A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Ryan M. McGraw
It is easy to get sidetracked from the purpose of the creation account in Genesis 1-2. Disputes over the days of creation and scientific implications of the text often eclipse the theological purposes of the narrative. While the length of days and related matters remain important, given the historical character of the text, we cannot pit the divine author’s theological agenda against historical details. God did not give Genesis as a scientific textbook, though it certainly includes scientific implications, not least of which is the vital fact that Adam and Eve were real persons whom God created immediately. Yet as Perkins notes, “The Bible’s first point focusses your sight on God” and his work in setting the stage for creaturely communion with himself (6). Adopting a Christ-centered focus on creation (2), Perkins’ non-controversial treatment of the Bible’s first chapters leads readers by the hand to know and love the God of creation. This edifying and thought-provoking book will help anyone reading or preaching Genesis to step over potentially explosive landmines as they move towards seeing God better through reading Scripture prayerfully.
Keeping endnotes minimal, the author directs his audience towards knowing the Creator in twelve well-written chapters. The tone of the book is doctrinal and devotional rather than academic and polemic. After slanting the book to contemplating God through his works in chapter one, chapter two informs readers how to approach the doctrine of creation, with chapter three highlighting the fundamental importance of the Creator/creature distinction via God’s act of creation from nothing. Chapters four and five examine the order and beauty of creation, and how both reflect and reveal God. Both chapters evoke appropriate responses of worship. God created humanity in his image, giving them the capacity for communion with him, making chapter six an important fulcrum for the rest of the book. Flowing from this material, chapters seven through eleven present the Sabbath as earthly time for communion with God with a heavenward bent, Eden as the place depicting life with God in glory, the two trees as a covenantal test of Adam’s obedience and a sacramental pledge of everlasting life, communion with God spilling over into communion among human beings, and, more narrowly, marriage as the closest human relationship and a God-designed depiction of Christ’s everlasting communion with his bide, the church. Chapter twelve concludes briefly with a final reminder that the creation narrative is “primarily about the Creator, inviting readers to enter communion with God in Christ, both in this life and the life to come.
The author offers some solid doctrinal insights and sage practical counsel throughout the book. For instance, he roots the beauty of creation in the beauty of the Trinity, saying, “God had all incomprehensible beauty to admire within his own being as the Father, Son, and Spirit eternally indwell and love one another” (62). Though God’s Triunity is fully clear only last in the canon of Scripture, Perkins rightly reminds us that we learn in the end that the Triune God comes first before creation. Additionally, attentive readers may notice how much attention Genesis 1 devotes to the creation of lush and rich plant life in the creation account. Perkins offers a profound reason for this by suggesting that “The attention on the plants calls focus to eating fruit, foreshadowing Adam’s coming test with the Tree of Knowledge” (64). This is a detail that seems clear in hindsight but might be easy to miss on a first reading. Illustrating his practical focus, in relation to using the Sabbath positively to cultivate worship and hope of eternal life, he exhorts parents to consider cannot hope for our children to adopt sabbath keeping magically in the future if we have not taught them to prioritize the Sabbath in youth. Doing so is like expecting children to eat vegetables before dessert as adults when we parents required the practice when they were children. He urges Christian families to view “Restful worship” is “the culminating point of our week” (102).
Despite his salutary non-polemical stance, Perkins occasionally skirts the edge of controversy. Most notably, appealing to authors like Calvin, Augustine, and Aquinas (64), he argues somewhat extensively (64-72) that animal death, including God’s designing predatory animals, likely predated Adam’s fall into sin. Though he is clear that human death results from sin only, he argues, “When God threatened Adam with death, then, this curse made sense to Adam because he knew what animal death was” (69). While many readers take Genesis 9:1-4 as permission to use animals for food for the first time (72), Perkins understands the text as “removing the clean-unclean distinction from his provision for humanity to eat the animals” under Noah (71). God then reintroduced the distinction in Leviticus 11 to distinguish Israel from the nations. This reading seems a bit forced in this reviewer’s opinion because it would result in the clean-unclean distinction existing before the flood, only to abolish the practice temporarily before resuming it, whereas the New Testament connects the abolition of the distinction to Spirit’s calling the Gentiles to Christ (e.g., Acts 10:15). Readers should note, however, that Perkins carefully retains the vital idea that human death is not natural, but a divine judgment against sin. In any case, his treatment of potential animal death before the fall is more than a “brief detour” (72), distracting somewhat from his decisively positive overarching aim.
This book can be a great tool to get readers back on track in recovering the purposes of Genesis 1-2. It is easy in Bible reading to lok for what we want more than what God knows we need. Bible readers should always open Scripture looking first for the glory of the Lord, stubbornly refusing to lose sight of God’s self-revelation and designs in every text. Though questions about the days of creation will remain, Created for Communion winsomely nudges readers away from themselves back toward the God of creation.
Ryan M. McGraw
Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary