The Mystery of Creation: Chapter 6: Limited Wills: Scriptural Support

Scriptural Support

                Now I know what at least some of you who are reading this are probably thinking.  This goes against the grain of what many Christians teach.  Many say that God did ALL the work of creation Himself.  However, I believe that there is scriptural evidence to support what I have just said.  Scriptures that point to the fact that we are all beings of free will are too numerous to list.  If you read the Bible you will simply see that it is true.  Mankind has been given the right to make decisions.  That is why they are punished when they choose to do bad things.  God would not be a good God, a God of justice, if He punished people for doing bad things if they had no choice but to do bad things.  In other words, if you force a child to steal for you, who is at fault for stealing?  Is it the child?  No.  It is you who forced the child to steal who is at fault.  If you tell the child that they will be punished if they don’t steal then you are basically forcing the young minded person to steal.  Though the child committed the crime, they were only obeying you.  Therefore, the crime is on your head.  Punishing someone for something they HAD to do, that they were FORCED to do is not good or just.

                Keeping this in mind, we see that in the Bible angels are also punished if they rebel, or sin, against God.  Demons, which is just the name given to fallen angels who rebelled against God, are locked in chains and reserved for the day of judgment according to Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2.  Only a being with a free will, who chose to sin, would be punished for sin.

                And it is also clear that angels are people in the Bible, not just tools or computer-like machines.  In Daniel, the angel speaks with Daniel and explains things to him.  When Daniel bows to him, he urges Daniel to not do such things, for he is but a servant, as Daniel is.  Angels are depicted as ministering spirits to those who are saved by God through faith in Jesus Christ as it is said in Hebrews 1:14.  They are warriors and soldiers, for there are many references to the Host of Heaven marching into battle against the evil forces of this world.  Hebrews 1:7 says of them that, “He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.”  Angels were made to worship and serve God, as we see in Hebrews 1:6, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

                Everywhere we look in scripture we see that they are messengers, warriors, scribes who keep the books, musicians who blow trumpets, and so forth.  Everywhere we look we see that angels are beings of free will, like men, but they were made to dwell in the Heavens and in God’s Holy City as His spiritual servants for all creation.  It is the angels that carry out God’s commands and make things take place.

                And angels have authority to perform miracles on earth.  It was an angel of death who went about throughout Egypt during the Plague of the Firstborn.  An angel silenced Zachariah, the priest, father of John the Baptist.  He had authority to do this.  He did not need to ask God’s permission, but he, the angel, simply commanded and it was done. 

                But don’t get me wrong!  We also see that there are some things God does Himself.  He does not simply command His angels to do these things while he sits back and does nothing.  It was God Himself, for example, who inhabited Mary and impregnated her with Jesus.  It was God who raised Jesus from the dead.  In the Old Testament, God Himself spoke to Moses on the mountain.  God cursed Moses Himself and kept him from entering the Promised Land.  God spoke to Job in the whirlwind.  God spoke to Elijah when he fled from Jezebel.  It is clear that God even spoke to young Samuel while he was still living under Eli’s roof.  Over and over again, we see that God does do things Himself.  However, we also see over and over again that God chooses to allow His angels to do a lot of His work for Him.

                There is even a story where a centurion of Rome came to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal his servant.  This story, found in Matthew 8, tells us much about the responsibilities of angels.  The centurion says to Jesus that he recognizes that Jesus is a man of authority, even as the centurion is a man of authority.  Both command, and their servants obey.  Even so, Jesus, who is God in the flesh, could command the angels of God to heal the centurion’s servant, and he would be healed.  Could Jesus do it by the power of the Holy Spirit of God?  Yes!  He healed people all the time by the power of the Holy Spirit, as was the case with the woman with the issue of blood.  She touched the hem of Jesus’ robes, and Jesus felt power leave Him.  This was the Holy Spirit healing the woman.  It could be explained in no other way.  Angels certainly wouldn’t be in Jesus and then leave Him.  However, angels could also heal people if commanded to do so by someone with authority.

                Ok.  Ok.  So you might agree that scripture supports the role of angels in these things, but I’m sure many have a problem with angels helping in the creation of all things.  The Bible says, “And God said…” and things happened.  To say that He commanded and angels were what obeyed His command and made all things…well…that does seem to go against scripture.  And, in fact, I am not saying that angels actually DID all of the work of creation.  I am merely saying that, like workmen on a construction project, they helped the Architect, God, create all things.

                After all, Job 38 teaches us clearly that God “laid the foundations of the earth.”  He “stretched the line upon it” and “determined its measurements.”  God “laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars”, God’s angels, “sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”  So it is clear that God made the earth Himself.  It is also clear based on Genesis 2 that God made Adam, Mankind, Himself.  Genesis 2:7 clearly states, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

                Don’t you find it interesting that in Genesis 1, God commanded many things, and they came into being, but then in other places it clearly states that God made other things?  In Genesis 1:1, God Himself “created the heavens and the earth.”  In other words, He did not command and the earth and the heavens were there.  He built them, from scratch, Himself.  But then, in Genesis 3 it clearly states that “God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”  Then, in verse 26 we return to God doing the work when it says, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”  Notice, He first said it, but He didn’t just say, “Let there be Man, created according to Our image and likeness.”  No.  He basically announced that now He Himself was going to create Mankind in His image and likeness.  Then, in verse 27 it states that “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

                You see the implication here?  The implication is that for most of the universe God commanded and His angels created everything based on what He commanded them to do.  However, those things that were most important to God, He Himself created them.  He “formed man” Himself from the “dust of the ground.”  He did not simply order it.  He wanted to carefully and lovingly craft Adam.  Other things He still cared about, and He oversaw the work.  However, the Earth and the Heavens He made Himself, and humanity He made Himself.  And notice, too, just how important Eve was to God.  It states in Genesis 2:21, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.  Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.” 

                GOD made Eve carefully and lovingly.  He crafted her Himself as well.  He could have created her, even as He created light, by simply commanding and having angels take the rib out of Adam to spark Eve.  However, HE wanted to be the one to do it.  HE wanted all creation to know just how special both Adam and Eve were to Him.

                Now, I’ve heard it said that no other beings are allowed to create life.  That is why Satan hates mankind so much, because we are able to procreate and he, Satan, has no such power to create life.  I don’t see anywhere in scripture that Satan, angels, demons, etc. have no power to create life.  However, I also don’t see anywhere that is says that they can and did create life.  They could help God manipulate what was already there, but I have not found any evidence to show that God ever allowed any being to create any life so that He is truly the creator of all the living.

                Take careful notice in Genesis of when God creates and when He commands and it is done.  God created the Heavens and the Earth.  He commanded light, and it existed.  Light is not life, so it seems God commanded and angels made light.  God commanded there to be a sky and oceans.  However, they already existed in their different elements.  Therefore, it seems clear that angels helped to form the elements, by God’s command, into ocean and sky.

                God commanded dry land to appear, and it was so.  However, the text implies that dry land already existed.  It just couldn’t be seen because it was covered by the waters.  The angels then would have been the ones to bring the land out to the surface.  God commanded plants to spring up from the earth, so it seems clear that though angels obeyed and caused the plants to spring up, God was the one who initially created the seeds in the ground. 

                Notice, then, that God formed, Himself, the sun and moon and stars, but he commanded, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night.”  In other words, it would seem that before they were stars and supernovas and black holes and such, the lights in space were just lights that God then took and formed into the sun, moon and stars.  He commanded them to be divided all throughout the universe, but then He Himself made the sun, moon and stars.  He then, Himself, set them in their final positions in space.  Notice, however, that it does not mention any other planets or moons or asteroids or whatever else that exists in space.  Only that which was most important to God did He personally craft.

                Then He commanded that the waters of the Earth would abound in living creatures and the skies also.  In verse 21, however, Moses goes out of his way to include, “God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves…”  In other words, again, He did not just command it, but He Himself did it.  Verses 24 and 25 are the same.  First He declares that animals are going to be on the earth and then He, Himself, does it.

                Thus, nothing in the creation of our world was done by angels.  No living thing was made by them.  God made ALL life.  However, it seems pretty clear that God left angels with the responsibility to mold and shape many things and to carry out the commands that He gave during the creation of the universe.

                Hmm…could this be another reason why there is no life on any other planet but Earth?  Could it be that angels fashioned the other worlds and other great cosmic things like black holes and novas and so forth?  Could it be that God left these roles to His servants and their creativity? 

                But what about elementals?  Where in all of the Bible does it ever mention anything about elementals?  I mean, that concept seems like some sort of Greek mythology garbage.  Right?  I mean, forces of nature being lesser spirits?  Come on!

                Look at what Jesus says in John 3:8.  “The wind blows where IT wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  This implies that the wind has a will of its own.  It decides where it wants to blow.  If God or angels commanded the wind constantly and at all times, thus implying that it was an enslaved will thing, then Jesus would have been telling a falsehood here.  In order to speak correctly, then, if the wind has no will of its own, Jesus would have needed to say, “The wind blows where God [or angels] wishes it to go, and you hear the sound of it…”  In other words, Jesus, who is God on Earth, would not have said IT wishes.

                But, again, Job 38:22-30 says, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of distress, for the day of war and battle?  Where is the way that the light is divided, or the east wind scattered on the earth?  Who has cleft a channel for the flood, or a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land without people, on a desert without a man in it, to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the seeds of grass to sprout?  Has the rain a father?  Or who has begotten the drops of dew?  From whose womb has come the ice?  And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?  Water becomes hard like stone, and the surface of the deep is imprisoned.” 

                In other words, with these two passages combined, it is clear that although weather operates with a mind of its own, God yet designed it and He controls it all.  Back this up with Revelation 7 and we see that angels stand at the four corners of the earth and hold the four winds of the earth.  So winds are also things that even angels can command and control. 

                Finally, remember that Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves in Matthew 8:26.  It did not say that He ordered angels and the angels made the wind and waves stop.  The very wind and waves obeyed Him.  Only something with some sort of intelligence can obey commands.  Therefore, it must be that the elementals, the spirits, that control the wind and waves obeyed because of the authority Jesus was given by God the Father.

                Therefore, it makes sense that elementals, those forces of nature that we take for granted every day, are like animals to the angels and to God.  Just as animals can be wild and untamable, so can elementals.  We have not been able to, after all, tame weather, so it is obviously a wild thing.  Just as some animals are more easily tamed, so some elements are easier to harness and control.  After all, we have been able to create a form of anti-gravity.  Just as some animals have minds of their own, so some elementals have minds of their own, like the wind.  Just as some animals are very obedient, so some elementals are very obedient.  The scriptures all seem to indicate these things to be true.