The Creator-Creature Distinction

A few days ago, my wife and I wanted to do a new activity together. She enjoys painting along with tutorial videos online, and so we found canvases and paint to do this together. The tutorial started at the top and worked its way down. We colored the sky, fashioned a mountain backdrop, and surrounded a cabin with meadow and trees. I thought my painting was the real
deal. I then got to the long grass that was meant to encompass a winding road leading past the cabin in the picture. At this point my painting fell apart, and I was forced to acknowledge that imitating the YouTube tutorial would not make me the next da Vinci. Still, it was a worthwhile activity that resulted in laughing at mistakes, surprising ourselves with the beauty that even we could imitate, and finding yet another activity in which the wife is more adept than this husband.
Perhaps this suspect painting, joined with my own personal study as of late(memorization in Romans, devotions in Job, even a new Genesis sermon series in church)brought some of these questions to mind. Is God sovereign? Am I sovereign? What does Sovereign mean? If God is or does this, then why is God or does God do this? Why does God allow… fill in the blank. Why does God punish this person and bless this person. Why did I try to segue from that story to these questions? I don’t know. These answers were not in the YouTube painting, I can tell you that. Are these answers even in the Bible? What does it mean if God is the Creator, and I am just a creature in His creation? What does such a relationship demand of the creature? Is it good? Bad? Can I understand it? Am I supposed to understand it? If I understand the relationship of the Creator to His creation, how does my perspective, attitude, or doctrine change if at all?
“In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1). It would seem obvious enough for the Bible to start at the narrative’s beginning, of course. It is storytelling 101. What would we do without the narrative of creation, Genesis, or the entire Old Testament to point us to the Savior of the New Testament? What about the doctrine of creation, Genesis, and the entire Old Testament. We
would be remiss if we somehow separated the doctrine from the narrative. This brings us to the Creator-creature distinction. The list of questions above is a big one. I believe they are important and worthwhile to ask. For the believer, how does he reconcile what he knows and does with what the Bible says. For the unbeliever, how does he reconcile his very existence?
When God permitted the devil to put Job through the veritable “ringer,” Job was left on the other side questioning God’s exercise of justice in His creation. Why would the righteous man that he was be subjected to torment and loss? God himself in His dialogue with Satan determined Job to be “blameless and upright” (Job 1:8). Job’s friends were sure of the reason. If
Job must suffer, Job must have sinned. I asked the question earlier, if God is or does this, then why is God or does God do this? Similarly, Job’s friends addressed the issue as a mathematical problem. It is called an if-then statement. I’ll let you figure out why. “If Todd has three marbles and Sam gives Todd five marbles, then Todd now has eight total.” “If dad and mom are nice and I am their son, then I am also nice.” I have all too often proven the latter statement to be questionable. In any case it is cause and effect. Action and reaction. We think this way and not just because Mr. Newton says we should. His friends were quick to presume upon the divine motivation of God because of Job’s circumstances. Is this logic incorrect? After all, Genesis says God created us, the world, and everything in the world. The creation was good even!
Mathematical logic itself is an intricate expression of God’s order and design. Yet mathematics, or any field of study, does not wholly define the nature of God. Neither is the Creator bound by the laws of his creation. Creation for its part, does not define the limits of the Creator, rather it reveals a glimpse into the glory of the Creator. “His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the
things that have been made” (Romans 1:20). “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). When God answered Job, He did not address the reason for Jobs suffering. Rather, Job’s perspective was radically transformed from unjustly offended, to humbly submitted. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it”? (Job 38:4-5). God showed Job the vastness and fine detail of His creation and that “All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16b-17). Job responded in rightful acknowledgment – “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). How do I, the creature, then
respond to the purpose of the Creator?
Job responded to nothing less than a sovereign God. It would seem that neither should I. But if I was created by Him and for Him, how then do I approach the circumstances or doctrines that aren’t palatable to my desires or reconcilable with my knowledge? As Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray, He said to say, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10). This must be my response. “Your will be done, not mine.” The Creator could not be subject to the creature. It can’t make sense. Of course the Creator does with His creatures what He chooses. Paul said the same in Romans chapter 9. Job himself said “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21b). Isaiah makes the Creator creature distinction even more stark – “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9) – an extreme contrast. Why then does it seem such a hurdle to do as Job ultimately did – distinguish the eternal power of the Creator from the frailty of man, the creature?
Sin is the easy answer, but what is it about our sinful desires that prevents acknowledging the seemingly obvious. We could trace this back to the original sin. Adam and Eve chose to believe the serpent’s lie – “You can become like God.” To press on through the Bible’s narrative reveals more of the creature’s conceited rebellion. Man, desiring power, recognition, prestige,
status, riches, an array of snares rooted in pride. Douglas Kelly wrote, “Fallen human beings ever since have sought to elevate themselves to the divine heights by denying both God's creative authority over them and His Word to them, in hopes of setting up their own independent program of good and evil.”[i] This doesn’t work for the Christian – independence from God. As Job himself demonstrated, the deeper the Christian knows the Creator, the more he sees his need to depend
on the Creator. Yet the Christian can recognize this “independent program” as a defining characteristic of the unrighteous. Back to Romans chapter 1, Paul provides some context, describing this character of the unrighteous. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen”
(Romans 1:25). It is a devastating exchange, but one that sin nature necessitates. It is a requirement for the unregenerate mind. Humility for pride. Glory for wrath. Truth for falsehood. Good for evil. Creator for creature. But what is the hallmark of the Christian?
Paul told the Ephesians to “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1). Does all of creation imitate God? I should say not. We have seen that all of creation declares the glory of God, but only a creature created in the image of the Creator can imitate the Creator. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). This verse reveals a beautiful picture of relation, but there is also a natural expectation within the relation – man imitating God, the Creator. To walk in love (Ephesians 5:2), to put on the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5-8), to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15), to suffer well (1 Peter ch3:13-ch4:2, Phil 1:12-14, Phil 1:29). Holy imitation for the Christian does not result from equality with the Creator but from surrender to the Creator. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Instead of “spiritual worship,” other translations say, “reasonable service.” It must be reasonable because the Creator created all for his glory (Ephesians 1:6, 1:11-12, Colossians 1:16). In other words, “Your will be done” – a far cry from the sinner’s exchange. If the Biblical lens the child of God must wear demands the creature surrender to the Creator, every aspect of my worship must be transformed as Job’s was – unjustly offended to humbly submitted. Job didn’t understand all of God’s purposes, but he knew God’s purposes would be fulfilled. He knew that the God of creation was absolutely trustworthy and altogether glorious.
We find all manner of ways to question God, His authority, and His will. This is time and energy meant to be spent worshiping the splendor of His glory. We are to “Do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). This is not to say the doctrine of Scripture is somehow to be ignored. Rather as we seek to “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), our devotion to the Gospel must be as a creature surrendered to the Creator. A Christian does not establish his own interpretation of Scripture or exchange its words for his own. The exchange was to be left behind with the old man (Ephesians 4:22, 1 Peter 4:3). Rather the authority of the Bible interprets itself. The veracity of God’s word is self-evident. The Christian believes the Bible, not because the doctrine is compatible with his lowly intellect, or because the context is unoffensive, or because the narrative appeases his emotions; rather he believes because it is the Creator’s
rightful demand of His creation. Yet it is a creation that has “despised and rejected” His name (Isaiah 53:3). Therefore, it could only be perfect love that would cause the Creator to save a rebellious creation. This is a love that causes us to transform our accusations into worship. Interrogation becomes thanksgiving. The infinite chasm that distinguishes the wonder of the Creator from His creation, serves to glorify the Creator. It is glory every Christian ultimately will ascribe to Him (Philippians 2:9-11). “In the beginning God…” It is all for His glory, according to His will, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1). And it is grace that the sinner does not deserve. Paul often referred to himself as “the servant of the Lord” or as a “prisoner of the Lord.” Paul modeled what is true for every Christian. There is no more wonderful truth than to
be a creation surrendered to the Creator who loves him.

[i] Kelly, Douglas. “Creator and Creature.” Ligonier Ministries, September 25, 2014. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/creator-and-creature.