The God Who Made Taste Buds: Creation’s Call to Behold Your Creator

Written By Jared Lawson
 

Setting the Table

The opening pages of Scripture hit you like a big bang (no pun intended). We are bombarded with creation. There was nothing, forever, (except God) and then…Light! Sky! Oceans! Stars! Sun! Moon! Earth! Birds and beasts! Seas and fish! Trees and seeds! Power! Expanse! Growth! Like a spectacular checklist, hurrying to make sure every wonder has been captured, Genesis 1 shows creation in all its expansive glory. 

Then Genesis 2 seems to take the locomotive of creation and slow it way down. The story zooms in to show us not only the scope of creation, but its details. God stoops down, scoops dirt, and molds Adam’s form, leaning close enough to breathe life into his newly shaped nostrils. God then plants a garden and shapes its trees so that they would be both “pleasant to the sight” and (literally) “pleasant food” (Gen. 2:9).

A common tragedy in our Bible reading is this glory is rarely seen. When we think of the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2, our minds typically jump to creation debates: How old is the earth? How wrong is Darwin? Those debates certainly aren’t unimportant, but they tend to distract from what the Bible is trying to fix our eyes on.  Scripture doesn’t just want you to see what God created. It wants to put your eyes on who is doing the creating. We see a Creator weaving beauty and wonder through all His works. He doesn’t simply give man land to live on, He plants a garden paradise to be Adam’s home. He doesn't just make trees that will help man breathe, He makes them beautiful to look at (Gen. 2:9). He doesn't create tasteless paste to sustain man’s life, He creates food that is pleasant to eat (Gen. 2:9). He sculps every precious stone and buries it in the earth (Gen. 2:11-14). Keep reading, and you’ll see He is even the inventor of marriage and sexual intimacy (Gen. 2:23-25). 

On top of this, the God who invented beauty also made man like a sponge, ready to soak up and enjoy every bit of that beauty. When God formed Adam, He gave him eyes to see the trees of the garden and the stars in the heavens so that he might stand in awe. He gave Adam ears to hear the songs of the birds and the babbling of the brook. God took time, when forming Adam from the dirt, to fashion taste buds on Adam’s tongue so that when he took a bite of food, rich flavor would spread across his palate and fill his heart with delight. God delighted the heart of the first man through the beautiful trees, the good food, and a helper fit for him. Look at Adam’s joy-filled reaction when he sees Eve: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23)! That joy is God’s intention.

What a picture! As God introduces Himself to us in the Scriptures, He is not just the divine Authority, he’s the divine Artist. The divine Chef. The One from whom all beauty comes. We find a God who fills His creation with beauty and wonder, and who designs man to receive and enjoy that beauty. He wanted man to be more than sustained with life, but to enjoy life. He wanted to give the gift of beauty, taste, touch, and smell. In other words, Genesis is not just telling us what God did, but also who God is - the God who made taste buds.

And here’s the amazing news: you live in this world filled with wonder. Though marred by the Fall (see Gen. 3), creation still declares the glory of the Lord and the sky above continues to proclaim His handiwork (Ps. 19:1). The same hands that molded Adam from dust formed you in your mother's womb (Ps. 139:13), and specifically designed you to delight in His creation. We may not all like the same music, but everyone knows the experience of hearing a tune that sings to your very soul. We all know how the smell of freshly brewed coffee, a warm fire on a wintry night, the sound of the wind rushing through the leaves, and the taste of freshly baked bread stir our hearts with joy. 

You live in a world of beauty because it's His world, created by the great Artist Himself. You are meant to enjoy these gifts!

Follow the Scent

But there is a danger in these delights. The trees and the taste, as wonderful as they are, were never meant to be an end in themselves. As C.S. Lewis famously said, “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them...These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers.”¹ Sinners like you and me are prone to worship the gift rather than the Giver (see Rom. 1:25). Good things become ultimate things. And that is a recipe for disaster (See the entire book of Ecclesiastes).

You are made to enjoy these gifts, but not ultimately. The gifts are meant to be arrows–signposts–that point beyond themselves to the One who gave them. Your ultimate joy is meant to be found in the Giver. To finish Lewis’ quote from above, “For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”² The universe is a symphony of God’s beauty and glory, and delight in God’s creation is meant to be “traced up” to the Creator. You are meant to find the One from whom all the beauty comes.

But, here’s the thing: creation’s revelation, despite all its wonders, is limited. Creation can show us things about God (Rom. 1:19-20). It can inform you and humble you. But creation does not and cannot reveal God Himself. So are we stuck? Creation shows us that there is a beautiful Creator, who fills the universe with wonder, but when we try to know Him we hit a ceiling. We’re left as mere deists confessing “there’s Someone up there” but He’s far away and abstract. That is, unless that “Someone up there” sent His Son–his exact image (Col. 1:15)–to reveal not just His works but His very self. Now, through Jesus, we can see the full wonder of creation and know the Creator Himself. Jesus makes it so that we don’t just taste the food, we get to go back into the kitchen and know the Chef. We don't just see what the Creator makes. We see who the Creator is, as His eternal Son reveals Him. Jesus opens the way so you don’t just know about the Creator, you know the Creator Himself. You call Him Father. You are invited to His table. Jesus shows us how to look at the beauty of the flowers and ultimately think of our heavenly Father (Matt. 6:26-30). To quote Lewis one more time, “We do not want merely to see beauty…We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”³ In Jesus Christ, we are united to Beauty Himself.

If a tree can take your breath away, how much more the Sculptor of that tree! If music can make your soul soar, how much more the divine Composer! If food can make tears of happiness well up in your eyes, how much more the God who made taste buds! All this is ultimately found in Jesus Christ. He is Beauty himself, the one we are meant to savor, the one to whom we are united in intimate fellowship.

Feast with the Chef

“Put that down and look out the window!” was a common rebuke I heard every summer vacation when our family traveled to Colorado. The peaks of the Rocky Mountains jutted out of the earth, scraping the sky with their grandeur. Where was my attention? On the Game Boy in my lap. My eyes were closed to the wonders of God’s creation and instead were locked on the two-inch screen of Mario entering his final lap on Rainbow Road. As annoyed as teenage-Jared was at his mother’s constant rebukes, when I think back on that memory, I join her chastisement!

We so often putter around this world, inattentive to the daily feast made for us. All the while, the Scriptures are continually calling you to “look out the window!” God’s glory is being declared every morning. Every day is filled with invitations, not just to see the wonders of creation, but to worship the Creator. Don’t miss the symphony of the skies! Don’t miss the sermon of your senses! Don’t miss your taste buds’ call to worship! Beauty calls to you from outside the window. Every day, God’s creation displays His good gifts. Dallas isn’t known for its mountains or majestic trees, but there are natural beauties around us all the time. Take in the colors of a sunset. Behold the serenity of a quiet pond. Take a walk in the park and observe its sights and sounds. See creation's beauty, and trace that beauty to Beauty Himself. 

"All the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the reflection of the diffused beams of the Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory. - Jonathan Edwards

1. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

Recommended Resources:

 
Jared Lawson
Next

Together With One Voice: The Primacy of Congregational Singing