Genesis (2) (First Things First)
Text: Genesis 1:1-2
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Last Sunday when we looked at this passage we saw that Moses wanted to make it clear to us that it was God and God alone that was responsible for creation. We also talked about how God created all that exists ex nihilo or out of nothing. So this morning what we’re going to do is actually look a little closer at those first two verses from the first book of the Bible, and try to see how we can apply them to our lives.
What verse 1 and 2 do is bring us face to face with the reality of God; the reality that God is our Creator and that we are ultimately responsible to Him.
What these verses do is give us the Biblical “cosmogony”. What that means is the study of the origins of our world. Scientists have their own views of cosmogony, and so do philosophers, and here we have the Biblical cosmogony. And I believe that the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write this passage because God wants us to consider the implications of what these two verses are saying.
What verse 1 does, is makes it clear to us that there is no alternative opinion that we can take about the creation of the universe, and still say we hold to the Biblical account. That’s not to say a person is lost if they believe in evolution or theistic evolution. I have met Christians; who have, through public education, and the worlds pressures… have come to be confused or skeptical about how God created the heavens and the earth, and all that lives therein. They’re just as saved as you or I. They believe in Jesus, they’ve been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, they just aren’t sure what exactly Genesis 1:1 means… they wonder if God used evolution or the various means scientists claim, in the creation process. Hopefully after we get through this first section of Genesis we’ll be able to clear that confusion up. But I’ll just say this now, God didn’t use evolution. He didn’t use the big bang. He spoke and it was.
You see evolution requires that something existed, even if it was a blob or a particle, something existed. It has no answer to where that blob or particle came from. Evolution also tells us that matter progressed, and it progressed favorably. That’s an empirical problem for evolutionists today, and it always has been. Every time we see a mutation occur in science, its always harmful. And we find that there are far more problems with Darwin’s theory than there are within Christian doctrine. I’ll give you one example before we move on. It comes from the idea that is so pervasive in our society that “all people and all ideas are equal.” So let me ask you this: if there is no God and there is no divine Law Giver, and there are no consequences for our thoughts and behavior… then how did we arrive at the idea that all people are equal? If we evolved, who’s to say that my particular group of people didn’t evolve at a faster rate than your particular group, or that the process of evolution didn’t result in my evolving into something better than you?
You see it’s taking evolutionary thought to its logical process that creates men like Adolph Hitler, or Lenin or Stalin. But as Christians we have an answer to that kind of thinking. And that answer, is that all of humanity is created in the image and likeness of God. That we are God’s most cherished creation, so cherished in-fact that He sent His only begotten Son to die in our place so that we might be redeemed back to Him.
Genesis 1:1 says God is our creator, and when we see God as our creator, that He created us in His image, we can agree with the Unites States Declaration of Independence which states that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The other thing that verse 1 does – is that it shows us the distinction between the Creator and His creation. God is not the earth, God is not creation. He’s not part of the world and the world and the universe is not God. God is clearly defined as the Creator. And though He is personally and intimately involved in His creation, He is apart and distinct from His creation. He brought it into existence and He is Lord over it. He is an all-powerful, all-knowing, personal Being… and that’s part of the amazing thing about Genesis. This all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, personal God who created all that is, made the world to reflect Him and His glory. And so in creation we can expect order, we can expect meaning, we can expect certain laws to govern the creation. And we have those things, like GRAVITY, OR ENTROPY. Now I could stand here all day and talk to you about the philosophical side of this, but my wife on the other hand is sitting up there in the sound booth wondering, “How does knowing all of this help me keep the house clean, and take care of the kids? How does knowing that God sovereignly created the universe, and created it orderly, and that that He gave it meaning help in the daily struggles I face?”
Well; we live in a day and age when many people don’t want to believe in God. They would say, “Yes it’s an amazing world, it’s spectacular, and there are plenty of amazing things we can see here, but that’s all there is to it. It’s not a personal world. It has no meaning, and life really is all there is.” And I’ve met people who were pretty happy with that idea, until it came time to do the funeral of someone they loved and cared about. You see, it’s often at funerals that we find ourselves desperately wanting to believe that life has some sort of meaning. That the trials and tragedies, and also the triumphs of our lives actually have meaning.
When you look at that grandma who’s just lost her husband of 40 years… when you look at that parent who’s just lost their child, when you look at your friend who’s just lost another friend in a combat situation, you don’t say to them, that their loved ones life was meaningless. You don’t look them in the eye and say, “There’s no meaning here.”
That’s why Genesis 1:1 matters, because the world isn’t “Just the way it is.” There is a God, and He is a personal God, and He cares about us, and His creation proves that He cares about us.
Now look at verse 2 (Read). It’s almost like a sculptor taking a lump of clay and setting it in the work space before going to work on it. The original creation before God began to work on it was formless, it was empty or void, and it was dark. Now I want you to see something here, so turn with me to Jeremiah 4:22-28 (look again at verse 23). I hope you understand what God’s saying there. He’s saying that when man rejects Him, He let’s man have it his way. One of the worst judgments we see in Scripture, and we see it over and over again, is when God withdraws His sustaining grace and order. And the result of that isn’t that man evolves into something great, we devolve, and all of creation devolves. In Him we live and move and have our being. All things were created by Him and for Him, and without Him there was nothing made that has been made. In Him all things are held together. If the Lord pulls his restraining grace back, things begin to fall apart quickly and judgment comes upon mankind. That’s what Jeremiah 4 is saying is happening, that’s what we see happening in Romans 1, that’s what we see happen in the Book of Revelation. All of those take us right back to Genesis 1:2. Now I’m not saying, as some do, that God created a world and then that world “became without form and void” In order for that to happen sin would’ve had to have entered the world before Adam, and Scripture clearly teaches that isn’t the case. What I am saying is that when man rejects God, God withdraws Himself from man, and the result is that the world, and the order we see in, begins to revert back to it’s original form, if in Him all things are held together, when He removes that restraint from His created order, then chaos erupts.
C.S. Lewis said about Genesis 1 that, “This account has no marks of myth.” C.S. Lewis was the guy who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia – myth was his business. And if you’ve ever read any of the ancient creation mythologies you can see a huge difference between the Biblical account and the others.
I’ll give you an example from the Babylonian creation myth called Enuma Elish. Let me just summarize it for you quickly. In Enuma Elish it says there were two gods, Apsu and Tiamat, and they got married and had many children who became lesser gods and goddesses. They had so many kids that Apsu couldn’t go to sleep at night because his little god-children were so noisy, so he decided that he was going to kill several of them off. But one of those children, named Ea, managed to put Apsu to sleep with a magic spell. Once Apsu was asleep Ea murdered him. Well this made Tiamat angry and she wanted to take revenge on her husbands killer (who happened to be one of her own children). So Ea and several of the other’s went to talk to Marduk, the strongest of their brothers. They asked him to help them against their mother Tiamat. Marduk agreed, but made them promise if he won, he would become the king of the gods. They agreed. So Mardu fought Tiamat and he cut her in half. One half became the heavens and the other half became the earth. Then Marduk murdered his sibling Kingu and made mankind out of his blood.
So you see there’s a pretty big difference between those two creation accounts. In-fact if you look at all the ancient creation myths, outside of the Bible, you’ll find that every one of them not only gives an explanation for the creation of the universe, but also an explanation for the creation of the gods that particular culture believed in. The account we have in Genesis 1 is the only creation account I know of, where God is distinct from His creation. He is the un-created Creator.
Let’s look at one other thing before we close this morning, and that’s the significance of the order of creation… or I guess we could say the structure of it.
If we read all the way from Genesis 1:3 to 2:3 we see the 6 days of creation and the 7th day of rest. See Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was without form: so days 1,2, and 3 are all devoted to giving the world form. Then from verses 3 to 10, we see that each of those days speaks of God’s shaping the world, ordering it, giving it shape and structure, and… form. Then in verses 11 through 31 we see God bringing fullness to creation. So He gave form to formlessness, then He gave fullness to emptiness.
Days 4 through 6 tell us how God brings all this fullness into His creation.
So let’s break it down; days 1, 2, and 3 are devoted to form; days 4, 5, and 6 are devoted to fullness. If we look closer we see that the first day of from and the first day of fullness are devoted to the creation of light. So we see in verse 2 that the earth was without form, empty and dark, but God remedies all of that.
So it’s no wonder that Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God…” Its because His order, and His fullness, and His light have been built into all of creation. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead…” Creation shows us the reality that God is. God is – Creator, God is – sovereign, God is – in control, and God made it for your good… He made it… for you. In all of His creation He has made provision for mankind. He sends rain, gives us sunlight, He gives us time to work and time to rest. He has provided fruits, vegetables, grains, and animals to feed us, and help us. He has given us the raw materials to build homes, the minerals to provide for our lives. Natural resources to provide for all those animals, and for us.
When we look at creation, and we look at how our loving God has provided for us, how can we not praise Him and trust Him completely?
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