Of Creation - Chapter Four

Understanding The Westminister Confession of Faith
On Chapter 4: Of Creation

Scripture begins with an assertion: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The World is created, not self-existent, and it is God, the true God, who caused it to be.

The first clause of this chapter says, “It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.

G.I. Williamson in his commentary of the WCF for study classes says this section teaches us:

(1) That the world is not self-existent or eternal,
(2) That it derives existence from the true God,
(3) That He made all things of nothing,
(4) That He formed the universe through process until it was “very good” in His sight, and,
(5) That He did all this for His own glory.

Note that this world view, which as born-again Reformed Christians we must fully accept, wholeheartedly believe, and robustly defend, has no room for the “scientific” dogma and theory of “evolution”.

The second and last clause of chapter 4 of the WCF teaches that:

(1) That man was God’s crowning work of creation,
(2) That the whole human race descended from one human pair,
(3) That man was made in the image of God,
(4) That God furnished Adam with sufficient knowledge of His will (the law written in his heart, plus a special directive to test his obedience), and,
(5) That Adam was capable of due obedience but also of failling.

The Bible superficially agrees with “Scientific evolution” in regarding man as the highest creature on earth. But there can be no yielding on one point: man did not “gradually emerge” from the slime, but was created by an immediate divine act in which matter and spirit were fused together and given existence as living soul. All Glory to God !

Rev Robert Chew