Q. What is our belief about God’s creating existing things ?
A. We believe that He has made all things existing—viz., the heavens and earth, with all that is on them and under them, both above and below, visible and invisible, things known to us through the senses and those known through reason, all from nothing. All these He created from nothing by His mere will and the mystery of His power. He adjusted them by His supreme wisdom, and blessed them with His goodness.
Q. What did He create them for ?
A. Not for any interest to His most supreme Person, for He is in no need of anything outside of Himself; but He was graciously pleased to create them and bring them from non-existence to existence, and is still watching over them by His Providence, directing them with His wise direction, preserving their system with His Guardianship, and distributing among them the marks of His numerous favours.
Q. In what space of time were all things created ?
A. In six days only, beginning on Sunday and ending on Friday. God was, of course, able to do all in one instant; but His wisdom chose to do them in that period, creating every day a part of them until the six days came to a close, and He ceased working on the seventh day, thus completing the system of weeks which by this cycle measures all times.
Q. What did He create on each day ?
A. In the beginning He created the invisible heavens and made the earth covered with water, and it was dark. He created light, calling it day, and the darkness night. That was the first day, or Sunday. On the second day He made the firmament, or the visible heaven. On the third day He gathered the water into reservoirs, which He called seas, and the dry land earth, creating out of the earth the plants and trees. On the fourth day He created the sun, the moon, and the rest of the planets and stars. On the fifth day He created from the water the fishes, the birds, and the other aquatic animals. On the sixth day, or Friday, He created from the earth the animals, beasts, and creeping things. He then created the first man, our father Adam, and our mother Eve, and blessed them, and caused them to live in Paradise, which He made. He ceased working on Saturday, which He blessed.
Q. What is meant by saying that He blessed Saturday ?
A. As He had blessed the other six days—Sunday to Friday—and adorned them by creating on each of them things, at the end of which He pronounced that laudable praise, that precious saying, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. i. 31). He, therefore, in order to make Saturday, on which He had created nothing, as good as the other days, blessed it, thus making all the days of the week blessed.
Q. Did our parents remain in Paradise ?
A. No; they were expelled from it when they fell into disobedience of the Creator’s command, having been misled by the temptation of Satan dwelling in the serpent, and having eaten of the tree which God had forbidden them to eat.
Q. What did they come to after their fall ?
A. They were stripped from the holiness and life of grace which they were enjoying while in obedience, and were possessed by fear and shame. They became, after that happiness, slaves to sin and death, and were consequently driven from Paradise to the land of misery and humiliation, where they gave birth to children, sons and daughters, and spent their days in labour and sorrow, and at last died in that condition, and their bodies returned to the earth, from which they had been taken.
Q. Did their sin descend to their posterity ?
A. Yes; for they were the origin of all mankind, and, as they had begotten no children except in their sinful condition, their sin descended to all their seed, and the whole human race thus became in bondage to death (Rom. v. 12).
Q. By what was mankind justified ?
A. By the incarnation of the Eternal Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ Who redeemed us and gave us life.