Genesis 1
The Word Made Flesh — John 1:1-14
John 1:1-14 frames the whole Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The Logos is both distinct from God and fully God. Athanasius made the eternal deity of the Word the linchpin against Arius, a stand vindicated at Nicaea with the term homoousios. Augustine drew on this prologue for his trinitarian theology of the Word. The creational "in the beginning" deliberately echoes Gen 1:1, and the incarnation of 1:14 finds its hymnic parallel in Phil 2:6-7 and Col 1:15-16. The eternal Son enters his own creation.
Why God Became Man — Athanasius on the Incarnation
Athanasius's thesis is famous: the Word became man so that we might be made divine. He reads John 1:14 as the divine remedy for human corruption and death, grounding the whole argument in the creative and re-creative work of the Word. The logic is soteriological: only the Creator can renew the image he made, so only God incarnate can save. Gregory of Nazianzus sharpened the rule — what is not assumed is not healed, and Irenaeus had cast it as recapitulation. This deification theme connects to the image of God in Gen 1:27 and to the glory shared with believers in Rom 8:29-30. Nicaea's homoousios is the grammatical guardrail of the whole vision.
Creation Ex Nihilo — Genesis 1:1-3
Gen 1:1-3 opens Scripture with God creating "the heavens and the earth" by his word: "Let there be light." The church reads this as creation out of nothing — no pre-existing matter constrains the Creator. Augustine wrestled with the nature of time and the 'beginning' itself, and Aquinas defended creation ex nihilo as a truth of reason confirmed by revelation. Irenaeus had already used it against Gnostic emanationism. The creating word of 1:3 is identified in the New Testament with the Logos of John 1:1-3 and the Son of Col 1:16. Creation and redemption share one agent: the Word through whom all things were made.
The Image of God — Genesis 1:26-27
Gen 1:26-27: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... male and female he created them." The imago Dei grounds human dignity, dominion, and relationality. Augustine located the image especially in the soul's rational powers, mirroring the Trinity, while Irenaeus distinguished image and likeness, the latter restored by the Spirit. Bavinck argued the whole person, not merely the intellect, bears the image. The plural "let us" has long been read in trinitarian light alongside John 1:26. The image marred at the fall of Gen 3:6-7 is renewed in Christ, the true image of Col 1:15.
New Heavens and New Earth — Revelation 21
Rev 21:1-5 unveils the consummation: "a new heaven and a new earth... the dwelling place of God is with man... and he will wipe away every tear." Redemption ends not in heaven's escape but in a renewed creation. Augustine's City of God ends with this eternal Sabbath, the vision of God face to face, and Bavinck saw the new earth as creation brought to its destined glory. The covenant formula "God with them" reaches its final fulfillment. The renewed creation answers the first creation of Gen 1:1 and reverses the curse of Gen 3:17. The Immanuel promise of Matt 1:23 becomes eternal fact: God dwells with his people forever.