate structure in the
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  universe. And this sets us up perfectly to
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  talk about Paul because he takes this idea of a complete
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  sovereign refounding and applies it to the individual believer.
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  He talks about the Kaisi. The new creature or new
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  creation. It's in 2nd Corinthians 5.17 and
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  Galatians 6.15. Paul uses this phrase to explain
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  the change that occurs when someone is united to Christ, and
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  it's just a stunning claim. He's taking the word used for
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  the absolute initial founding of the entire universe and applying
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  it to a person. If he just meant that people
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  start behaving better, he would have used different words.
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  Renovation or change or improvement?
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  Of course, but using Kai Katsis points to something
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  fundamentally different. What is it then?
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  The sources are very clear on this.
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  It signifies a new status, a new relationship to God.
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  It's an objective change in your being, not just a subjective
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  change in your moral effort. When Paul says if anyone is in
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  Christ he is a kind cussus, he is declaring a new ontological
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  state has been brought into existence by God's sovereign
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  word. So the new creation is a
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  declaration of what God has done.
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  He has placed that individual into a new reality in the same
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  way He spoke the original reality into being.
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  And you can see the the background for this thinking and
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  the Judaism of the time when a Gentile converted.
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  They were often spoken of metaphorically as a newborn
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  child. They got a new legal and
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  relational standing. Right, they shed their old
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  identity and took on a new one before God in the community.
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  Paul takes that cultural picture and elevates it infinitely.
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  In Christ, a believer doesn't just get a new legal status,
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  they are a new created reality. Which is why the sources focus
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  on the change in status first. Yes, the new relationship
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  defines the new being, the new conduct, the new morality.
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  It all flows out of that divinely established reality.
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  That is a radical break. The word that defined the
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  absolute beginning of everything now defines the absolute new
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  beginning for a person in Christ.
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  And this transition from old creation to new, IT really
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  prepares us to go deeper, to look at the Old Testament
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  Foundation. Because Paul and the other New
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  Testament writers, they could only make this incredible claim
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  about a new creation because of how carefully the Old Testament
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  has already established God as the absolute volitional author
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  of the first creation. That's a perfect bridge.
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  So moving back into the Old Testament, one of the first
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  things the sources point out is a, well, a surprising order in
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  how God reveals himself. We tend to think the Bible story
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  starts with Genesis 1.1. In the beginning God created,
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  but the actual unfolding of revelation moves in the opposite
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  direction. It does.
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  The witness of the Old Testament moves from history to creation,
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  not the other way around. And this is profoundly different
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  from, say, Pagan cosmologies. They almost always start with
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  some myth about how the universe began, and then they get around
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  to talking about the gods and men.
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  It's cosmology first, then history.
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  But with the God of the Bible, it's history first.
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  What does that order tell us about who Yahweh is?
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  It tells us that He is first and foremost the mighty God of
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  history. He is the God who calls Abraham
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  out of UR. He's the one who personally
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  intervenes in Egypt to bring about the Exodus.
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  He reveals himself as an active covenant, making willing person
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  first. And then that powerful personal
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  promise keeping God is revealed to be the creator of all things.
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  Right, which means the very content of the name Yahweh is
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  defined by his actions in history, by his relationship
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  with his people. So his creative power isn't some
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  abstract philosophical idea, it's the logical extension of
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  his powerful personal work. In time, we get to know the
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  Creator by watching the actions of the Redeemer.
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  Precisely. And that's why the Hebrew
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  language had to be so careful, so exclusive in how it describe
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  God's creative work. To really grasp this, we need to
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  look at the three main Hebrew verbs for making or creating OK.
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  Let's start with the most general one.
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  That's ASA. ASA is the most common term.
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  It's very broad. It often just implies making
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  something or working with material.
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  It's already there. The sources point to Genesis
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  3.1, where the serpent is described as having been made
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  ASA among the beasts. And it's not exclusive to God.
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  No, not at all. Humans can ASA things.
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  It's like our word do or make. It just denotes general action
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  or workmanship. Simple enough?
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  What's next one? Next is Yatzar.
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  This one is much more specific. It has the idea of a Potter
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  shaping and fashioning something with their hands.
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  We see it in Genesis 2.7 where God yatzarred man from the dust
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  of the ground. It highlights the skill, the
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  wisdom of the Creator. What's the theological point
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  that the use of yatzar is making?
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  It's all about the creatures absolute dependence.
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  When the prophets use yatzar, they often bring up that image
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  of the Potter and the clay. Think of Isaiah 29 or Jeremiah
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  18. The clay can't question the
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  Potter. Exactly.
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  The clay owes not just its existence, but it's very shape,
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  its form, its purpose to the Potter's will.
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  It's all about God shaping and defining His creation.
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  OK, so ASA is general making, Yatzar is skilled shaping.
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  That brings us to the most important the one reserved for
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  God alone, Bara. Bara is the theological peak,
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  and the sources are absolutely unified on this.
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  This word is reserved exclusively for God's creation.
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  It has a special theological stamp on it precisely because no
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  one and nothing else can do it. Why is that restriction so
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  critical? Does the word Barra itself
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  contain the idea of creation out of nothing X nikhilo?
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  Not in its root meaning necessarily, but the sources
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  argue that it's exclusive usage forces that conclusion.
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  How does that work? By reserving Barra only for
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  God's action and using it in the most theologically rich places
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  like Second Isaiah and the priestly source in Genesis, it
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  establishes that God's creative act has no parallel, no analogy,
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  in anything humans can do or know.
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  So because a human can ASA or Yatsar, but only God can Bara,
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  then Bara must be describing an action that is fundamentally
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  beyond human ability. Right.
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  And what's the one creative act humans can't do?
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  Create existence from non existence.
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  Exactly so. The exclusive use of the word
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  secures that concept for God. The source has also mentioned
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  that Barra isn't just used for the cosmic beginning.
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  It's also used for God's powerful miraculous acts in
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  history, like the wonders of the Exodus.
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  This reinforces the idea that true creative power is tied to
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  God's absolute history shattering intervention.
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  This understanding of Barra then leads directly to the core
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  doctrine, criacio E nihilo, creation by Fiat, by the power
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  of the Word. This is what makes the biblical
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  Creator unique. The sources remind us that God's
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  absolute power, which we see all through history, is traced back
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  to the fact that He is the Creator.
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  We see that in Jeremiah 27.5. But how is that power expressed?
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  Through the Word and God said in Genesis 1 or Psalm 33.9, He
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  spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
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  And our source material describes this as a logical
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  impossibility for human beings. What they mean by that is well
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  you can point at a pile of wood until a builder build a house,
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  but you can't point at nothing and say house exists right?
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  But God can. Romans 4 point in row 7 says he
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  is the one Colentos de and Uta. Calling into existence the
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  things that do not exist. It's the essence of creation by
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  Fiat. It requires absolute unilateral
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  power. And this concept, creation by
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  the word, it also plays a crucial defensive role against
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  other worldviews, doesn't it? Specifically, something called
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  emanationism. It does.
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  This is a critical point. Emanationism is the idea that
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  the world sort of flowed out of God's substance, almost like
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  light radiating from the sun. It's a just the world is
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  metaphysically continuous with God, just on a lower level.
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  It's not a choice, it's just a necessary overflow.
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  And creation by the word completely demolishes that idea.
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  It does, because a word is the expression of a conscious
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  personal will. God didn't just overflow.
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  He made a decision. He issued A deliberate command.
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  This puts an absolute distinction, a distance between
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  the creator and the creature. The world is a chosen act, not a
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  necessary overflow. It also deals with the Greek
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  idea of God having to work with preexisting chaotic matter.
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  Yes, there's no struggle. There's no resistance from some
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  dark passive material. His word is the sufficient and
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  irresistible cause. So the doctrine of creation by
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  the Word is the ultimate safeguard of God's absolute
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  sovereignty. He is pure personal will with no
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  external limitations. And this establishes that
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  dramatic necessary distance between creator and creature.
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  Because the creature's existence is completely dependent on that
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  initial command. The creator always has the right
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  to, well, to assign the creature back to nothing.
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  A sobering thought we see in the songs.
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  Absolutely. Psalm 102 says the heavens and
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  earth are like a garment. God can just change them and
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  they will pass away, but he remains.
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  Or Psalm 104 where it says if God hides his face, creatures
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  die and return to dust. Our continued existence is not a
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  given. It's not self-sustaining.
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  It relies entirely on the sustaining will that first spoke
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  it into being, and that relationship of absolute
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  dependence established by the word bra is the bedrock that the
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  entire New Testament builds on. Which sets the stage perfectly
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  for our next section. The Old Testament defined
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  creation as an act of unique, personal, absolute will.
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  Now we have to see how the Septuagint translators working
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  in a Greek speaking world found the one Greek word that could
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  carry all of that theological meaning.
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  And it meant rejecting the most obvious choice.
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  I find this part of the research just fascinating.
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  The translators of the Septuagint, the LXX, they had to
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  take this divine, exclusive Hebrew concept of Bara and put
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  it into Greek. And the most common, most
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  natural Greek verb for making or crafting something was demureo
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  demurejio. The word for a Craftsman?
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  A Demurejio. Yet they systematically avoided
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  it. They chose Kuta Katiso instead.
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  Why? Why did they reject the maker
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  word? This was not just a linguistic
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  choice, it was, as you said, an active theological self-defense.
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  You have to understand the connotations that came with the
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  word demiorgos in the Hellenistic world.
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  So tell us about that word. What kind of picture did it
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  paint? The Demiorgos was a skilled
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  artisan, a Potter, a sculptor, a Weaver.
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  And this is the key. He works on pre-existing
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  material, Uber say, through direct hands on workmanship.
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  He's the guy who executes the plan, not the one who came up
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  with it from scratch. And the sources say this was
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  problematic on 2 levels for them, social and philosophical.
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  That's right. Socially, the demiurges was
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  often seen as a laborer, somewhat of a lower status, who
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  worked with their hands. But theologically, and this was
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  the real danger, the term was loaded with philosophical
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  baggage. You're talking about Plato.
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  Plato's Timaeus specifically. In that work, the Demiurge is
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  the world maker, but he is not the ultimate source of anything.
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  He's constrained, he has to work with pre-existing chaotic
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  matter, and he's bound by external forces like eternal
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  ideas or fate. He lacks absolute freedom.
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  So if the LXX translators had used Demiurge for Yahweh, what
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  would that have implied to their Greek speaking audience?
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  It would have implied that the God of Israel was limited, that
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  he was a very, very skilled technician, maybe the best
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  technician, but still just a technician bound by pre-existing
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  stuff and external. Rules.
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  It would have completely compromised the doctrine of
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  Kriyasho and Nihilo. Absolutely.
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  And the freedom of God. So the sources are clear.
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  The translators actively dodge this word for God's primordial
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  creative act to avoid associating Yahweh with a
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  concept that fundamentally limited divine power and will.
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  They needed a word that conveyed authority, not just skill, the
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  will to act, not just the hand that acts.
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  And that's exactly why they landed on Cuso Quito.
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  And this is where the detective work in our sources really
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  shines, because at first glance, the original media of Quedzo
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  seems, well, a bit weird. It means to make a land
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  habitable to settle, or to establish a sidyu or a colony.
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  Right. How does founding a colony get
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  you to creating the stars? It seems to be about
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  infrastructure and labor, which sounds a lot like the demiurge.
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  So how? Do the sources get around that?
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  The key is the words evolution. It's sociological and political
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  meaning shifted during the Hellenistic period, which was
• 19:33
  the exact context for the LXX translation.
• 19:37
  Katisos stopped being just about the manual labor of laying
• 19:40
  bricks. OK, it came to refer not to the
• 19:43
  physical execution of the building, but to the
• 19:46
  foundational and decisive resolve to institute something
• 19:49
  new. Ah.
• 19:50
  So it's connected to the authority of a ruler.
• 19:52
  Precisely founding a city was the quintessential task of a
• 19:56
  sovereign ruler, a king, an emperor, and Otto quotis zos
• 20:00
  someone with absolute authority. The credit for founding the city
• 20:03
  didn't go to the stonemasons. It went to the King, whose will
• 20:07
  and word caused the whole project to happen.
• 20:09
  Yes. The word tezo became powerfully
• 20:12
  associated with a volitional act of supreme authority, where the
• 20:15
  command itself is the sufficient cause.
• 20:17
  So by choosing Tezo, the translators killed two birds
• 20:20
  with one stone, they rejected the limited craftsmanship of the
• 20:23
  demiurge, and they perfectly matched the Old Testament
• 20:26
  picture of creation by the word. It's a brilliant piece of
• 20:29
  linguistic theology. It elevates God from being the
• 20:32
  greatest of artisans to being the absolute willing and
• 20:36
  decisive ruler over existence itself.
• 20:40
  It ensures that creation is understood as an intellectual,
• 20:43
  relational act, completely free from pre-existing matter or
• 20:46
  external fate. It protects the absolute freedom
• 20:50
  of the Creator. And this distinction is so
• 20:52
  important for understanding everything that comes next in
• 20:55
  the New Testament. If the world was made by a
• 20:57
  limited demiurge, then maybe its problems are just baked into the
• 21:01
  flawed material he had to work with.
• 21:03
  But if the tease O God made the world by his perfect word, then
• 21:07
  the world's current brokenness is not a flaw in its design.
• 21:10
  It's a subjected state that can be fixed by that same absolute
• 21:13
  will. The very language they chose to
• 21:15
  describe the beginning gives us the confidence to believe in the
• 21:18
  promised end. That's it.
• 21:20
  The authority that stands behind the creation of the cosmos is
• 21:23
  the very same authority that stands behind the recreation of
• 21:25
  the individual. OK, so now let's bring this all
• 21:28
  into the New Testaments view of the totality of creation, what
• 21:31
  the Greek calls Tupanta. Tupanta given how broad the word
• 21:35
  crypticis is. Paul makes it extremely clear
• 21:38
  that the scope of God's founding act goes way beyond just the
• 21:41
  physical world. The definitive text on the scope
• 21:44
  of Crick Pisces has to be Colossians 1.16.
• 21:47
  He says God created all things to Punta in the heavens and on
• 21:52
  the earth, and then he says visible and invisible.
• 21:55
  And he doesn't just leave invisible hanging there as some
• 21:58
  abstract idea, he gives a list, a very specific list of
• 22:01
  invisible spiritual structures. He does.
• 22:03
  He lists the Kruptoy Thrones, priests, principalities, extra
• 22:08
  rulers and Osai authorities. Including these is so important.
• 22:12
  It establishes that God's creative will is what founded
• 22:15
  the entire spiritual hierarchy and order of the cosmos.
• 22:18
  Even the structures of governance, the powers in the
• 22:20
  unseen realm, are objects of his creative will.
• 22:23
  It just wipes out any dualistic idea that you know, maybe some
• 22:26
  lesser God or a rival spiritual force created the unseen world.
• 22:29
  Know. Everything that exists, known or
• 22:31
  unknown, physical or immaterial, is a product of and dependent on
• 22:35
  the Creator's founding action. But this vast geek ISIS, this
• 22:39
  totality, it's now in a temporary state.
• 22:42
  It's subject to limitations that distinguish it from the eternal
• 22:45
  realm. And the New Testament writers
• 22:47
  use specific language to describe this creation.
• 22:50
  Yes they do. What are some of those defining
• 22:52
  limitations? Well, one key limitation is
• 22:54
  described in Hebrews 9.11. There this creation is
• 22:59
  characterized by what is Korea poiton, Cairo poiton.
• 23:03
  Which means made with hands. It does, and that might seem
• 23:07
  strange at first because we just spent all this time arguing that
• 23:09
  the creator deliberately chose a word, tizo, that denies manual
• 23:13
  craftsmanship. It does seem like a
• 23:14
  contradiction. But it's a purposeful contrast.
• 23:17
  When Hebrews uses the phrase made with hands, it's talking
• 23:20
  about the earthly, the spatial, the temporal.
• 23:23
  Specifically, it's contrasting the earthly Tabernacle with
• 23:27
  heaven itself, the eternal dwelling of God.
• 23:29
  So anything that is Carapoyatan is by its nature temporary and
• 23:33
  part of this transient world system.
• 23:35
  So Made with Hands is describing the nature of this current
• 23:38
  earthly reality, not the method of God's original creative act.
• 23:42
  Exactly. And that transient nature is why
• 23:45
  it's subject to decay. The New Testament is very clear
• 23:49
  that this creation is subject to matatis matiotase, which is
• 23:53
  vanity or futility, and for for a corruption or death.
• 23:58
  We see this most clearly in Romans 8.
• 24:00
  Let's put a minute on that word matiotase futility.
• 24:03
  It suggests a kind of pointless repetitive cycle.
• 24:06
  The sources describe it as the gigantic circle of futility we
• 24:10
  can see all around us in the natural world.
• 24:12
  Think about it. Every living thing is born, it
• 24:14
  struggles to survive, it reproduces, and then it dies.
• 24:19
  The entire point of the biological system seems to be to
• 24:22
  produce descendants who are also doomed to die.
• 24:25
  Nothing permanent as it changed. That endless cycle of corruption
• 24:28
  is the futility. And this futility isn't
• 24:30
  something that's just intrinsic to creation.
• 24:32
  Romans 8.12 says creation was subjected to it.
• 24:36
  D Taraseta. Through the one who subjected.
• 24:38
  It So, who subjected it and why? Well, this is debated, but the
• 24:41
  view our sources favor is that this refers back to Adam's sin.
• 24:46
  God subjected creation to this futility on account of man.
• 24:50
  The world was created to be the glorious home for God's image
• 24:53
  bearer, so when the image bearer sinned, the home had to share
• 24:57
  the consequences of that fall. But if creation itself was
• 25:00
  innocent, why would God do that? Why punish the world for man's
• 25:03
  sin? It wasn't a punishment for
• 25:05
  creation itself, it was a necessary consequence of the
• 25:08
  broken relationship between God and humanity.
• 25:11
  The corruption, death, decay, struggle is a state it was put
• 25:15
  into, not a fundamental change in his being.
• 25:17
  The world now reflects the fallen condition of mankind.
• 25:20
  And the subjected state it serves a purpose.
• 25:22
  It does. It creates the conditions of,
• 25:24
  you know, time and space and struggle where repentance and
• 25:27
  redemption can happen. And it shows us the profound
• 25:29
  seriousness of sin. So the world groans because it's
• 25:32
  trapped in a reality that doesn't align with the original
• 25:35
  perfect will of the God who Kiso at it.
• 25:37
  That's it exactly. And that brings us right back to
• 25:40
  the hope of the kind of custis, the new creation we have to
• 25:43
  remember. Colossians 1.16 The world was
• 25:46
  created in Christ, and for Christ the ultimate meaning of
• 25:50
  the whole created order is found of the redemption of humanity
• 25:54
  through Him. The sources make a big deal of
• 25:56
  the phrase that God's plan in Christ existed before the
• 26:02
  foundation of the world. That phrase is everything.
• 26:05
  It means that creation, fall, and redemption wasn't Plan B
• 26:09
  Christ isn't just a cosmic repairman who shows up after
• 26:12
  things go wrong. He is the foundation and the
• 26:14
  goal of the original, like Tysis.
• 26:17
  And that means the world can't find its true purpose until
• 26:20
  humanity is redeemed in Him. Which is why the whole creation
• 26:23
  is waiting for the children of God to be revealed.
• 26:25
  It's waiting for the Uluthadasis Tantharali, the glorious liberty
• 26:29
  of the children of God. Romans 8.21 When believers
• 26:33
  finally enter into their glorified state, the reason for
• 26:36
  creation, subjection to futility is gone, and the creation itself
• 26:40
  will be set free from its bondage to corruption.
• 26:42
  And we aren't just talking about a renovation of the current
• 26:45
  system. The sources are clear.
• 26:47
  The old order has to go. It does.
• 26:49
  The present heaven and earth will pass away.
• 26:51
  We see that in Revelation and Second Peter, and then the new
• 26:54
  creation, the new heaven and new earth will appear.
• 26:57
  It will be a complete refashioning of both man and the
• 27:00
  world, a reality that perfectly and gloriously corresponds to
• 27:03
  God's sovereign will, brought into being by the same
• 27:07
  authoritative word that spoke the first late Isis into
• 27:10
  existence. It all comes full circle.
• 27:12
  The reason we can have absolute confidence in the promise of the
• 27:15
  new creation is because the specific language chosen to
• 27:18
  describe the first creation secures the absolute power and
• 27:21
  freedom of its author. When you see the incredible
• 27:24
  linguistic and theological care that was taken, rejecting the
• 27:28
  Craftsman, elevating the ruler, reserving Barrett, you realize
• 27:31
  the biblical writers went to extraordinary lengths to ensure
• 27:33
  God was understood as the unconstrained, personal,
• 27:37
  volitional sovereign and the guarantees that whatever He
• 27:39
  wills for the final state of creation, it will be
• 27:42
  accomplished without fail. So our deep dive at the
• 27:45
  marginesis really shows that this word is at its heart about
• 27:47
  God's personal conscious will, a will that operates without any
• 27:51
  external necessity, without any pre-existing conditions.
• 27:54
  And that deliberate linguistic choice, using atiso instead of
• 27:56
  demiurgeo, that was a strategy to lock in the doctrine of God's
• 27:59
  absolute sovereignty and to rule out all those other Pagan or
• 28:02
  philosophical ideas about creation.
• 28:04
  So the key take away for you, our listener, is the sharp
• 28:07
  absolute distinction this language creates.
• 28:10
  God is the one and only subject of creative action.
• 28:13
  Everything else is the object completely dependent on His
• 28:16
  decree. And having that theological
• 28:18
  precision gives us confidence. It gives us the confidence that
• 28:21
  the same absolute, willing authority who spoke the original
• 28:24
  world into being is the one who will bring forth the kite
• 28:27
  pussies to the new creation. In Christ.
• 28:30
  Our existence was willed, and so it is willed for a definite,
• 28:33
  glorious end. And on that note of purpose,
• 28:36
  let's leave you with this final provocative thought from our
• 28:38
  sources. In later Judaism, the purpose of
• 28:42
  the first creation was sometimes described as providing a setting
• 28:44
  for the doing of God's will, specifically for the keeping of
• 28:47
  the Law at the Torah. So think about this.
• 28:50
  If the purpose of the first catais was defined by the law,
• 28:53
  how does the new creation, which is defined entirely by the
• 28:55
  person and work of Christ, redefine the goal and meaning of
• 28:58
  your existence? What is the new institution that
• 29:00
  He has founded in you? Until next time on Reformed
• 29:03
  thinking.