Don Stewart :: What Is Presently Preserving the Universe?

Creation has to do with the origin of things while preservation has to do with their continuance. The Bible says that the same God created the universe in the beginning is presently preserving it.

God Has Stopped Creating

After God created the universe, the Bible says that He rested.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he ceased from all his work (Genesis 2:2).

God Is Still At Work

Although the Bible says that God rested, He is still at work. Jesus said

For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

There Is A Difference Between Creation And Preservation

The Bible says that God not only created the universe He is also presently preserving it. Creation is dependent upon God. The prophet Nehemiah wrote:

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

The Psalmist wrote.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast (Psalm 36:6).

The Psalmist also wrote.

The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy (Psalm 145:20).

In the book of Acts we read.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring' (Acts 17:28).

Jesus Sustains The Creation

Not only did Jesus create everything in the beginning, He also sustains His creation. The Apostle Paul, after testifying to the creative work of Jesus, writes:

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17).

Jesus is the one who holds the universe together. He is the one who keeps it running in an orderly fashion.

The Book of Hebrews takes this a step further. It teaches that Christ is "upholding all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). The idea is that Jesus is keeping all things together by His spoken word. Thus, it is the spoken word of Jesus that now upholds the universe.

Jesus Christ created the universe, He sustains it by His spoken word, and He also rules it. The Apostle Paul testified that Christ is "the head over all rule and authority" (Colossians 2:10). The universe and all that is in it is ruled by Jesus.

[God] has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:2,3).

Jeremiah commented:

He had made the earth by his power; he has established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heaven by his understanding. When he utters his voice-there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; he causes the vapors of earth to ascend from the ends of the earth; he make lightning for the rain; he brings the wind out of his treasuries (Jeremiah 51:15,16).

After God created the universe he rested or ceased creating. However God did not cease working. He is presently preserving the universe. He is the one who keeps it running in an orderly way. Scripture says that Jesus Christ is the member of the Trinity who is doing this. He is sustaining all things and holds everything together. He is the glue that keeps the universe together.