40. When God Wrought the World’s Creation

1. When God wrought the world’s creation,
His own Word caused its formation
Out of calm eternity.
Lo the earth was void and formless,
Till He brought forth light and clearness
By His mighty: “Let there be!”

2. Earth in chaos lay, unbounded,
Till our Maker’s voice forth sounded,
Till He said: “: Let there be light!”
God’s own Spirit brooded o’er it,
Stirring, moving all before it,
Giving form by wondrous might.

3. God the Lord all things created
That on earth are situated;
Lastly He created man,
In the likeness of His Maker,
And of glory a partaker,
- Who to rule the earth began.

4. But alas! Man soon transgressed
And thus lost his Eden blesséd;
He believed not God’s true Word;
Stubbornly refused to hear it,
Spurned the leading of the Spirit,
And would not obey the Lord.

5. God pronounced on men the sentence,
For his sin and disobedience
And his scorn of grace and faith!
Then to cleanse the earth of sinning
And to make a new beginning
He decreed a healing bath.
6. All bold sinners, helpless, crying,
In the Deluge dread were dying;
Buried in one wat’ry grave.
Death, begotten of transgression,
Comes to them, without compassion,
And no one is found to save.

7. One alone did heed the warning,
One just man, - true wisdom learning
From the teaching of God’s Word.
Noah, by God’s hand delivered,
With his wife and children entered
In the cov’nant with the Lord.

8. This example is reflected
In the Lord and His elected,
Of the cov’nant new the heirs.
Those from death He did deliver,
Living here and dying never,
Since baptismal grace is theirs.