The Father, the Son, and adoption into the family
The story scripture tells is, at its deepest, a family story. Before any creation existed, the Father loved the Son:
"for you loved me before the foundation of the world." — John 17:24
"is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." — Matthew 3:17; 17:5
"The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand." — John 3:35
"For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself." — John 5:20
Creation flows out of that love. The Father loves the Son; the Son creates for the Father:
"For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him." — Colossians 1:16
"All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made." — John 1:3
So creation is the Son's making, witnessed and loved by the Father. The whole kosmos is, in a sense, the Son's offering back. And when the creation deviates, the Father does not lose what the Son made; the Son himself enters the creation he authored:
"The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." — John 1:14
The maker becomes part of what he made. The eternal Son takes on the temporal nature. And through that movement, the love between Father and Son extends outward — humans are adopted into the family the Father has eternally had with the Son:
"But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name:" — John 1:12
"For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him." — Romans 8:15–17
"and loved them, even as you loved me." — John 17:23
"See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him." — 1 John 3:1
This is the depth under John 3:16. "For God so loved the world," is the Father loving what his Son made; "that he gave his only born Son," is the Father not withholding the one he eternally loved; "that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." is the family-doors opening to anyone who will receive the Son and so be adopted as a child.
The story is not "God and his creatures." It is the Father, the Son, and the family the Son makes possible. Humanity is invited, through the Son, into the eternal love between Father and Son. "that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us;" (John 17:21).
See: John 1:1–14; John 3:35; John 5:20; John 17:20–26; Romans 8:14–17, 28–30; Galatians 4:4–7; Ephesians 1:3–14; Colossians 1:15–20; Hebrews 1:1–3; 1 John 3:1–3.