Themes of the Bible: Creation (Genesis 1)

 

Themes of the Bible: Creation (Genesis 1) 

We've spent many months now talking about the importance of being vigilant and persevering in our faith, and keeping our eyes on Jesus, God’s final revelation to humanity. We all learned that those theme’s come from God’s Word, and that it's important for us to understand what God’s word is telling us, and so what we're going to do for the next few weeks is try to look at God’s Word and hit the major parts of scripture. We’ll see the major themes of scripture that God is trying to communicate to humanity through his Word. Now this is the one part that I hate about teaching, is when I forget to say something important, or forget to ask something of you that is important, and these past few weeks I got so caught up in the end of the book of Hebrews that I totally forgot to give you your assignment to read Genesis 1. So, I’m just going to assume that at some point in your history you have read Genesis chapter 1, and if you haven’t please find some time to read it this week, it’ll take you less than 10 minutes, and we're going to build from there. 

For this series, we're beginning in Genesis chapter 1, because I believe that there are at least three crucial lessons that God is trying to teach us and tell humanity in this first chapter of the first book of Scripture. There's so much in Genesis 1 that we could spend weeks alone on that one chapter, but I want to draw out these three today, so if you've got your bible, we’ll be in Genesis 1. This is the easy one to find, because it's the very first page. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. . .” 

Alright, let’s stop right there. In fact, you don't even have to read the first full verse to get this first point. It's the first four words that are maybe the most instructive in the entire bible. Notice, I didn't say the most important but the most instructive words of the entire bible could be these first four “In the beginning, God. . .” So, right from the very beginning, the bible is establishing and presupposing the existence of God. You're going to see this throughout the scriptures, that the bible is never going to try to prove to you the eternal existence of God. Rather, it just assumes God’s eternal existence, and one of the reasons it's not going to try to prove it to you, is because you can't understand it. This is why, even as an adult, when you try to comprehend that God has always been and always will be, you can't accurately grasp just what that means. You and I are created, finite beings, we have a mortal soul and therefore we're bound by natural law, and one of those natural laws is the existence of time, a beginning and an end. So, right at the very beginning when we see that God has always been, you're automatically and immediately introduced to what is a supernatural being, and that's what scripture is always going to point to. You can go to the psalmist and what does he say, Psalm 90:2, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Now, the psalmist doesn't understand that any better than you and I do because his mind is confined to the natural limits of our universe as well, but God’s telling him what to write so he's writing it down this way to tell us that the Lord is everlasting. We have an eternal being that we're talking about, but was God alone at the time of creation? Was there nothing else around? Well, now flip over to John’s gospel, the first chapter and what do you read in the very first verse of John? “In the beginning. . .” Okay, this is the very beginning of all things back when God always was, “In the beginning was the Word. . .” and notice that Word is capitalized. This isn't talking about God’s words are there with him at the beginning, which would seem to make sense because if God’s there, his words would be there too. But, this is obviously a being of some sort. “The Word was with God. . .” So, when God is there and always was, this being was with God and “. . .the Word was God. . .” “He was with God in the beginning, through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. . .” and then you start reading the next few verses and it talks about him as a light that came into the world, so we know we're talking about a being, and then the Word became flesh and made is dwelling among us humans, and John goes on to point out who this Word is. This Word of course is the Son. So, you have this being that we're understanding that was always there at the very beginning, this eternal being God, and now we already have two forms of that God. We have God the Father and God the Son. Now, go back to Genesis chapter 1 and look at verse 2, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” And now, we've got our third. We have the Spirit of God and right from the very beginning, the first thing that I think scripture is wanting us to grasp is the existence of an eternal trinitarian God. God existing in three persons. 

This is what scripture is getting across to us. It's never going to argue this and try to prove to us how that can work, rather, it's going to teach us that this is what it is, and it's for us to accept. That's the first lesson of the book of Genesis. Then, we get to verses 3 through 5, And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

Alright, so what we have taking place here, two things that I want you to pick up on from these 3 verses is the power of God in creation. We're talking about unimaginable power here. God created all things just by speaking it into existence. We cannot wrap our human minds around that. It is miraculous and unbelievable, but this is how God creates all things. It's unbelievable power that God is creating everything simply by speaking those words, and notice those verses, particularly verse 4, God calls it good, and every other day that he creates something in, Scripture will say that God saw that it was good. 

So, if God is defining this time and these days as good, I think it's important that we understand what that word means, because we think we know what that means but it doesn't mean that we know what it means to God. First, this is not God complimenting himself. ‘Let there be light and there was light’ and then God reacts and says, ‘well that is not too shabby. I had no idea I was capable of this spectacular thing.’ That's not what's happening here, of course, he's speaking it into creation so what does the word good mean in the context of scripture? It's signifying this as perfect. Exactly as the Lord intended it to be. It is complete, with nothing lacking. 

This is the first moment that you see modern society and our understandings of science taking one road and the Word of God, our Bible, taking another, because when God creates everything is exactly as intended and that isn't at all what modern science will tell you the creation of the universe is. But this is a theme, modern science says that we have this gigantic bang or expansion of everything, and you have all these mutations and wild explosions and we got planets crashing into each other, it's absolute chaos that forms our planet and forms our universe, and puts drinking water on that planet at exactly the right distance from the sun, with an orbit and rotation that allows for growing seasons, etc. That's not the theme of scripture. It starts here in the book of Genesis, and you will see it throughout the Bible, structure, order, intent, and design. That's what we're seeing in the book of Genesis and by the way this is one of those moments that you can start to see and ask, does science validate the modern scientific theory, or does it validate what scripture teaches? Do we live in a universe of chaos and mutation and random explosions and happenings or do we live in a universe of unbelievable mathematics and structure and intent and a design that gives testimony to a magnificent designer? This is where you see that branching off and starting to take place. 

I want you to notice the order of creation. Now, maybe this is a fluke, maybe Moses just got lucky when he did this but the first three things on the first three days that are created. On day one, God creates light. On day two, he creates air or the atmosphere. On day three, he creates water and separates the water from the land. Now, the first three things, light, air, and water. Ask any scientist worth their salt what are the three elements necessary to sustain life and what they are going to tell you is light, air, and water, and some place to plant crops. Maybe Moses just got lucky in his unscientific mind as he's writing, that the beginning of all things just happens to nail the three elements essential for life to persist and exist or maybe this is yet another indication that God is revealing to the writers of Scripture something that he wouldn't have known on his own. Structure, order, intent, and design, the necessary elements to sustain life are the first things that God puts into place. 

Now, we're going to skip ahead and look at verse 11. [Read Genesis 1:11-13]. What do you see here? The phrase that's repeated there, ‘according to their kind’ and by the way this isn't the only place you see it. On day 5 and 6, verses 21 & 24, [Read Genesis 1:21 & 24]. That means from the smallest little protozoa to the biggest humpback whale, was made according to their kinds. If you're not picking up on it, a common theme that runs throughout the first chapter of Genesis is that God creates things according to their kinds. What we are getting at is another major divergent point from the chaos of mutations that come from Darwinian evolutionary theory, and Scriptures’ teaching that God designs things within their families. You have fish you got the dogs, you got the felines, and all of these various kinds of plants and animals that he creates within this structured order. Intentional design, contrast that with what we are taught in schools regarding the Darwinian tree of life that says that all living things have a common ancestor, and the root of the tree is a ball of goo that just happened to wash up on the shore, decided that it doesn’t want to be dead anymore, pops to life, grows gills, then wings, then fur, then puts on a tie and gets a job teaching biology at a public high school. This type of science is observable, testable, and repeatable as the scientific method demands, right?  

Well, that isn't at all what the book of Genesis talks about over and over. Instead of a tree of life, we have this great orchard of life, an orchard that God plants, literally in the garden of Eden. He forms all of creation, all the plants and animals according to their kinds. 

Darwin saw a bunch of finches and finches that had long beaks and short beaks and thick beaks and thin beaks all these different finches that were in the Galapagos, an amazing variety of finches what Darwin did not see, however, was the part where a finch was slowly morphing into a lizard. We don’t and have never seen them crossing kind. Science has never observed any of those things that they preach as fact to defend Darwin. Darwin said one day we'll dig in the dirt and we'll find in rocks all of these fossils what is missing in this process. All of these supposed “missing links.” Well, we've dug in the dirt and they're not there, they're still missing. What we do find, however, is amazing variety within a species as though they were created according to their kinds. Once again, what does science validate? It validates the account of scripture, structure, order, intent, design. 

Now, let’s look at verse 26. This is the third point. “Then God said, ‘let us make man in our image. . .’” Did you get that? “let us” well, who's us? This is the trinity. Let us, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let us, make man in our image. And, by the way who's he talking to? The entire heavenly court. He's making a huge announcement here; “let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air over the livestock over all the earth over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So, verse 27, [Read Genesis 1:27-31].

Alright, notice what happens in verse 26. Let’s go back to that real quickly, let me read it one more time, “then God said, ‘let us make man in our image in our likeness and let him rule over the fish of the sea the birds of the air. . .” So, here we see God announcing his crowning achievement. He doesn't do this for anything else but now, at the pinnacle of his creation week, he is announcing this is the climactic point that he has been building up to. All up until now, he was building up to a being that bears his image. Nothing else on planet earth bears the image of God that's why man a special place and role in creation. We bear his image internally, because we resemble God in the fact that we have an eternal spirit and soul, and we are like God externally because of our capacity for relationship. Our emotional connection with other humans and with God. No other living creature has that kind of emotional capacity that we've been given. We have been built to have communion with and relationship with God and with each other.

Psalm 8 shows this very same theme, verse 5, “you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor you made them rulers over the works of your hands you put everything under their feet.” Why is this? Because we bear his image. We are the climax of the creation week. 

In Genesis 1, God shows us that nothing in his creation compared to you, and these few verses reveal two really profound things about you and I. Number one, we are not cosmic accidents that are here by chance. We are the intentional creation of the God of the universe. No one is here by chance, and he has intentionally embedded in every human being his image. Every human being. It doesn't matter your ethnicity, it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter how much money you make, it doesn't matter if your parents even know your name or have anything to do with you, you bear the image of almighty God. Which means, he has more value in you and has a better relationship with you, and love for you than all of the rest of creation. You have been created with the capacity to commune and have fellowship with the author of the universe. 

And the second point, is that this means that God is not indifferent about our existence. We are created by him in an act of love. Maybe you were conceived in rape, maybe you were disowned by your parents, maybe you tried to take your life, maybe you haven’t been living like you know you should, maybe you feel alone and need to feel that loving embrace, or maybe none of the above, but regardless, whoever you are, your life, you bear the image of God, and he knit your being together and he has a profound love and is not indifferent towards your existence. He does not turn his back on your suffering, he has a plan and a calling and a destiny for you and for every human life, which brings us to lesson three. 

Human life is sacred. It is of infinite worth, and not because of anything we do. Life is not valuable because of what it does, life is valuable because of what it is. You are a being that bears the image of almighty God. So, what is God teaching us in the very first words of Scripture, his speaking to his people in Genesis chapter 1, is that there exists an eternal trinitarian God, we live in a designed universe of order and logic and purpose and science and experience, and everything demonstrates that, and we are intended, we are valuable, and we are loved. That's the message of Genesis 1.

Let’s pray.