“In the Beginning”
Genesis 1:1
We wrapped up the book of Ephesians last week and hopefully we have a better idea of how to live as a new humanity. Today we are beginning a new book in the Bible, in the Old Testament. We are going to go back to the “Beginning.” The very beginning, the book of Genesis. We will be reading through the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis. This first section of Genesis tells the story of God and the origin of everything. We will read about the basis for human existence and the basis for God’s redemptive purposes in human history.
Today we are going to focus on the very first verse, which in itself is the beginning of the story. In this first verse we are introduced to the author of the story as well as the theme of the story.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
In the beginning, God created everything up there, and everything down here.
In the beginning, God.
The author is God Himself.
This is God’s story.
This is God’s work
This is God’s plan.
This being true, then we should be asking,
What kind of God is He?
What kind of creating has He done?
What is His plan?
The answer to these questions comes in the form of God’s redemptive work done through His only begotten Son and is found in John 3:16,
What kind of God is He? A loving God
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. ” (John 14:9)
So if we want to know what kind of God does this kind of creating, we need to look at Jesus.
I think it is significant to recognize that this statement, in Genesis 1:1, pushes against all of the false systems that are so prevalent in our world today. This statement teaches us that God, in Himself, is a supreme being, apart from the world. It is important for us to recognize that God has no fundamental need for the world.
Out of graciousness, God created all that is around us. What happened in Genesis was an outflow of His love. God doesn’t need any of us, but He has chosen in His power and authority to not exist without us.
It’s a mystery.
Let’s go back to the very first words in the Bible.
“In the beginning…” What is the beginning?
The Hebrew word used here for “beginning” is bereshit.
It means, “what comes first, the starting point, the best, the supreme.” Wrapped up in this Hebrew word we have not only the meaning of the start of the story but also the supremacy of the one who tells the story. It’s stating that this beginning starts with the one who is. It is not just a statement of time. as we know it, it’s about God.
In God there was a decision to create, to redeem and to reconcile and to allow a story to be told that at times feels like God is not in control.
But ultimately, we as 21st century Christians, know the beginning and the end, and we also know who the author of the beginning and the end is. We are told in Scripture that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2)
Which brings us to the revelation that Jesus was right there in the beginning. The parallel verse for this in the New Testament in John 1:1,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”
Not only was Jesus, in the beginning, we will read in the next verse of Genesis that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. It is significant to recognize that in the beginning we have a triune God. The Father, the Son and the Spirit. This reveals what type of God we have at the beginning.
The ancient Hebrew word for God is, Elohim. Grammatically it is a plural word used as if it were singular. It is also a word that refers to someone, not something. Who cares if scientists today believe the earth was formed through a Big Bang. Scientists still have the ultimate question of what caused the explosion in the first place?
As Christians, we would say, “It was the One who spoke.”
This someone is actually plural. They are three – in – one. A community within themselves.
We are made in the image of God which means we are made for community with others like ourselves and with the author of our lives and everything in this world. The reason you and I are relational is because the one who spoke is relational.
Here’s what is amazing, He wants to know us, and He wants us to know Him on an intimate level. God, at His core is relational.
Before time began, there was a decision made by these three to put into motion “creation.”
‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The word for “create” in Hebrew is “bara” which means a divine activity to create something out of nothing.
How? Why? Who knows the reason?
Again, there is mystery involved here,
God thought the risk of creating and especially of creating beings, in His image, was worth it. He had to have known that we were going to make a mess of that image. At this point in time, it seems that we have even forgotten that we are a part of a grand story. Sadly, the majority of humans today have no idea they are part of a story. According to the Pew Research Center,
“Majorities in all adult age groups say they believe in God or some other higher power, ranging from 83% of those ages 18 to 29 to 96% of those ages 50 to 64. But young adults are far less likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God as described in the Bible.” https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/#:~:text=Majorities%20in%20all%20adult%20age,as%20described%20in%20the%20Bible.
The numbers of believers in the God as described in the Bible are even smaller for adult believers with a college education.
The truth that God spoke creation into existence out of nothing is difficult to wrap our brains around. It does however demonstrate the scientific term for causality. The earth and the heavens are the effect of the one true cause, God Himself.
It’s difficult to admit this is a mystery.
There is a story saying that one day, students in a great physics professor’s class — someone like Albert Einstein — said that they had decided there was no God.
The professor asked them how much of all the knowledge in the world they had among themselves collectively, as a class. The students discussed it for a while and decided they had 5% of all human knowledge among themselves.
The professor thought their estimate was a little generous, but he asked them: “Is it possible God exists in the 95% you don’t know?”
There is so much we don’t know. But God has given us His Word to provide us with details.
As we begin reading the book of Genesis I would like us to focus on few things:
The Book of Genesis is God’s story and it sets the stage for the entire drama of redemption.
Almost all of the important doctrines and teachings of the Bible have their foundation in Genesis, such as:
- Sin, the fall, redemption, justification
- The promise of the Messiah and Jesus Christ
- The personality and personhood of God
- The kingdom of God
Genesis provides the origin of:
- The universe
- Order and complexity
- The solar system
- The atmosphere and hydrosphere
- Life, humans, marriage
- Good and evil
- Language, government, culture, nations, religion
When we look at our society today we realize we are in such a disarray because people have abandoned the truths in Genesis.
One of the biggest truths is wrapped around our belief in Jesus. In John 5:46-47 Jesus spoke of the importance of believing what Moses wrote:
“If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
God, the creator, is beyond our comprehension. We are told every grain of sand is numbered by God. Not a sparrow drops to the ground without Him knowing. The God who put everything into being is sovereign, but let’s not define sovereignty incorrectly. There is the belief called “meticulous providence,” that God has control of everything that happens. It’s the idea that everything that occurs has already been determined by God. This view rules out human responsibility.
A better description of sovereignty is that God in His freedom chose to create a world that could rebel against Him. And in His freedom, has chosen to intervene into that rebellion and set it right.
In other words, the author of the story allows a certain amount of freedom, amongst the characters within the story. But ultimately has the power to even take the worst parts of that story and weave a new narrative that actually overrides it and brings about a greater beauty. This is what you see happening throughout the entire Bible. As we read through the book of Genesis we will see how God chooses to take the worst that humans can do in rebellion against the Creator and rather than eradicate them, with graciousness and restoration, He actually takes their messes and overrides them and redeems them. This is one of the most powerful aspects of the Gospel. It demonstrates that God is indeed good.
God is in control of history.
Yet, He is not responsible for the stupid things that we do.
Why God set it up this way, again, is a mystery. We can speculate, which is what most theologians do in their spare time, but for the rest of us, we need to be in awe of God’s sovereignty and have hope that the best is yet to come. We need not lose hope when it looks like the story has gotten out of control.
As we read through Genesis, actually throughout the entire Bible, we see God take all of our individual stories and weave them into His redemptive purposes.
There is a beginning and God was there before the beginning. He is the one who puts everything into motion. That is because it is His story. He will continue to tell it until its completion which we are moving toward. In the meantime, God hasn’t stopped creating.
I close today with Psalm 51:10. This is where God’s creating gets personal,
”Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
God is a creator who not only creates a universe and all that is in it. He creates in us a new heart. He creates good out of our messes. His mercies are new every morning.
Amen?
Let’s pray.
