Co-creators. Really?

Being divine creatures is pretty heady stuff. There are a number of religious strains out there which promote the human species as the pinnacle of all creation and employing the “…image and likeness…” trademark, even go so far as to brand humanity as co-creators with God. I’ve participated in the grandeur of this thought, swept up in the cavalcade of pompous utterings and baseless declarations cherry-picked from biblical sources, so before you dismiss this writing, please indulge one with an inside view about what is truly happening.

A creator is one who forms and fashions a new object never seen before. Is that you? You and I are new creations, never witnessed on the face of the earth or within the entirety of a 132 billion-year-old universe. Did our parents create this new being? No, the universal triune God did. Before you skip out here let me explain the difference.

God, the Lord Almighty, creates heaven and earth by some means associated with the power of a spoken word. Consider that a word is a container of a thought, a means to portray an intention, a desire, a final outcome. There wasn’t anything like a heaven or an earth prior to this event. Try wrapping your head around the thought of not being. Pretty hard from the position of being, right? Kinda like swiss cheese. You can’t take out the holes and make the cheese whole because the holes are a part of the whole cheese known as swiss. That is food for another thought though.

The biblical record states that we, you and me, were in Christ before the foundation of the world, and that all things were made for Him and by Him and there wasn’t anything made which wasn’t made by Him. To claim that we are co-creators would put us, the entire world, as co-architects of our entire universe.

Let me see if I can simplify this. My children were in me before they were born. My wife and I are co-creators of them. My children are not co-creators with me or my wife. My children are not new creations either. They are made in the manner and likeness according to the power of the divine union shared by me and my wife. We, and the world, haven’t seen the likes of them, however they resemble the multitude of our human species. And yet, my children, were, are and forever remain in Christ, recognized as new creatures in this universe.

Let me back up a moment. My faith buddies need to be massaged here. Faith did not create my children, no matter how “now” I wanted it. An act which went beyond a spoken word did. That act was the “Christ” event to my wife and I, the power to create. We may have hoped for children, we could’ve talked about it until the cows came home and we were blue in the face, but the introduction of “Christ” secured our desire. (You all know what I’m talking about here. There just happen to be children in the room.)

Are we co-creators with God? That is possibly one of the most egoic claims we can make. Thank God for grace! In my humble opinion I believe that we are co-participants in the creation of God. It is His ballpark; His bases, balls and bats. All of us play by His rules, no exceptions. We may kick at the dirt, pick at the grass, scratch at the mound, but He is sitting in the stands waiting for us to play so He can tag a runner with applause.

I recognize that some of you will take exception to my claim here still holding onto your co-creatorship. However, I would ask for you to let me know when you’ve created a new world from the space in the swiss cheese or better yet, staying more biblically oriented, created a new, heretofore never been seen “seed.” I will at that time hail you as a co-creator. Until then, I will accept you as I am accepted in Him.