Creation
Discipline Overview
Thematic article based on the works listed below by E.W. Bullinger, George Warnock, Watchman Nee & Witness Lee, C. and A. Noordzij, and Stephen E. Jones.
Primary sources: Number in Scripture · Evening and Morning · Seven Lamps of Fire · The All-inclusive Christ (Nee/Lee) · The Economy of God (Nee/Lee) · Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 1–3 (Nee/Lee) · The Spiritual Man (Nee) · The Glorious Church (Nee) · Moses and the Way to Sonship (Noordzij) · Creation’s Jubilee · Secrets of Time · The Biblical Meaning of Numbers
Source abbreviations: NIS = Number in Scripture (Bullinger) · EaM = Evening and Morning (Warnock) · SLoF = Seven Lamps of Fire (Warnock) · AIC = The All-inclusive Christ (Nee/Lee) · EoG = The Economy of God (Nee/Lee) · BEC1 = Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 1 (Nee/Lee) · BEC3 = Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 3 (Nee/Lee) · SM = The Spiritual Man (Nee) · GC = The Glorious Church (Nee) · Moses = Moses and the Way to Sonship (Noordzij) · CJ = Creation’s Jubilee (Jones) · SoT = Secrets of Time (Jones) · BMN = The Biblical Meaning of Numbers (Jones)
The Question of Creation and What Is at Stake
The doctrine of creation is not primarily a doctrine about the past. Rightly understood, it is a doctrine about purpose: why there is something rather than nothing, and where that something is heading. In reflecting on origin and destination, the authors in this corpus ask a twofold question: where does creation come from, and where is it going? The answer reached by very different paths points in one direction. Creation is purposeful. Its telos is not a dead endpoint but a living consummation — the liberation of the whole creation “into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21) [Moses; CJ; SLoF].
That this goal exists and what it entails is already visible in the very structure of creation. Number, season, cycle, and the architecture of matter — all point to a Designer who not only creates but also governs, sustains, and leads toward a definitive end [NIS; EaM]. This providence is not arbitrary; it is the execution of a law embedded in creation from the beginning. And that law — the Jubilee as its deepest principle — ultimately guarantees the restoration of everything that was lost in the course of history [CJ].
The tension in this story is the theodicy. Creation groans (Rom. 8:22). Decay, suffering, war, and death are the facts against which the doctrine of creation must hold its ground. The authors in this corpus do not evade that tension. They interpret it as intentional and temporary: a dissonance that calls for resolution, a winter that prepares summer fruitfulness, a valley between two mountain peaks [EaM; CJ; Moses]. Evil is not the final word; it is the penultimate — a necessary moment in a story that ends with restoration.
Origin and Nature of Creation
Creatio ex nihilo and Its Reach
The classical Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing — creatio ex nihilo — is not contested in this corpus, but neither is it treated as the principal point of emphasis. That heaven and earth are God’s property “by right of creation” (Gen. 1:1) is the legal foundation of the cosmic Jubilee law: no one can permanently alienate themselves from their Creator, because they belong to him by the simple fact of their existence [CJ]:
“God owns it by right of creation (Gen. 1:1). Thus, all land sales were temporary. […] No man has the authority to sell himself permanently as a slave to sin. Even if he wanted to do so, he has no right to do this, because he does not create or own himself.”
— Creation’s Jubilee, ch. 7
Here creatio ex nihilo is not a statement about the act of creation but an ontological premise about ownership: the Creator owns his creation, and that ownership right does not expire. This gives the doctrine of the beginning a direct connection to the doctrine of the end: what God created returns to him.
Restorative Creation: Genesis 1 as God’s Intervention in Chaos
A different accent falls on the nature of the creative act itself. Gen. 1:1-2 describes not merely an originating deed but a restorative movement: the earth was in chaos, and God’s creative work is first and foremost the restoration of that chaos [AIC]:
“What is the purpose of God’s creation according to the first chapter of Genesis? It is nothing other than the restoration of the land. God wanted to restore the land and to do something on it. […] So God came in to work; God began to restore the earth.”
— The All-inclusive Christ, ch. 1
This is no formal denial of creation ex nihilo — it concerns God’s action on the chaotic already-existing earth of verse 2. But the emphasis lies on the restoration motif already present at the beginning. Creation and restoration are not two separate moments but two facets of the same divine action.
Number as Evidence of Design
Another path runs through the very structure of creation itself. Its numbers, its periodicity, its harmonic ratios demonstrate that the Creator acted consciously and with design [NIS]. Numbers are then not abstract mathematical quantities but expressions of God’s perfect nature in creation [NIS]:
“There can be no works or words without number. […] All His works were (and are) done in the right manner, at the right time, in the right order, and in the right number.”
— Number in Scripture, Part I, Ch. I
The 12 signs of the Zodiac (the number 12 as the number of governmental perfection), the periodicity of chemical elements, the harmonic ratios in music (2:1, 3:2, 5:4) — all these patterns speak one language, uttered by one Designer [NIS]. Law in nature is not an autonomous force but “God in action”; God is not only Lawgiver but active Sustainer of what he has established [NIS]. This is the deepest ground of providence: creation bears its Maker’s signature on every page.
The Purpose of Creation
Man as Vessel: The Container Concept
The most fully developed answer to the question of creation’s purpose holds that God did not create man for his own beauty or capacities, but as a container — a vessel that would hold God himself as its content [EoG]:
“For what purpose did God create man? Solely that man might be His container. […] Man was purposely made to contain God. If we do not contain God and do not know God as our content, we are a meaningless contradiction.”
— The Economy of God, ch. 5
The term container is here not a metaphor but a theological concept [EoG]: the threefold constitution of man — spirit, soul, body (1 Thess. 5:23) — is a creation structure precisely fitted to creation’s purpose. The body perceives material reality; the soul the psychological; the spirit, the innermost part, is designed to contact God himself (John 4:24) [BEC1; SM]. The human spirit is God’s breath blown into the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7) — of divine origin, yet not God’s own life. The latter is received only at regeneration, typified by the tree of life [SM]:
“The breath of life became the spirit of man; that is, the life principle in him. […] What we receive at new birth is God’s own life, symbolized by the tree of life.”
— The Spiritual Man, Part I, Ch. 1
Creation and regeneration are thus two distinct but related divine acts: creation brings the vessel into existence; regeneration fills it with God’s life. Creation’s purpose can only be reached when both acts are complete.
Man as Ruler: Dominion Mandate and Cosmic Context
A second dimension of creation’s purpose is sovereignty. God created man with a dominion mandate (Gen. 1:26-28) — a calling to govern the earth as God’s representative [GC; BMN]. This mandate can be connected to the number 22 and to the ideal of sonship: the fruitfulness mandate of Gen. 1:28 is then the numerical code of humanity’s destiny as the sons of God [BMN].
This sovereignty further takes on a cosmic context. Satan’s rebellion prior to creation compelled God to reclaim his authority from Satan and place it in human hands [GC]:
“God withdrew His authority from the enemy and placed it in the hands of man. The reason God created man was that man should reign in place of Satan.”
— The Glorious Church, Ch. 1
Man is thus not merely a morally responsible creature but a cosmic ruler — a successor in a universal conflict. And standing over both dimensions is the key insight that Adam is not the prototype of Christ, but Christ is the prototype of Adam:
“Adam was made after the image of the Lord Jesus. Adam did not precede the Lord Jesus; the Lord Jesus preceded him.”
— The Glorious Church, Ch. 1
Creation and redemption are here not two separate plans — the first failed, the second a corrective intervention — but one continuous movement. Redemption restores what creation initiated; creation is the foreshadowing of what redemption completes [GC].
The Two Trees: The Creation Pattern as Twofold Way
At the heart of creation — the Garden of Eden — God placed two trees as a twofold way for humanity (Gen. 2:9). These two trees can be read as the two fundamental principles by which man can live: life versus the knowledge of good and evil [BEC3]:
“God uses two trees to tell us a parable. […] They show us that man has two kinds of food and can live either by life, or by the knowledge of good and evil.”
— Basic Elements of Christian Life, Vol. 3, Ch. 1
The standard of the tree of life is higher than the standard of good and evil: “Christians must not only refuse the evil; they must even refuse the good. There is a standard higher than the standard of good; it is the standard of life” [BEC3]. The two trees are thus a creation-theological argument: from the very beginning, humanity’s destiny is to live by God’s own life, not by its own judgment about good and evil. The fall is the choice for the wrong tree — structurally a reversal of the order God intended at creation.
Providence: God’s Active Sustaining of Creation
Seasons, Cycles, and God’s Faithfulness
The providence of God — his active sustaining and governing of creation — is central in this corpus [EaM]. Creation is then not an autonomous mechanism but a continuous manifestation of God’s Word [EaM]:
“After all, we must expect this to be so, for Nature is but a manifestation of the Word of God. There was a time when men had no Word but the Word of Nature, and it was such a clear revelation of the mind and character of God that the apostle was able to say, ‘The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.‘”
— Evening and Morning, Ch. 1 (Rom. 1:20)
God’s sustaining works through seasons and cycles. Gen. 8:22 — “while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease” — is not a description but a promise: God guarantees the continuity of creation’s rhythm as an expression of his faithfulness [EaM]. Every winter is a promise of spring. Every night is a promise of morning. The evening-and-morning pattern of Gen. 1 — “and there was evening and there was morning” — stands as a theological principle: God always works through darkness toward light, through death toward resurrection [EaM]:
“God’s order is first darkness, then light. First chaos, then order. First barrenness, then fruitfulness. First weakness, then power. First death, then life.”
— Evening and Morning, Ch. 4
Law in Nature as God in Action
Numerological theology fills this out. Law in nature is not a self-subsisting force — it “has no independent existence; it possesses no power” — but is God actively governing his creation [NIS]:
“What we mean when we speak of law in nature is simply this: God in action; God who not only gives or makes laws, but executes and maintains them.”
— Number in Scripture, Part I, Ch. I
The patterns in the heavens (12 signs, 360 degrees), in chemistry (periodic law), in music (harmonic ratios) — all are expressions of God’s uninterrupted action. This action reaches into chronology as well: God governs the history of creation through precise time patterns — Jubilee years, sabbatical years, the great 6,000-year pattern — and can even make history “early” when he wishes to favor the elect (Matt. 24:22) [SoT]. Sovereignty over creation is sovereignty over time.
Theodicy: The Cosmic Tension
The Intentional Dissonance
The sharpest formulation of the theodicy in this corpus refuses to exempt God from responsibility for suffering in creation [CJ]. God is “the direct cause of man’s weak (mortal) condition and the indirect cause of his personal sins” [CJ]. The reason: God created man with the potential for sin, gave him the opportunity for sin, and allowed the tempter to do his work [CJ]:
“Paul makes it clear that the creation had no choice in being subjected to ‘futility’ and to ‘slavery to corruption.’ It was done by the sovereign will of God alone.”
— Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 13 (Rom. 8:19-22)
For this the term “temporary injustice” serves: God’s imputation of Adam’s sin to the whole creation seems to violate his own law (Deut. 24:16; Ezek. 18:20 forbid punishment on the basis of another’s guilt). But this tension is intentional — a musical dissonance that calls for resolution [CJ]:
“Tension always demands a resolution. In music there are certain chords which contain conflicting or discordant notes. These chords set up an emotional tension until the chord is resolved. […] God, too, has employed this technique in the music of the spheres.”
— Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 13
Three Torah Analogies for God’s Liability
The legal resolution of the theodicy proceeds through three analogies from the Torah [CJ]. In Ex. 21:33-34 the owner is liable if his uncovered pit kills an ox. God dug the pit (he created the occasion for Adam’s sin) but left it uncovered — and is therefore legally liable. In Ex. 22:5, whoever allows his cattle to graze in another’s field must give the best of his own field as compensation: God let the serpent graze in Adam’s field and gave his best (Jesus) as restitution [CJ]. In Deut. 22:8, whoever builds a house must erect a parapet; God left the parapet off and bore the legal consequence [CJ].
Together these three analogies form one theodicy structure: God is not guilty in a moral sense, but he is legally liable under his own law. He resolves that liability by offering Jesus as restitution — thereby definitively resolving creation’s tension and satisfying the law’s demand at the great Jubilee [CJ].
A different path resolves the theodicy typologically. The world’s misery (wars, disasters, famine) is the present moment in the story of Israel in Egypt — a period of oppressive bondage while God is preparing his deliverers [Moses]. The solution is not an analytical answer but a redemptive-historical movement: the oppression lasts as long as necessary; the Moses-type is being prepared; then the liberation comes.
Creation and Ecology: The Groaning of Creation
Romans 8 as the Core of Creation Theology
One biblical passage recurs in nearly all the dossiers: Rom. 8:19-22. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” — this verse is the key to understanding creation’s purpose [Moses]:
“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Rom. 8:22). With eager longing it waits for the revealing of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19).”
— Moses and the Way to Sonship, Introduction
Creation groans not because of indifference or chance but because of the bondage to decay to which it was subjected (v. 20) — subjected by God himself, not voluntarily. This coheres with Jones’ claim that the subjection is sovereignly divine: creation was helpless, it had no choice [CJ]. And precisely for this reason its liberation is an obligation that God has taken upon himself.
That liberation runs through the sons of God. Creation waits for the sons of God as its deliverers — they are the instrument through which the liberation of the whole creation is accomplished [Moses]:
“The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21). […] They bind no one to themselves, but lead all ‘to the freedom of the children of God.‘”
— Moses and the Way to Sonship, sections on ministry and sonship
This liberation is bound up with the end-time outpouring of the Spirit. The maturing of the church toward the Feast of Tabernacles has cosmic consequences: creation does not liberate itself along political or technological lines but through the revelation of a matured body of the sons of God in whom the fullness of Christ has taken shape [SLoF]:
“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.”
— Seven Lamps of Fire (Rom. 8:19)
The prophecy of Joel 2:22 — “Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit” — can be read as creation-cosmic transformation: the liberation of creation from the violence of decay is visible in the fruitfulness that returns [SLoF].
Stewardship and the Creation Mandate
The stewardship of man over creation is grounded in the dominion mandate of Gen. 1:26-28. Man is called to rule the earth as God’s representative — not as owner but as steward [GC; BMN]. The fruitfulness mandate (“be fruitful and multiply”) is bound up with the concept of sonship: fruitfulness and sovereignty are not two separate commands but two dimensions of one calling [BMN]. And that calling reaches its eschatological consummation: the revelation of the sons of God is simultaneously the liberation of creation. Caring for creation and liberating creation cannot be separated.
New Creation: Continuity and Restorative Renewal
Transformative Restoration, Not Replacement
The question of whether the new creation is a replacement of the present one — radical discontinuity — or a transformative restoration is answered consistently in this corpus: it is restoration. The Jubilee law grounds this: what God created returns to its original Owner, not through destruction but through liberation [CJ]:
“This is the truly exalted destiny of the earth. When all men have received Christ as Redeemer and King, Jesus will present a completed and full Kingdom to His Father. This is the Jubilee of Creation.”
— Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 5
Redemption restores what creation initiated [GC]:
“The place of redemption cannot be higher than that of creation. What is redemption? Redemption restores what God did not obtain in creation. […] God achieves through redemption His purpose in creation.”
— The Glorious Church, Ch. 1
This excludes any notion of a plan B. God does not introduce a fundamentally new plan in response to the fall. Creation is laden with God’s eternal purpose; redemption is the restoration of that purpose, not its correction.
Seasons as Types of the New Creation
The creation cycle itself serves as a type of the new creation. The evening-and-morning pattern of Gen. 1 is not only past but future in its working: with every sunrise there is “a new thing done in the earth,” a new measure of growth [EaM]. The General Sherman Sequoia, which Abraham saw as a young sapling and which still stands, is the image of creation growing through winter and summer toward full maturity [EaM]. The new creation is the fully grown creation — the same tree, but come to its complete stature.
Numerical theology gives this a structural framework: the number 8 is the number of new beginning and new creation [BMN]. Christ rose on the eighth day — the day after the seventh, lying outside the weekly cycle — as the wave-sheaf offering and as the commencement of the new creation order. The completion of creation (number 7, perfection) flows into new creation (number 8, new beginning) [BMN]. The Sabbath marks completion; the eighth day opens toward an order that lies outside all human precedent.
Placement of Apokatastasis: Creation, Restoration, and the Purpose of All Things
The thread that runs through every reading of the creation doctrine in this corpus is the apokatastasis — the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21). It is not an appendix to creation doctrine; it is its teleological core. Creation is good and purposeful; its purpose was not voided at the fall but redirected toward restoration; restoration completes what creation began.
The argument proceeds along two lines that converge here.
The line of ownership and law. God created all things; therefore he owns all things; therefore all things return to him. The Jubilee is the legal expression of this ontological fact: in the great Jubilee of Creation all debts are paid, all slaves are freed, all alienated land is returned [CJ]:
“What a glorious promise! The Jubilee is the law of grace. No matter how far a man goes into debt, the Jubilee will set him free. Even if no kinsman redeems him, there is a day coming when he will be set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”
— Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 7 (Lev. 25:54; Rom. 8:21)
The line of creation’s purpose and the sons of God. Creation groans and waits. It does not wait for a replacement but for liberation. That liberation is the work of the revealed sons of God — those who through God’s grace have matured to the likeness of Christ and who, as his instruments, lead creation out of its bondage [Moses; SLoF; CJ]. Creation’s purpose — a creation that mirrors God in full freedom — is the ultimate goal of this redemptive-historical process.
The apokatastasis is thus not a sentimental optimism about human nature but the theological consequence of two irrefutable premises: God is Creator (ownership right), and God is good (redemptive intent). Whoever believes that God created everything also believes that everything ultimately returns to him. Whoever believes that God desires all people to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4) also believes that his creation purpose does not end in the destruction of the majority of his creation.
The new creation is the completed original creation: the same, but cleansed, glorified, and fully permeated by God. Creation is the theater of God’s self-disclosure; the apokatastasis is the moment when that theater reaches its deepest destiny. God all in all (1 Cor. 15:28) — that is the point at which creation and redemption become visible in their true unity.
Last revision: 2026-06-14. This article is part of the Creation discipline overview at apokatastasis.wiki.