By Mike Kibbe
The Goodness of Creation
Genesis 2
There’s a word that we tend to use when talking about the creation narrative that actually isn’t in the first two chapters of Genesis. It’s the word “perfect.” Have you ever summarized the beginning of the biblical story like this? “God made everything perfect in the beginning, and then in Genesis 3 we sinned and messed it all up.” There is some truth to that way of summarizing the beginning of the biblical story. The problem is that we’re using the word “perfect” to describe the moral state of things when the word “perfect” isn’t actually in the creation narratives. That’s simply because Genesis 1–2 isn’t really about the moral state of things.
In biblical terms, “perfect” sometimes means “morally flawless,” but more often means “complete,” “done,” and “no more work left to do.” For instance, the author of the book of Hebrews says that Jesus was “made perfect” by the things he suffered (5:9). Surely that doesn’t mean he was perfected morally. It means that he did the whole job he was given to do; he finished the work—it’s the same root language in Greek as when Jesus is on the cross and says, “it is finished.” It’s done. That’s what “perfect” means in the biblical story.
So why doesn’t Genesis 1–2 call creation “perfect”? Because it wasn’t. Creation, as God first spoke it into existence, wasn’t perfect. We know the word that appears all over the first chapter to describe what it was. It was good. “Good” isn’t the same thing as “perfect.” “Perfect” means “all the work is done.” “Good” means “all the work can be done.” Think of it this way: a hammer is good if it can pound nails. A car is good if it can get you from point A to point B. A barista is good if they can make an excellent mocha latte. That’s what “good” means in Genesis 1: everything God made can do what God made it to do. The plants are good because they can produce fruit. It’s not that they’ve alreadyproduced all the fruit they’re going to produce. It’s that they can produce the fruit that God designed them to produce.
The creation story in Genesis 1 climaxes with the creation of humanity—men and women made in God’s image. And that begs the question: what makes humanity, as God originally created us, good? Not perfect. Good. Well, if goodness is a function of what something has been designed to do, then figuring out what makes us good requires us to figure out what God made us to do. According to Genesis 1:26–28, God created humanity first to exercise authority in the world as his representatives and second to have kids so they can go and do likewise. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (v. 28). If we can do that, we’re good.
But what exactly does it mean to “subdue”—to rule, to exercise authority, to have dominion—whatever your Bible translation says—the earth? That sounds like it covers a lot of ground, and it would be nice to get some more specificity. And fortunately, that specificity is precisely what we get in Genesis 2. First, God holds off on moving the plant-life project forward until there are some humans to work the ground (Genesis 2:5). Second, God kick-starts a garden and then puts the man into it so he can work it (v. 15). So there it is: God created us to work.
Maybe you’re thinking, “That’s the worst news ever. God created us to work? That’s it? I get up, go to my 9-5, pray for Friday night to get here quickly, watch a TV show over the weekend, and somehow do it all over again on Monday—that’s the meaning of life?”
Not at all! If we hear, “God created us to work,” and think, “God created us to make money and quite possibly be miserable in the process,” we need to think again. Because making money and maybe hating every minute of it isn’t God’s definition of work.
Remember Genesis 1—God created everything good, which means it can do what he made it to do. That means creation is supposed to move, change, and grow. But whose job is it to make sure that this growth, this movement, happens along the trajectories that God intends? That’s Genesis 2. That’s humanity’s original work. Humanity’s original work wasn’t back-breaking or spirit-breaking labor; it was—and still is—moving creation in the ways God designed it to move. Work is not about money. Work is not about enduring the drudgery so we can get to the weekend. Work is not even about personal fulfillment. Work is God’s gracious invitation to participate with him in moving the rest of his creation in the direction he designed it to go.
Even if work is a partnership with our loving Father, rather than meaningless toil just to pay the mortgage and go on vacation once in a while, it’s still work. It’s still hard. We’re supposed to facilitate creation moving in a certain direction, but what about when creation doesn’t want to go in that direction? When our bodies grow old and don’t work like they used to. When the ground kicks back against our invitation to produce something. When our kids don’t want to do what we know they need to do. When then?
Part of the solution is to push back against the brokenness of our fallen world. Part of it is to confess that we are dust. And part of it is to look ahead to bodily resurrection and the new creation when work will once again work.
