More from Oswald Bayer, who shows the connection between justification and creation, as underscored in Luther’s Small Catechism:
The world was called into being without any worldly condition, in pure freedom and pure goodness. Creation out of nothing means that everything that is exists out of sheer gratuity, out of pure goodness. “All this is done out of pure, fatherly and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all!” That is how Luther puts it when explaining the first article of the creed in the Small Catechism. The terms “merit” and “worthiness” both belong directly to the language of the theology of justification. Yet they do not occur in the exposition of the second and third articles of the creed, only in the exposition of the first. This is a striking feature, and it indicates the breadth and depth of the justifying Word. This Word concerns not just my history but world history and the history of nature. It concerns all things.