“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth… 

One of the things that confirms human beings are made in God’s image is their ability to create.  It distinguishes us from the animal kingdom.  True, we don’t create like God does, but we create nonetheless.  I remember watching a news report years ago when several people got some chimpanzees together, gave them paintbrushes, paints and newly framed canvases and allowed them to “paint”.  Naturally, the chimps appeared to have some fun, stroking colors on the canvas, but we could hardly call it “painting”.  Next, the project sponsors framed the “paintings” and set them up in an art exhibit at a renowned gallery in Paris.  They then asked some local art critics to come to a “private preview” of the collection of new “art”.  They showed up and reviewed the displays, some of them giving high marks for originality, composition, style and other aspects.  Then the sponsors sat the critics down and told them the truth: they were done by monkeys!  The result was predictable.  Most were indignant.  Some couldn’t believe it.  Still others defended their evaluations, calling the monkeys exceptionally creative artists!  Boy, how far can denial go?

Animals don’t create — whether it’s art, music, sculpting, writing, etc. — precisely because they don’t have personality.  According to Genesis 1:1, personality is a prerequisite for creativity.  If anyone from any country wants to know the origin or source of a painting, they will typically ask, who painted this?  No one in his/her right mind asks, what painted this?  That’s because what’s don’t paint; who’s do.  So when Genesis 1:1 says God created, we’re talking about a who, a personal, God.  This not only explains why chimps don’t paint, it also explains the reactions of the art critics who got fooled big time.

Our description of God in Isaiah 65:17 says that he “will create new heavens and a new earth”.  What did it take for God to create the first heavens and first earth in the first place?  For one, it took more knowledge, more smarts, more intelligence than we know.  In fact, all of man’s collective intelligence down through the ages doesn’t hold a thimbleful compared to God’s.  But let’s say that man was pretty smart and could at least come up with a plan or a blueprint: make the universe, space and all kinds of matter.  We’d need living and non-living matter, of course, in abundant variety.  Now, how do we pull that off?  How do we make it happen?  Anybody got enough power to fulfill the plan?  How much power does it take to first make matter, and then make it alive?  Are you seeing how impossible this is for us?

“New” heavens and “new” earth suggests the first heavens and earth are “old”.  Well, that’s true: man’s sin corrupted what God made “good” (Genesis 1:31).  What was beautiful became hopelessly ruined and marred.  Romans 8:19-20 says, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed [as fully redeemed in the future].  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God”.  This says that God’s motive for cursing the creation (Genesis 3) in response to man’s sin was to create a sense of frustration that would cause man to desire a solution, a cure, a liberation from the bondage of decay and deterioration.

It’s not that way with the Old and New Testaments.  Nothing ruined the Old Testament, but it was “powerless” and “weakened” (Romans 8:3) because it required the “flesh” (see NIV footnote), or man’s own fallen efforts apart from God, to fulfill it.  The New Testament came after the Old to replace a weaker covenant.   However, Jesus fulfilled it first, showing that a new one would be coming (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Back to the first creation: since God is good, he didn’t want to leave things broken and messed up.  “Old” in this case means bad, something that needs to be destroyed or discarded.  So he sent Jesus to make a new heavens and new earth possible, which is what the cross is all about.  Once the temple’s curtain — separating God’s presence in the Holy of Holies from man — was torn in two (Matthew 27:51), it demonstrated that relationship with God was once again possible, now within reach through Christ’s death and resurrection.  Trusting him puts all believers on the fast track for new heavens and a new earth that will last forever (Revelation 21:1).  The last 2 chapters of the Bible describe the wonder of that future reality.

God doesn’t create like monkeys or humans.  Do your creative pursuits honor the Creator?