Genesis 1:1-25
As we look at the first chapter of the Bible we approach it as God’s message to us. It is totally trustworthy; we need to read it carefully and prayerfully so we can understand it.
Genesis means ‘beginning’; Genesis is an overture to the whole Bible. The music at the start of an opera/show is the overture because it has snippets of the music of the whole show. So these first chapters give us some snippets that introduce us to God; what he loves and what he does throughout all the Bible. We see not only the beginning of the earth and universe but the beginning of people, families, work, religion, sin, death, nations, and cities.
Let’s go to the opening words–v1, “In the beginning God.”
Here is the Glory of God.
‘In the beginning’, before anything existed, God was there. The Bible doesn’t set out prove God exists, it simply says he was there.
Unlike us, he has no beginning; that is one way he is so different. God is not simply a super human; he is ‘other.’ God is beyond what we can measure or describe. He is without limitation. He ‘lives in unapproachable light’, 1 Timothy 6:16; he is a God of ‘unsearchable judgments whose paths are beyond tracing out’. Romans 11:33. We can also say that he depends on nothing else, ‘as if he needed anything’ Acts 17: 25. And he is always the same “I the Lord do not change’ Malachi 3:6; That is the Glory of God. We cannot fully understand God but we can understand enough.
v1 also tells that God is Lord: God is sovereign, he rules the world and his will is the ultimate cause of all things. ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other’, Isaiah 45:6.
He is all-powerful: “Is anything to hard for the Lord?” Genesis 17:1, God’s promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah at extreme age. He is Lord; can anything be too hard for Him?”
He is present everywhere: Psalm 139:7-12. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there.”
He knows everything: he sees and knows everything that happens. Psm 139: 15-16, “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
HOW GREAT IS GOD!
This first chapter of our bible is a beautiful poem, a hymn to the majesty of God the Creator. This chapter invites us to bow in humility before God’s creative word. Here there is majesty—the idea of beauty, completeness, strength, and calm.
Majestic: we apply to a building, tree, person, mountain range,
The writer’s heart and mind are moved in praise of God.
Psalm 104
1”Praise the LORD, my soul. LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty.”
At the time and place Genesis 1 was written the nearby nations had many gods and many creation stories, but Genesis proclaims one God. In the neighbour’s stories, the sun, moon and stars and sea monsters are seen as powerful gods; Genesis tells us that they are merely creatures. Genesis 1 sings the praise of the majestic creator of all. It speaks of his life giving power.
It also gives great significance to human life. Whereas in the Middle Eastern myths the humans only have walk on parts–they are there to supply the gods with food for example—in Genesis 1 the creation of humans is the high point of the story. It is God who provides food for men and women.
Imagine what a rock of stability this chapter would have been for the people of God when faced with the lure of pagan myths around them.
Genesis 1 calls us to worship the one sovereign majestic Lord, who is the source of all things, all life, all creatures, and all people.
Our majestic mountain range can give us sense of the mysterious, too. Genesis 1 points us to the mysteries of creation. There is much about our world we do not understand. The writer does not attempt to explain creation. He wants to catch us up into its wonder. He is not concerned with the question “How did God do it?” He would not, I think, be interested in the debates about the time scale of evolution and so on. We are left with mystery. It is not all clear. Deliberately he does not touch the ‘How’ questions. He is concerned with something else. He is safeguarding and proclaiming something of the unsearchable mystery of God. We mistake the purpose of this chapter if we expect it to answer all the questions we, with the benefit of modern science, want to ask about creation. We might have to wait for heaven to have all our creation questions answered. But for now allow yourself to enjoy creation’s wonder and mystery for–
Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
HOW GREAT IS GOD!
Our chapter shows the Order in Creation. From our earliest days we enjoy patterns; we look for patterns in the stars, patterns in wallpaper or cloth, patterns of numbers. Science exists because of patterns.
One of the stand-out features of Genesis 1 is its pattern. The theme of one week of six days leading to a seventh. There is the chorus that leads the story along—“there was evening and there was morning”. God is bringing order and form into this world.
- FORMLESS TO FORMED:
- EMPTY TO FILLED:
Days 1,2, and 3–Three sets of separations, Days 4,5, and 6–three sets of rulers.
The author is concerned with order and pattern. He describes the vegetation and animals in groups “according to their kind”, v11, 21, 24, 25.
Science rests on an ordered world, in which patterns can be discovered and groups established, and the experiment I did last week turns out the same way next week. There could be no science at all without an ordered world.
God created
a. out of nothing; v1, the heavens and the earth, v21, the great sea creatures, and v27, humans as male and female. God was totally free to bring into being things that did not exist, to make them out of nothing that already existed. God created all there is out of nothing. John 1:3, “without him was not anything made that was made.” Col 1:16, “All things were created through him and for him.”
God keeps the world going and will bring it to its ultimate conclusion. If God ‘turned himself off,’ nothing would then exist.
b. the heavens and the earth.
“God created the heavens and the earth”, v1; “all that is, seen and unseen,” There is the creation we can touch and see. God made it. There is a higher invisible, heavenly reality, and God created that, too, A created spiritual world just as there is a created material world. We are creatures of the God who made the universe, heavens and earth. Our world is open to him. God can at any time set aside the laws of nature to let his special acts be seen. The God whose ordering of nature makes science possible is a God who is also free, as he wills, to let the supernatural be seen, and that often was shown in Jesus’ ministry.
c. formless and empty, v2
In the beginning there was only confused emptiness, like a trackless desert. The deep, or the sea, carries a sense of disorder and terror. But God is giving it form. He will command the light, he will give the sea boundaries. This is what creation means, it is God at work to make things ordered and beautiful. This is the way God is. God brings life where there is no life and constantly renews life.
There is nothing, however spoiled that does not owe its existence to God. Everything we see and handle, every person that crosses our path, is a gift from the Creator to be treasured, honored, and treated with respect.
d. Through Spirit and Word
v 2b,” the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”(birdlike)
God is as intimately involved in his creation as a mother bird is in intimate touch with her young. The Spirit’s life gives life; Psalm 104:29-30”….when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” Through the Holy Spirit God indwells all of his creation. God interacts with the world. Not a Clockmaker who winds it up and sets it going and walks away.
“Word,” “and God said”, v3, and repeated 8 times. The Holy Spirit and God’s Word belong together.
HOW GREAT IS GOD!
WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT THAT? What stirs inside when you think about the greatness of God, in creation? Think back on what we have been saying“ (Wow; Thanks; I am not afraid; I want to be closer; I want to know more.)”
So…do this: 1. maintain your confidence in God’s goodness; re-assurance about my future, away with fear; God is close to his creation; he is powerful, he is good, he sees everything.
2. Worship God, ‘Is the worship of the God of heaven and earth central to our own lives?…and to our local Church?’
Worship can be:
- a song, sung, listened to or read
- Saying ‘thanks’, speaking your thoughts, using words of scripture, or the words of others in prayers or poem.
- Obeying God. Doing what he wants, our life can be a song of worship.
PRAYER:
You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” Rev 4:11, You are a faithful God; you created a good world by your word, just by speaking. We Praise you.
Thank you for your creation, the large and small, ancient or new. Our intention this week is to worship you, by speaking and acting in ways that point to you.
We pray for the work of scientists who are Christians, in medicine, food, building…
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forever more. Amen
