Made In His Image, part 4

The Specific Sense

When we study God’s Word, we see that God, as the Creator, is sovereign over His creation. This means He is in control of His creation. He is not a laissez-faire, or hands-off, deity that wound up his creation and now lets it go as it pleases. He created it in the beginning and is still actively involved in sustaining His creation.

Let’s take a look at a few verses.

O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds? (Deuteronomy 3:24, NKJV)

And in Chronicles, we read:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness,
The power and the glory,
The victory and the majesty;
For all that isin heaven and in earth is Yours;
Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,
And You are exalted as head over all.
Both riches and honor come from You,
And You reign over all.
In Your hand ispower and might;
In Your hand it isto make great
And to give strength to all. (1 Chronicles 29:11–12, NKJV)

And then from Nebuchadnezzar, that pagan king of Babylon:

And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever: For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom isfrom generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, “What have You done?” (Daniel 4:34–35, NKJV)

And Nehemiah writes:

You alone are the Lord;
You have made heaven,
The heaven of heavens, with all their host,
The earth and everything on it,
The seas and all that is in them,
And You preserve them all.
The host of heaven worships You. (Nehemiah 9:6, NKJV)

These are just a few of the verses that let us see God’s sovereignty and teach us that He is in control. In fact, the message of His sovereignty is woven throughout the entire Bible.

Do these verses help you see how big God is? We don’t serve an impotent deity who is unable to accomplish His purposes or whose hands are somehow tied. We serve the living Creator of the universe who is in active control of His creation. The winds and waves obey Him. The sun rises and sets on His command. The stars move through their courses, doing His will.

God is sovereign over His entire creation—from the farthest star in the farthest galaxy to my little life in a small house on planet Earth. And just as God is in control of the intricate workings of the universe, I believe He is also in control of the intricate workings of conception.

God takes credit for forming the prophet Jeremiah just as He wanted him to be.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5, NKJV)

And David praises God for making him fearfully and wonderfully.

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16, NKJV)

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb isa reward. (Psalm 127:3, NKJV, emphasis added)

From studying verses such as these in the Bible, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is the author of life. He forms each one of us and knits us together while we are still in the womb. And we use these verses with our healthy children—you were fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving Creator God, we say.

And yet, if God is the author of the lives of those with relative health, mustn’t we also say that God is the author of the lives of those who aren’t completely healthy and have physical, mental, or emotional problems?

Because of these teachings, and I want to be careful to allow God’s Word to teach me and not impose my ideas on Scripture, I can’t escape the thought that we are who we are—genetic mutations and all—as the result of God’s handiwork. In this more individualized sense, God gave our son (and each one of us) a specific genetic combination, which in our son’s case, included a deletion of part of one of his chromosomes. The world may call it a “spontaneous” mutation, but I call it a providential one.

Let me add a few caveats. I understand that our actions have consequences and, in some cases, the actions of parents before the conception and birth of their child can have dire consequences on the baby. For example, if a mother consumes too much alcohol, her baby can be born with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Or, something may happen to the baby while she is developing that results in life-long disabilities, such as happened with my cousin, Karen, who was born with hyrdrocephalus. The doctors didn’t catch it until she was three months old, leaving her severely disabled. She is unable to talk and spends most of her time in a wheelchair. However, I want to be clear that, even in these cases, God is still the ultimate author of that life and He is in control.

Let me add this thought, as well. The genetic mutation that pervades each cell of our son’s body has effects that can be seen more apparently—from his facial features to his heart and kidney problems to his learning disabilities. Yet each one of us is suffering from 6,000 years of the curse. In fact, which one of us would say that we have a completely perfect body and mind? Our problems may not be as apparent as Buddy’s but we have them just the same.

So at what point – or how many mutations – or which specific mutations separate the “normal” people from those with“disorders”? If we’re not prepared to say that God created and fashioned each and every person, at what point do we say, “Yes, you manifest the handiwork of God but you don’t”? How many mutations make someone abnormal?

Let me go a bit further.

When God called Moses to go to the Egyptian pharaoh and ask for the release of His people, Moses made excuses for why he couldn’t go by pointing out to his Creator that he was “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? (Exodus 4:11, NIV).

In this passage, God is taking credit for making some people blind and some deaf. Reflect on that a moment. Godis taking credit for making some people blind and some people deaf. It’s no great extrapolation to also include that God creates some with genetic disorders and other things we consider “defects.”


Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11