The Kindness of our Creator

by Fred Zaspel

Thinking through the early chapters of Genesis the other day, I was struck again with the wonderful picture of God’s kindness that emerges in the creation narrative. God carefully brings into existence all that is — all, it seems, for the use and benefit of his newly created image-bearers (Gen. 1:26-29). He created for his own glory, of course, but there is in his creation a display of his kindness for his creatures, and this is one aspect of his glory.

God’s provision for the newly-created man goes further. He no sooner pronounces his work “very good” than he pronounces it “not good”: “It is not good that man should be alone.” God was not alone. God had never been alone. Even before creation when there was only God alone, God was not alone, but in the relationships of the Triune Godhead He enjoyed the fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit. There was the fellowship of the divine Persons, a fellowship perfectly suited to deepest communion with one another. And in this relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit there was perfect love, perfectly expressed, perfectly received, perfectly requited, and perfectly enjoyed. There was fellowship in the deepest sense of the term. And now God wanted his new image-bearer to have this joy of companionship and fellowship also.

This is fascinating in one respect because Adam already enjoyed fellowship with God. He was not “alone” in an absolute sense. Enjoying the fellowship of God what more could he ever want? Yes, but there was no one on his own level, no one with whom he could enjoy a fellowship common to God’s image-bearing creatures. He was alone. God brought to him all the animals, and Adam named each of them, but still there was no one with whom Adam could have deep fellowship on his level. And so finally God makes the woman and brings her to the man. And so Adam exclaims, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen. 2:23). Here at last was one perfectly suited to him, and he was no longer alone.

And a beautiful picture of God it is — carefully and with concern providing for his creature’s happiness and deepest needs. Each, the man and the woman, perfectly suited to the other — body and soul. And so Adam delighted in that which God graciously provided for him. Now, at last, he had a companion.

We might pause here to point out that despite the male tendency this side of the fall to assert self-independence, the truth is that every man needs a woman. There are exceptions, of course, but this is indisputably the universal norm. But more to our point here — isn’t it just like God to care so for his creatures? Here at the very outset we have a picture of God that remains true throughout human history. In common grace and in special grace — “providence,” we call it — God cares for us.

Fred G. Zaspel is a pastor at Reformed Baptist Church in Franconia, PA, and Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale, PA.