Training · The 1689 Baptist Confession
Creation
That God made everything out of nothing, made people in his image, and made it all good.
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Card 1 of 7
Who created the world?
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - all three, not the Father alone.
The point is not decorative. If creation is the work of the one God, and the Son and the Spirit are involved in it, then they are on the creator's side of the line rather than among the things made. It quietly reinforces what has already been said about God being one.
Everything that exists came into being through him. Not a single thing was made without him.
John 1:3Confession 4.1
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Card 2 of 7
How long did creation take, and how did it come out?
In the space of six days, out of nothing, and all of it very good.
Out of nothing rules out God shaping material that was already lying about, which would have made matter as old as he is. Very good rules out anything being defective from the start, and what follows needs that: whatever went wrong later was not built in.
God looked over everything he had made, and he saw that it was all really good. Evening came, then morning - the sixth day was done.
Genesis 1:31Confession 4.1
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Card 3 of 7
What was God's reason for creating?
To display the glory of his eternal power, wisdom and goodness.
Set beside the claim that God needs nothing from anyone, this rules out creation as something God did to meet a need. It is the overflow of what he already is, not the filling of a gap.
Confession 4.1
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Card 4 of 7
Did God have to make anything?
No. Chapter two has already said he has all life, glory, goodness and blessedness in himself; chapter four says it pleased him to create. The world is something God chose, not something he needed.
Put the two claims together and the point is unavoidable. A God who needed a world would be improved by having one, and it has already been denied that anything can add to him. So creation is not the solution to a problem God had.
Confession 4.1
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Card 5 of 7
What were the first people made with?
Reasonable and immortal souls, and knowledge, righteousness and true holiness after God's image - with the law of God written in their hearts and the power to keep it.
The last part is the one usually missed. They did not start neutral and untested. They began able to do what was asked of them, which is what makes the fall a genuine loss rather than a failure to achieve something they never had.
So God created people to be like himself. He made them male and female, reflecting his own image.
Genesis 1:27Confession 4.2
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Card 6 of 7
If Adam and Eve were able to keep God's law, how could they fall?
They were left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.
Able to stand and able to fall, both at once. The confession will not say they were made defective, and it will not say they were made incapable of going wrong. It says they were made free, and that freedom included the possibility they used.
Here's what I did find: God made people upright, but they've gone looking for all kinds of schemes.
Ecclesiastes 7:29Confession 4.2
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Card 7 of 7
Besides the law written on their hearts, what were Adam and Eve given?
One command, about one tree - and while they kept it they were happy in communion with God and had authority over the creatures.
The confession is following Genesis 2 closely. The single prohibition is not an arbitrary trap; it is the one visible point at which the relationship could be either trusted or disputed.
Confession 4.3