From Dean Ohlman on March 27, 2011

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15-17).

In an earlier post I listed the aspects of the creation that help us see God’s invisible attributes of “eternal power” and “divinity” (that which compels us to worship) according to Romans 1:20. That list now totals 34! Below are two more aspects that can provide evidence of a Creator for those who have the eyes to see:

Sabbath peace and revitalizing stillness.
The biblical creation story will ever call to our attention the necessity of both activity and rest in the creative process. Our Creator worked for six days and rested on the seventh and then made this a pattern for human behavior. The same principle, however, also shows itself all around us in the natural world. Most complex and advanced creatures remain healthy in part by balancing activity with rest. Their stillness revitalizes their capacity to do the work the Creator has given them.

Most Christians hold that the legal and ritualistic keeping of the Sabbath is no longer required of believers in the new dispensation of grace. But Paul and the other writers of the New Testament never questioned the importance of Sabbath keeping for the benefit of a person’s soul and body—and for the benefit of the earth. It is in part because of unrelenting human pressure on the natural world that both human beings and the creation are in poor health physically and spiritually. In fact, the Bible asserts that because the children of Israel did not allow the land to keep its Sabbath for seventy years, they would go into foreign captivity for seventy years (2 Chron. 36). In the wild places we learn that our bodies and souls need rest, peace, and stillness in order for us to remain whole and healthy. Only when we have learned to truly rest do we learn to worship.

Constant recreation.
One of the most significant aspects of the wild is that when we enter it, we come nearest to being present at the Creation. In the wild God’s work is still going on. Christian philosopher Wolfhart Pannenberg exclaims, “The creation does not remain what it was at its point of origin. It changes. It develops. New forms appear. New things happen. There is a sense in which one can say that creation ex nihilo [out of nothing] is complemented ex continua, continuing creation. . . . The faithfulness of the creating God continues to conserve the existence of this world while drawing it forward toward a new and transformed state of existence.” God the Father rested from the original work of creation, but we can praise Him that in God the Son He still works in the process of its continuation and its redemption:

[The Father] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. (Col 1:13-20 NKJV)

How thrilling it is to contemplate in the unspoiled regions the divine Trinity’s ultimate purpose for us—to be looking for and working in the power of God the Holy Spirit toward the time when God the Son will come and reconcile all things to God the Father.