What was God doing
Christians believe that God created the entire Universe. Some believe that this happened over millions and billions of years, and that God directed macroevolution over time. They are wrong, they misinterpret the Bible, and they have placed biology and physics as a higher authority than the Word of God. We’re going to listen to them.
Biblical Christian belief is that the Lord created the Universe in six literal days, having spoke it all into existence, and then God “rested” from His work of actively bringing creation out of nothing to now sustaining the entire Universe (Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:3). Before the mention of the individual days of creation, Genesis 1 offers this very wide-angle view of creation. It gives us a big picture of what God is doing.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” – Genesis 1:1-2
The earth was without form and void. Another way of saying it is that the earth was formless and empty. It needed to be shaped, and it needed to be filled, and this is precisely what happens over the first six days of creation. On days one, two, and three, God forms the earth by shaping it into various habitats or environments, and on days four, five, and six God proceeds to fill those habitats.
God separates day and night and creates light, He creates the waters and the skies, and then He establishes dry ground. He creates vegetation to feed off of the light to live, He creates birds and fish for the skies and seas, and then He creates land animals for the dry ground, as well as creating Human beings out of that very same dirt. Truly glorious stuff we have in the Word.
The work continues in the viceregents
With the creation of Adam and Eve, and the giving of the Dominion mandate, what we see is that the work of forming and filling, the central act in Creation, is a work given to our first parents as being central to their life and work on this earth.
The first thing God tells them to do is to have lots of children. Without getting too graphic, the forming of a sexual union of a man and a woman involves a filling of sorts, not least of which includes insemination (the man putting his seed into the woman). Then, at the moment of the child’s conception and the begging of a new human life, this small creature that is at first without shape is progressively formed in the womb and filled with blood, tissue, and life itself. Furthermore, God’s command for having children is also the command for Adam and Eve to form children and fill the earth with those children and their descendants. How about this? The responsibility to raise and train children is also about forming and filling. We form them, by God’s grace, into the image of Christ and into godly adults, as we fill them with truth, the Word of God, wisdom, and discipleship.
The rest of the dominion mandate is more of the same. Humans have been created to take the wild and untamed earth and to form it, to cultivate it, and to make it beautiful. How do we do this? By filling it with all manner of art, food, music, buildings, and using our very souls to add to this world given to us by the Lord. Forming and filling. It’s all over the Garden.
From the Garden to the Kingdom
It doesn’t end there, however. No, God, in His infinite wisdom and creativity, has designed all of life, including spiritual life, to be the process of forming and filling. Consider the gracious work of regeneration and salvation itself. God takes a lump of clay (Romans 9:20-23), a creation without meaning and purpose, and forms it into an object of His mercy through the hearing of the Gospel. Then God fills this new creation with His Spirit.
The rest of this persons’ life is also marked by forming and filling. Through a process of sanctification, this person is conformed to the image of Christ and made more glorious, and the Lord accomplishes this by filling His children with truth, knowledge, wisdom, understanding of His Word, and even with His Spirit in needed measure (Ephesians 5:18-21).
How about the ministry of the local church? I’m glad you asked. We have been commissioned to make disciples and to teach them to obey Christ (Matthew 28:19-20). As they hear the Gospel, they are formed into followers of Jesus, as His disciples. Then we fill them with instruction from the Word of God so that they grow in wisdom and virtue, filled with God’s Spirit for faith and good works.
Re-think your purpose
I don’t want to labour the point too much, but it wouldn’t take long for a person to apply this paradigm to most if not all of the Christian life. The education of our children is all about forming and filling. Whether establishing businesses or working hard as an employee, it is all about forming and filling. Building and strengthening relationships in the church through real fellowship is all about forming and filling. Once you see it, you see it everywhere.
Why does this matter? Well, it matters because this creational perspective should affect every aspect of our lives. It actually gives greater meaning and purpose to everything we do. Your job isn’t just you grinding through 40-60 hours a week to eat and pay rent. It’s your opportunity to form and fill and obey the Lord in His designed responsibility for you.
Your marriage isn’t about falling in love, marrying your best friend, and then barely holding on through children in the hopes that you won’t get a divorce once the kids move out. Your marriage and child-rearing are about forming and filling, about sending your offspring-arrows deep into the heart of the kingdom of darkness. It’s about telling the world how much Jesus loves His Bride by the way you love your wife, and telling the world how much Christ’s people trust and follow Him by the way you submit to your husband.
Your connection, commitment, and involvement with a local church isn’t about you putting in your time to appease your conscience. It’s all about – you guessed it – forming and filling. You use the gifts God has given you to build up and edify the church, and your brothers and sisters in Christ use their gifts and abilities to sharpen you toward greater holiness.
How wonderful and humbling a thing that the God of the Universe, having worked a certain way in creating the world and commissioning humans, has invited us to join in His continued work of the exact same kind of thing – forming and filling.