Genesis 1:1-2:4
“In the beginning, God.” These four words are some of the most significant, most important, most vital words ever written in the history of mankind. In the beginning, GOD.
In the beginning: there was a start, there will be an end.
In the beginning, God: He is before time and space, before all that is and was and ever will be. He is above all, before all, the supreme First, the Origin of all things. He is not bound by matter. He is not bound by laws of physics or chemistry, not subject to the laws of time. He is beyond. He is Other. He is Holy.
He is not even bound by moral laws: what he says is good, is good. He is the standard of what is good and bad: his character determines it. Who he is is infused throughout the universe because it is He who is the creator. In the beginning God created everything – including you and me.
We are not God. He is God.
I am not God. He is God.
I am not the Creator or ruler of my life. He is.
God is God, and I am not.
Today we begin our 10-week series in Genesis. We’re going to spend our first three weeks in chapter 1. Next week we’ll look at “The God who speaks”, thinking about how God reveals himself through speech – we know him because he speaks; the power of his Word in creating order out of chaos, life out of death – a work he continues today; and then looking at the Word Incarnate, God’s supreme revelation of himself: Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.
The week after that we’ll spend some time looking at “The God who rests”, thinking about His perfect relationship with himself in the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit in perfect unity, perfect love; how he created us, this whole universe, to share in that love relationship, bringing glory to him, and how all of creation is moving toward that seventh day rest with God. That is our destiny, to be united with God in perfect harmony. But to do that our sin and rebellion have to be dealt with first – and that is only possible through Christ. Christ is God’s rest, our rest – and outside of him there is no rest.
Today however, we turn our focus to who this God is. Today’s sermon is called “The God who is there”. Just two points today: the first, rather long point: God is the creator – we are his creatures.
And the second: God is the only Creator, supreme - above all other “gods”. There is none like Him.
1. God is the Creator (we are his creatures)
Now there’s been lots of arguments about Genesis 1 because we don’t like the idea that there is a God, and that I am not him! (First step to becoming a Christian: 1. There is a God. 2. I am not him.)
On the one hand, there’s those who claim that evolution has killed God. God is not necessary. Life just…happened. Everything is an accident, so create your own meaning in life (as long as that meaning doesn’t involve God- that you’re not allowed).
On the other hand there’s those who claim that God created the world in 6 days, and anyone who believes anything else is, well, basically not a Christian. It becomes the standard for whether you’re a real Christian or not.
So we’ve got these two groups bellowing for our attention, yelling at each other - and what’s missed is the actual point of Genesis 1: God is the Creator. So, before we get there, let’s do some damage control and try to turn down the volume…
First, Evolution. Some famous scientists like to pretend that they are also philosophers and theologians and make grand statements about evolution and the Big Bang doing away with the need for God.
For example, Richard Dawkins is a professor of Biology. He’s an expert in biology. Existence of God? Not so much.
Stephen Hawking is one of the world’s geniuses – in physics. But when he says that the Big Bang proves that God doesn’t exist he’s not talking as Stephen Hawking, physicist, but Stephen Hawking, ordinary man in the street.
The funny thing is that Science has as one of its fundamental assumptions that we live in a closed system. That is, we assume that something from the “outside” can’t interfere with the normal workings of the world. We HAVE to assume that if we are to set up experiments. Otherwise it would be like trying to set up a house of cards with your little brother in the room – at any moment he could knock it over. So, to avoid that, you lock him out of the room. And then you can do your experiment, building the house of cards. But only a fool would then say “little brother does not exist”. You’ve just closed the door.
Science is the same. It assumes God does not interfere with the normal workings (or more correctly assumes that God maintains the normal laws of physics). But that does not mean that he therefore does not exist! What Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and others are doing is this: 1. Assume God does not exist. 2. Some other points. 3. Therefore, God does not exist (forgetting we assumed him away in point 1!).
The message of the Bible, however, is that God exists. And it proves his existence by recording his dealings with his people, recording how he has opened up the closed system to show us what lies beyond. It shows us supremely in the person of Jesus Christ that God exists, who he is, what he has done, and what he will do. And as we’ve just seen in Ephesians, all of creation has, since the beginning, been moving towards one goal: he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Eph 1:10
Jesus Christ knocks Hawking and Dawkins for six. He is the very evidence for God that is unmistakable. Unmistakable power. Unmistakeable love. He is the supreme revelation of the God who is there.
And that is the God whom we meet in Genesis 1. Now the writer of Genesis, probably Moses, had only the promise of Christ – he did not know the gospel fully like we do. But he did know God. He knew God when he was called out of the burning bush. He knew God when he rescued his people the Israelites with a great show of his Mighty power. He knew God when he lead them across the Red Sea, through the desert, to Mt Sinai, when he spoke to them and made them his people and gave them laws to give by. This is the God he says “created the heavens and the earth”. “Elohim” (God) is “Yahweh”, Israel’s God (in fact, his name is used in 2:4 “LORD (small caps= Yahweh) God (Elohim)).
You see, science answers the “how” questions: how things work. But it cannot answer the “why” questions: why were things made, why do they work like this. “Science” has become a bit of a religion - people claiming science can answer all our questions. Well, it’s only been able to explain a small portion of the “how” (quantum physics opened a whole other world to science – a strange and mysterious world) and it, by definition, can never answer the “why”.
Genesis answers the “why”. In the beginning, God.
He is the Prime source, the First Mover, the Reason behind all that is.
God. Not us.
We do not create our own meaning for the universe. It has already been given a meaning and a purpose: to glorify God.
Now the second group yelling in our ears about Genesis 1 is the group of Christians who insist that the world was made in 6 days (because it says so – right there!) and that the earth is only 6000 years old, and that anyone who believes otherwise isn’t really a true Christian. They, too, set up Science vs. Christianity and say that you cannot believe in both. You cannot be an evolutionary biologist and a Christian. And if you are a Christian you must reject all forms of evolution. Dawkins and company try to make Science answer the why question. The mistake these guys make is trying to make Genesis 1 answer the “how” question, instead of the “why” question.
Now, I know some of you may now be offended. You may be Young Earthers and start thinking that I have compromised my faith, I’ve given in to the big bad world.
To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t really care less. It makes no difference to me whether the earth was created in 6 days, 6 minutes, or six billion years. What matters is who created it, and that by his grace I can know him. Be careful of people who are always on about something other than the gospel – because soon it comes to replace the gospel. Good things are the most dangerous enemy of the best thing: the gospel of Christ. Food kitchens, orphanages, home schooling, politics or 6-day earth may be good things. 6-day earth may be correct – but 6 –day earth has no power to save, only Jesus does. And if I’m in Christ, I’m saved whether I believe in 6-day earth or not.
So having said that, I have no agenda here except this: I want us simply to look at the passage itself. Read what God has written. And make our own conclusions as to what the author is trying to tell us.
As we read through it, did you note the stylised structure and language that is used. Did you see? Each day begins “And God said”
“And that is what happened”
“God called”
“And God saw that it was good”
“And evening passed and morning came, marking the x day”
It is a carefully structured, poetic way of writing. And if we read it as literal history, as narrative (like the rest of the book), rather than poetry, leads to all sorts of problems. When we read the Bible we must pay attention to the genre (that is, type) of literature it is. You don’t read comics and news reports the same way. So don’t read historical narrative and stylised poetry the same way! Engage your mind when you read, particularly the Old Testament which was written into a very different culture and time than ours. The biggest difference is that it was written before Christ was revealed, so it won’t mention “Jesus” or “Christ” even though his person and his salvation work are seen all over the place. Even here in creation Jesus is present – the New Testament tells us again and again. For example Col 1: 15-17 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth...Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Bible commentaries can also be helpful (or study bibles) when they tell you things about the culture you would not know. For example my Bible Background commentary tells me that Gen 1 is written in the style of Middle Eastern Creation myths popular at the time we believe Genesis was written. You see, Moses was a good evangelist. He wrote it in a way people could understand! So they could hear the big message: God, our God, is the Creator of the Universe.
Today we could write it maybe something like this: In the beginning the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ created the universe, through his Son, by his Spirit, to the praise of his glory.
He held a tiny particle in his hand, the whole Universe compressed into an infinitesimally small dot of immensely powerful energies. And God said “Explode” and the Universe did explode. God called the explosion “the Big Bang”. And it was good. Eons passed, and the next phase of creation came: the second age.
God said to the matter flying apart: “come together!” And the matter came together: stars, then planets, moons, asteroids. And God saw the universe, and it was good. Eons passed, and the next phase of creation came: the third age: the age of life.
God chose a planet and called it earth. And he said “Live!” and life did form. And it was good. Eons passed, and the next phase of creation came: the fourth age: the age of evolution.
And God saw small single-celled creatures and said to them “Evolve!” and caused them to jump huge evolutionary barriers. He created complex systems from nothing, creatures appeared who were unrelated to anything that came before. And it was good. Eons passed, and the next phase of creation came: the fifth age: the age of man.
And God looked at his world teeming with impossible life, and said “Mankind, live!” – and out of nothing OR a sudden gigantic evolutionary leap (which can’t be explained), people appeared. And God breathed his Spirit into them. And he saw that it was good.
What’s the point of the story? Not HOW God created, but THAT God created. Getting into arguments about 6 day creation vs. evolution is pointless. Setting up science vs. Christianity is not only wrong, it’s to miss the big picture. Don’t miss the big point: In the beginning, God created everything.
God is the Creator. We are his creatures. Everything around us is spoken into existence through him.
God is the Creator.
One short little point to end with: he is the only Creator.
2. God is the only Creator: One God above all other “gods”
There’s a nice little touch in v14–18, the account of the fourth day, when God makes the sun and moon. 16 God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Why “lights” instead of sun and moon? Well, many people in those days worshipped the sun and moon. Abraham himself was probably a moon-worshipper before God called him. In fact in Deuteronomy (fifth book of Moses) 4:19 And when you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the forces of heaven—don’t be seduced (tempted) into worshiping them.
Genesis knocks that right on its head – there’s nothing special about the sun or the moon. There’s no spiritual mystery. They did not help God make the world. They do not rule. There are no other rulers. They are just lights. BIG lights. But just lights. There is no God but God.
‘The great sea creatures’ were regarded as divine in some ancient myths. V21 God created the great sea creatures. No divinity. They’re just creatures. God has no equal. He is supreme.
And notice who helps him. Where’s the army of workers, digging the foundation of the world? Where’s the great hoard of gods, fighting to control the great energies of Creation? Where’s the great tree bringing life through the universe? Add your creation myth here.
He stands alone. Above all. Beyond all.
He speaks, and it is.
There is no-one like him. He is unique. He is supreme.
Our vision of God is too small. We think of Him as a big version of us. You know, still sort of bound by time and space. Limited in what he can do. Subject, even, to the laws of the universe, to the laws of morality.
Genesis 1 demands that we expand our minds to grasp who this God is. For he is not just bigger than us, he is BIGGGGGER than us. He is beyond our comprehension. We cannot understand him.
He is not bound by time or space. He stands outside the universe, and all of time and space is as transparent to him as a window is to us. He sees, he knows, he plans everything. He holds the universe, all of it, in his hands, his gaze piercing through time and space. He is beyond.
There is no physical law that limits him – he is the law. He is not even subject to moral laws – he is the definition of morality. What he is and what he does defines what love is, what grace is, what compassion is, what justice is. He is the law.
This is the God whom we worship.
This is the God who is unknowable, unapproachable, beyond us.
And this is the God who reveals himself to us. Who reaches down from beyond the universe and says “come with me, and I will show you what you were made for.”
He is our Creator, our God the only God, and we were made for his glory. That is our purpose, our joy, our destiny.
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