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Every year on her birthday, the princess Rapunzel looks out from her tower and sees floating lanterns filling the night sky. She doesn’t yet know they’re sent, year by year, by her parents—the king and queen—to draw her back home. But one day, a prince leads her out of the tower to discover that she has been a princess all along—and to meet the ones who brought her into the world.
That story, told in the animated film Tangled, echoes the Christian story. In the Bible, we are locked away in a tower of sin, but God shines the light of his Word into the darkness (John 1:5). He has left evidence of himself all over the sky (Ps. 19:1) and sent his Son to lead us back to himself (1 Pet. 3:18).
And it’s remarkable how far some people will go to find their birth parents. They’ll hire private investigators, search church records, and pay for DNA testing. Beneath it all is a deep desire to know who and where we came from—to meet the ones who brought us into the world—the ones who gave us life.
But what about our Maker? What if you could know the one who knitted you together in your mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13)? The one who slung the stars into place, who designed a butterfly’s wings, who made honey sweet and sends forth lightnings (Job 38:35)? What if you could know the one responsible for keeping your heart beating, who knows the very moment it will stop (Ps. 139:16)?
The Apostles’ Creed introduces him to us: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” The Creed helps us meet our Maker before we die.
The Meaning of “Maker of Heaven and Earth”
When the Creed calls God the “Maker of heaven and earth,” it acknowledges him as the Creator. It declares that God made everything other than himself. It insists that he is the potter and the universe is his clay (Isa. 64:8). He is the artist and the universe his canvas. He is the singer and the universe his song (Heb. 1:3).
Entirely unlike his creation, God is uncreated. He is eternal and unique—the unmade Maker. Scripture begins with the same truth: “In the beginning, God” (Gen. 1:1a). That means there was never a time when he wasn’t. He always is. The first thing the Bible wants us to know is that the eternal God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1b).
So however old the universe may be, it is a mere infant in the tender yet almighty hands of its eternal Maker. We are the new kids on the block. But as Jesus prayed in John 17, the Son shared glory with the Father “before the world existed.” This means that before time began, God existed in eternal love—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Creation itself, we might say, is an explosion out of that divine love. It’s a result of God’s desire to share his love beyond himself (Eph. 1:4).
The Maker of Everything
“Maker of heaven and earth” is a literary device writers call a merism—a phrase that uses two extremes to capture the whole. When a student says, “I studied day and night,” they mean they studied all the time—they studied comprehensively. When someone loses their phone and subsequently finds it, they might say, “I searched high and low for it,” which means they looked everywhere. So when the Creed says that God is “the Maker of heaven and earth,” it means he made everything. “From the furthest galaxy to the smallest molecule,” as one hip-hop artist put it, God created it all. From things you need a telescope for to things you need a microscope for. He made everything from the heights of Mount Everest to the depths of the Mariana Trench. He made light and meteorites, water and otters, planets and granite. Heaven and earth means all of creation. And God, the Father, is the Maker.
Christianity insists that the Creator is not the same as his creation. He’s holy—distinct and separate from all he has made. He didn’t fashion the world out of pre-existing matter, as ancient myths or Mormonism suggest. It’s not as if he went to a kind of divine Lego store to assemble, piece by piece, what already existed. He spoke and everything came from nothing (Gen. 1:3). He created, as theologians have argued, ex nihilo.
Creation: The Work of the Father, Son, and Spirit
The Creed attributes creation to God the Father, but it bears remembering that in doing so, it doesn’t mean the Son and Spirit were uninvolved. The Creed is acknowledging scriptural emphasis, not claiming exclusivity. Scripture teaches that all things were made through Christ (John 1:3) and that the Spirit hovered over the waters (Gen. 1:2). Christ is called the Author of Life (Acts 3:15). All things are said to be made through him (Col. 1:16). And the Spirit is the Giver of Life (John 6:63).
The Father is the Creator, but not alone. The three persons of the Trinity always act in perfect unity. God is not divided like branches of government. With God, we mustn’t think of one member slacking off like those infamous classmates in a university group project. He’s not like a bickering married couple that can’t get along. He creates, saves, and sanctifies in perfect and glorious unity—as one God in three persons.
Theologian Louis Berkhof put it this way: “Creation is ascribed primarily to the Father, salvation to the Son, and sanctification to the Spirit—but every divine work is the joint work of all three.” The Father creates 100 percent, and so does the Son, and so does the Spirit. God creates—300 percent.
The Creator and Our Faith
So why does it matter that we believe in God as Maker of heaven and earth? What difference does it make in our lives? The Creed’s declaration grounds our faith in the one who made and sustains everything. It gives meaning, purpose, and direction to our worship and our witness.
First, this doctrine reminds us that creation itself declares the glory of God. “The heavens declare his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). The very fact that something exists rather than nothing points to the reality of a Creator. Even the most ardent atheists, from time to time, are willing to admit this. The Bible insists that every sunrise and star testifies to the existence and majesty of God.
Even some who reject faith concede that the universe seems finely tuned for life. The cosmos is so intricately designed that chance and necessity alone cannot explain it. Creation is not an argument against God—it’s an invitation to seek him. The heavens are God’s lanterns, like in Tangled, shining to lead us home.
Creation as Fuel for Worship
Believing that God is our Maker should also ignite our worship. Revelation 4:11 says, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things.”
But while we celebrate athletes, artists, and inventors for their achievements, how much more should we praise the One who spoke the galaxies into being? If our affection for God has grown cold, pondering him as Maker of heaven and earth has the power to rekindle the flame. If the roaring flame of praise in your heart has shrunk down to a flickering ember, meditate on your Maker.
He is the potter who formed the world like clay. He imagined the taste of orange juice. He directs every fish in the sea like a conductor leading a symphony. And yet, this same God bends low to hear our prayers. The Almighty is cosmic, yet near, attentive, and caring.
“When I look at your heavens,” says the psalmist, “what is man that you are mindful of him” (Ps. 8:3-4)? The God who sustains a thousand galaxies also knows your name and numbers the hairs on your head. Jesus used that truth to silence our anxiety (Matt. 6:25-34).
To believe in God the Maker is to rest in his providence. It’s to cast all our cares upon him, because he cares for us (1 Pet. 5:6-7). Anxiety, for the Christian, is often rooted in forgetfulness—forgetting who made us and who holds us. It’s rooted often in pride. Rejecting God’s eternal invitation to trust in him. But the Almighty Maker cares for you.
Let us therefore humble ourselves.
The Creator Who Became Creature
The most humbling reality about God’s creation is that there came a time where he definitively proved his Psalm 8 care for us. God, the Maker of heaven and earth became a man. In Jesus Christ, the Creator entered creation (John 1:14). The eternal entered into time. The infinite became infant. The Almighty became weak. The Holy became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). The author of life died (Acts 3:15).
At the cross, the one through whom all things were made was unmade. Jesus was de-created for us, so that we might be re-created in him. The Maker became the Savior, that sinners might become new creations (2 Cor. 5:17).
This means that the God who made this world will make it new again (Rev. 21). The present creation is a foretaste of the new creation to come, a prequel to an eternal sequel.
Waiting for the New Creation
The apostle Peter reminds us that this world will not last forever. One day it will give way to “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). The creation we know now is groaning under the weight of sin and decay (Rom. 8:22). But one day, God will resurrect not only his people but the very cosmos itself (Rom. 8:23).
Believing in God the Maker means living for what lasts. It means refusing to center our lives around a world that’s passing away. This is not all there is. We were made for more—for a world where sin and death are no more, where love and righteousness dwell forever.
Until that day, the Creed invites us to confess with the saints of every generation:
“I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.”
Because to know our Maker now is to be ready for the new creation to come.
