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IN THE BEGINNING
First Things, Part 1
Genesis 1:1 – 2:3
September 9, 2007
Pastor Bob Sanders
This morning we begin a series of messages called First Things in which we focus on the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Genesis is foundational to our understanding of Scripture. It lays the groundwork for all that follows – the saga of sin and redemption unfolding through patriarchs and prophets, through judges and kings, and then through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and on through his apostles. And it all starts with these words: In the beginning.
That’s where we start our study of First Things this morning, and I’d like your help. If you’ll turn to the insert in your bulletin, we’ll read this responsively: Genesis 1:1 – 2:3. And as we read, listen for the cadences; listen for the parallelisms and repetitions. Listen to it not as a scientific textbook, but as a magnificent poem (which is no less true than a textbook, and maybe more so). Listen to it for what it is: the song of creation.
Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 (TNIV)
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.
And it was so. 8 God called the vault "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear."
And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas."
And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”
And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.
And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth."
And it was so.
16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind."
And it was so.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.
And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food."
And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Taking It Seriously
Genesis chapter 1 could be the most well-read passage in the entire Bible – for at least two reasons. First, this is the first chapter of the first book in the Bible, and every time we make a resolution to read through the entire Bible, we usually start right here. Sometimes we actually make it through Genesis, even into Exodus, before bogging down and giving up in Leviticus. But we always start off here in the first chapter.
Second, every time you see one of those Christian fish symbols on a car being swallowed up by Darwin and you start wondering about the whole subject of evolution, you think, “What exactly does Genesis say about creation?” And you start back in.
Which is fine. Whatever gets us to read Genesis is good. But it leads me to the first thing I need to say about Genesis 1, and that is this chapter is not about the debate between creationists and evolutionists. I know this will disappoint some of you, but we’re not going there. One of the problems of this debate is that it tries to force Genesis into answering How questions: How was the world made? How long did it take? How did life begin? But this chapter isn’t about How questions. It’s about Who and Why questions. It’s about who made us? Who’s behind this amazing world, and why were we put here on it?
That’s what Genesis wants us to think about – not so much the method used to create life but the meaning of that life. It speaks not in the language of data and empirical evidence. It speaks in the language of symbols and images. As I say, it’s a poem. You read poetry differently than a newspaper article. For one thing, you don’t push it for details.
Which is why there’s a big difference between taking Genesis 1 literally and taking it seriously. We take this chapter seriously when we let it say to us what it wants to say, when we read it on its own terms, when we let it set its own agenda. It’s not a modern scientific treatise. That approach imposes our agenda on it. Rather it’s a poem, a song about who made us and why. Karl Barth once said something about how when we try to equate scientific theories on the origin of the world with the poetry of Genesis 1, it’s like trying to compare the sound of a vacuum cleaner with that of a pipe organ. Don’t try. They’re different.
The Who Question
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s the Who question. Who did it? God. Not multiple gods (which is what most of Israel’s neighbors would have said). One God. Genesis 1 wasn’t written as a case against evolution. It was written as a case against idolatry, against polytheism, against the worship of many gods as practiced by the prosperous, highly developed cultures surrounding ancient Israel – the Sumerians, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians. If you read the creation myths from these civilizations you find they involve multiple gods, and they’re frequently fighting each other. And in these accounts the world is formed out of something else – often out of the carcass of some slain enemy or sea monster.
But Genesis 1 says “In the beginning God…” Not multiple gods, but the one true God. And it says God “created the heavens and the earth.” And that word created is used in Genesis only of God. It implies God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. Not out of some sea monster’s carcass or some primordial ooze. No, the one God created all that is – sea and sky, water and land, light and dark, plants and trees, sun and moon, all swimming, swarming, creeping, walking breathing creatures. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Ex nihilo: out of nothing. And as each aspect came into being, God said, “It is good. It is very good.”
The Why Question
That’s how Genesis 1 answers the Who question. But look with me now at what it has to say about the Why question. By the way, I probably read more books and listened to more sermons to prepare for this message than just about any other I’ve preached. And I was greatly helped by several of them, but one that was particularly helpful was Tim Keller, the outstanding preacher at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. I’m grateful for his insights.
The Why question. Why did God create this world and make us to be part of it? There are several clues in this chapter. First, notice that eight times these words appear: “And God said, ‘Let it be so.’” “Let there be light,” or “Let the dry land appear,” or “Let the land produce living creatures,” and so forth. God creates the heavens and the earth by speaking. Every time God creates something, he speaks it into being. Which is pretty amazing. When I say “Let there be light,” nothing happens. I have to get up and turn the switch on. If I say, “Let there be a sermon” I have to sit down at my word processor. But when God speaks, it happens. God’s word has power in itself to accomplish whatever God wants. God creates through his word.
Hold that – it’s the first clue to the Why question. Here’s another. In verse 2 we read that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” That’s a powerful image, and it tells God’s Spirit is personal. God’s Spirit is depicted not as some gas cloud suspended over the earth. Not some Star Wars “force.” The word hover in Hebrew always refers to a mother bird – an eagle, for example – hovering, spreading her wings over her eggs to protect them or helping them learn to fly once they’re hatched. The Spirit of God hovers over the dark waters of the unformed world. Instead of being an impersonal thing Genesis 1 portrays the Spirit of God as personal, caring, nurturing, involved.
And then the biggest clue comes in verse 26 when God says, “Let us make human beings in our own image.” Us? Who’s he talking to? Some say he’s talking to the angels. But that won’t work. It doesn’t say God created us in the image of angels but in his own image. So he’s not talking to angels. And he’s not talking to the animals.
Who’s he talking to then?
Here’s the answer. Later on the Bible says the reason the Father’s Word can create something out of nothing is because the Father’s Word is a Person. The reason the Word of God has the power to make things happen is because it’s a Person. The Father’s Word is the Son. John 1 talks about the Word – about Jesus – and says that “through him all things were made.” And if you go back to Genesis 1, that’s what you see there. God never creates without speaking. The creation comes through the Word (Jesus the Son) and through the Spirit.
In other words, what we have here is the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now stay with me for a moment on this. We’ve seen how polytheists believe there are many gods who emerge from the primordial ooze and battle each other. And monotheists, non-Christian monotheists, believe there’s one God, yes, but a God who never experienced love, never experienced community until he finally decided to create human beings – a God who through the long eons before creation is alone and by himself.
But Christians believe the Bible teaches that God is a community. You have it right here on the first page of the Bible: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit doing creation together, and saying, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” From all eternity God has been a community, a circle of love.
Maybe the idea of the Trinity – three Persons in one God – overloads your mental circuits. I’m sure it does. It does mine. But look at what the song of creation tells us. It tells us from before time there was a community, a circle of love: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And they knew and loved one another from all eternity, and they delighted in each other’s being, and they praised each other’s glory, and they enjoyed each other’s beauty. And one day they said, “Let’s expand the circle. Let’s expand the community. Let us create beings that can become part of the circle.”
Nature’s Song
Why does God speak creation into being? Because he wants to share relationship. Why does God make us in his image? So we can reflect his glory. Why does God make the oceans and the dry land, the moon and the stars, the flowers and trees, fish and reptiles, birds and mammals? Genesis 1 says that God created a whole community of beings that can reflect his glory, that can sing his praises.
And all the while God keeps coming to them and saying, “It is good.”
What does that mean? When God says, “It is good” it means God is enjoying it, delighting in it. When you take a drink of the best wine and you put down the glass, you say, “It’s good.” You’re enjoying it. You say the same thing after a great meal, after making great love, after hearing great music. You say, “It is good.” What’s God doing here? God creates a community of beings who can reflect his glory and praise him, and then God completes the circle by looking at them and saying, “I’ve made you so beautiful. I adore you. You are glorious. You are good.” And what he’s done is to create this community of beings who can enter into the circle.
The why, the purpose of creation is community. The purpose of creation is singing. Singing the praises of our Maker.
And this, by the way, helps us understand why nature is so moving to us. Even if you don’t believe in God, why is it you can gaze at the snow-capped Cascades, or stand beneath the mists of Multnomah Falls or walk along the Oregon coast with the waves pounding – and you hear music? Why are you so moved? Genesis 1 tells us why. It’s nature singing the praises of its Maker. And it’s calling you in.
Genesis 1 says nature is a choir. Look at any aspect of it. Look at the marvels of a tiny single-celled organism through an electron microscope or the splendors of a supernova through the Hubble Telescope. Look at a forest or a flower. Look at a snail or a salmon. Look at a bright morning star or a blazing sunset. Even if you don’t know God, they’re singing to you. They’re saying, “Our Maker loves us. Our Maker says we’re good.”
Why is nature so happy and we’re so sad? Why is it so beautiful? Why is it so spiritual? What is it that speaks so powerfully and draws you in? What is it? It’s music. And not just any music. It’s praising its Creator. It’s glorifying its Creator. It’s reflecting its Creator.
It’s singing to you about its Creator and inviting you into the circle.
The Maker Unmade
And yet, we can’t go.
Why not? Genesis 1 doesn’t tell us about that. We have to wait until we get to Genesis 2 and 3 to find out. But let’s look ahead briefly to wrap this up. Why can’t we join with nature and enter the circle because we can’t sing the same song. Because every human being has chosen to be his/her own master. We all have done that. The Bible says we don’t want to go in under the King. We want to be our own king. We want to call the shots for ourselves.
And so when we hear nature calling us to praise the one true Lord, we have trouble with it. That’s not the way our lives want to go. In one of his sermons, the great Anglican preacher George Whitefield asked this question: Do you know why when we go in nature the animals are so hostile? Why do bears growl and birds screech and insects scatter? Do you know why?
Whitefield said it’s because they know we have a quarrel with their Master.
Nature is praising God, but we’re not. It’s inviting us into a song that we can’t sing. Nature is singing, “Our Maker loves us. Our Maker says we’re good. Our Maker enjoys us.” And Genesis 1 says this is what every human being was made for. Deep in your soul you need this more than anything else. Like water in the desert, like oxygen in your lungs, you need to know that your Maker looks at you and says, “You are good. I love you and I delight in you.” You need to know that your Maker sings to you of your beauty, sings of his joy in you. You need that. But you know you’re not good. You know you’re not right with him. You know you’ve rebelled and pushed him away.
That’s what the first three chapters of Genesis are telling us. We can’t sing the song. We need it, but there’s a barrier. What are we going to do? Genesis 1 points us to it. Where’s the other place in the Bible that starts, “In the beginning”? In John 1, as we heard earlier. And it tells us there that Jesus Christ, the Word through whom everything was created, became flesh. The Word that made matter became matter. The One through whom everything became visible was himself made visible. He came to this Earth he created and went to the cross. And on that cross we see the exact opposite of what we see happening in Genesis 1.
There on the cross he spoke and there was no answer. Nothing happened. “My God, my God…” Silence.
There on the cross he was made formless and empty, covered in darkness. He was forsaken. The Spirit of God was not hovering over him.
The very opposite of creation happened to Jesus Christ on the cross. He was “decreated.” Why? Our Maker had to be unmade so that we could be remade. Our Creator had to be deconstructed so that we might be reconstructed.
And here’s how we get recreated. Do you believe he died on the cross for you? That he lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died? If you believe this – that the Son of God died in your place, went to the cross for you – then you know God loves you and that God looks at you in Christ and says, “You are good.” This is what you need to hear so badly. And until the Spirit of God brings this word into your heart, your life is formless and empty, you’re in darkness, there’s a hole in the center of your life.
And you’ll try to fill that emptiness in all kinds of ways. But what you need to deal with that emptiness is to be able to say that Jesus Christ was made empty for you. You need to know that because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, the Father looks at you and says, “You are good.” And until you hear him say that, you can’t fully appreciate creation and you can’t join its song. Because the song of nature says, “Our Maker loves us. He says we’re good.”
God is singing to nature. We’re singing back to God. Join the choir. But to do that, you have to see this: Our Maker was unmade so that we might be remade.
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