In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, PERFECTLY (Genesis 1:1). During this process, God created the spirit beings which were His angels. The word “angel” means “messenger” or “servant.”

“Praise the LORD, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening for each of his commands. Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels who serve him and do his will! Praise the LORD, everything he has created, everything in all his kingdom . . .”

Psalm 103:20-22, NLT

God created so many angels it is impossible for us to count them. “Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels . . .” (Revelation 5:11).

All the angels lived in Heaven with God in the beginning. God didn’t create from a conveyor belt of sameness. He made some more beautiful than others, some more intelligent than others, and some wiser than others. But God’s greatest angelic being was called Lucifer. Lucifer’s name means “morning star.” God also gave Lucifer a very important position in Heaven. He was given a place of great authority and power over the angels. He, like all of God’s creation, was created perfect.

“I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian. You had access to the holy mountain of God and walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in all you did
from the day you were created . . .”

Ezekiel 28:14-15a

God’s creation was magnificent! After creating the heavens and the earth, He filled it with beauty, and everything needed to sustain life. God created the marvelous work of creation because He is sovereign and chose to do it for His glory. The crowning act was to lovingly, carefully, and perfectly create everything in preparation for His ultimate creation: man.

A verbal communication took place amongst God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit– “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us . . .” they said (Genesis 1:26, NLT). Since God is sovereign, He alone decided how the angels, the sun, moon, stars, the earth, and all things on the earth were to be made. Man was the most important part of God’s creation as God chose to make man in “His image.” But what does that mean? Since God is spirit, we know it doesn’t mean physical likeness. Man’s physical bodies were created to house the unseen image-bearing parts of God.

Mind, emotions, and will: God wanted to communicate with man and enable and equip man to do His work on earth, so He gave him a mind for thinking and reasoning. Man’s intellect was fashioned after our Creator’s intellect. Of course, God’s knowledge and understanding is infinite whereas, man’s is limited. God has emotions and He gave man emotions to love God. Man’s will and ability to choose gave him the choice to love and obey God—a choice man could make intelligently because by his mind he would know that God is his loving, kind, and all-wise Creator.

God was giving man a unique role in His creation, that of being God’s representative on the earth. The man and woman God created in the beginning were image bearers into whom God breathed life. And everything God made was good. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden on the 6^th day of Creation and on the 7^th day God rested—God always completes what He says He will do!

But something happened to God’s creation! Is the task too great?