"In the Beginning"
This is a text version of a message I preached in church in July 2023
Today’s reading is Genesis chapter 1. It can seem like
a slightly intimidating reading, but it really shouldn’t be. It
describes God in His creative work – and when we use the word God
with a capital letter, we mean the One who created everything, so
that’s not controversial.
The problem is that as we know it’s at the centre of a lot of
arguments among Christians. I’ll start by telling you my position
in those arguments: I have a science background and I can’t go
along with what’s called Young-Earth Creationism; consequently
I can’t take some features in this chapter entirely
literally.
If you knew of my science background and thought I was going to offer
ammunition for the young-earth position, I’m going to disappoint
you. If anyone wants to talk about this afterwards I’ll be
available. I’ve written an essay on the subject if anyone is
interested; here. But I
don’t want to argue; even if you prefer a literal interpretation
of the chapter I hope you’ll still be blessed by what I say about
it today.
What I want to say before we read is: that controversy isn’t the
main point. It’s simply not what the chapter is meant to be
about. If we dive straight into arguments about science we’ve
completely missed what we’re supposed to see here. I hope today
that we can all enjoy seeing important features in the Genesis account
of God’s creative work.
Genesis 1:1 to 2:3:-
In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 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.
And God said, ‘Let
there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light
was good, and he 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.
And God said, ‘Let
there be a vault between the waters to separate water from
water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under
the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the
vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning
– the second day.
And God said, ‘Let the
water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground
appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground
‘land’, and the gathered waters he called
‘seas’. And God saw that it was good.
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. 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. And
there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.
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 sacred times, and days and
years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give
light on the earth.’ And it was so. 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. God set them in the
vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and
the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was
good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the
fourth day.
And God said, ‘Let the
water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the vault of the sky.’ So God created the great
creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems
and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged
bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 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.’ And there was evening, and there was morning –
the fifth day.
And God said, ‘Let the
land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock,
the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each
according to its kind.’ And it was so. 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.
Then God said, ‘Let us
make mankind 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.’
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
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.’
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 along the ground – everything that has
the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for
food.’ And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had
finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested
from all his work. 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.
Almost all ancient peoples had a creation story. It was a well-known
form of literature and in an ancient culture it fulfilled several
purposes.
- It was a good and entertaining story, with satisfying structure.
- It laid the foundation for the religious beliefs of the society.
- It showed people where they fitted in to the world and what they could expect in life.
The creation account in Genesis has obvious similarities to
other creation stories we know of, but also some striking differences.
It shows “where everything came from” as such an account
should, but it also shows things about God which were uniquely
understood by the Jews.
It makes it clear that there is One God. Almost all other cultures
described many gods, among which they might have a favourite one. These
gods were very powerful, but they were seen as part of the creation,
not transcendent (outside it). They were usually not omnipotent or
omniscient; they were more like people with special powers, like modern
superheroes (or even supervillains).
Genesis describes God existing before anything else, and creating
everything there is out of nothing. He didn’t have to work in any
way to do this, His power is to just say “Let there
be…” and there is. Other creation myths describe their
gods creating the world out of incongruous materials, or even
body-parts of other gods. They always need raw materials to work on and
their work is often imperfect.
For example, Norse myth starts with the dark and silent abyss
Ginnungagap, between the fire Muspelheim, and the ice Niflheim. The
fire melted the ice, and the drops formed Ymir, a destructive giant. As
the frost continued to melt, a cow, Audhumla, emerged from it. She
nourished Ymir with her milk and also licked the ice. She slowly
uncovered Buri, the first of the gods. Later, Odin was his grandson.
Odin and his brothers slew the giant Ymir and built the world from his
corpse. Then they formed the first man and woman, Ask and Embla and
built a fence around their dwelling-place, Midgard, to protect them
from the giants.
The picture in Genesis, with one transcendent God creating everything
out of nothing by His own power and wisdom is quite a contrast to
stories like this!
In fact Genesis offers us the “teleological argument” for
believing in God. Created things show us something of what the Creator
is like. If the creation is good, so is the Creator. This is expanded
elsewhere in both Old and New Testaments, for example Psalm 19 and
Romans 1.
Since
the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his
eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being
understood from what has been made.
Romans 1:20
Well, why argue about this? I think the phrase “the heavens and
the earth” can mislead us (and make us dive into that science
controversy). We immediately think of the globe earth floating in
space, as we’ve seen in photos, and we think “Oh, this is
about astronomy and cosmology; it will have things to tell us about
science”. That’s not what people at the time of the writing
of Genesis would have thought of.
A better translation would be “the sky and the landscape”
– what we see from our individual point of view. This chapter
shows us where we fit in to what God has made. What our situation and
role is. (v16 is a great temptation for me to start talking about
astronomy and the enormity of stars and galaxies – but from the
perspective of a created being, stars don’t look huge, they are
distant and only seen at night, so they don’t get much of a
mention here).
There’s some structure to the chapter which isn’t
immediately obvious. Days 1-3 describe the environments; sky, sea and
land. Days 4-6 fill those settings with the things that occupy them.
This explains why there are three “days” which have
“evening and morning”, before the sun is even made. This
isn’t a scientific error, it’s simply because of the way
the account has been organised. What we have isn’t a
chronological account of what happened; it’s more like a
word-picture showing the whole thing at once. Within this whole, each
“evening and morning” is like a smaller picture frame. The
overview is that we’re shown an organisation into three domains,
and how they are filled with appropriate things and creatures.
Along the way, almost everything people can be tempted to worship in
God’s place is listed as something God actually created: the sky;
the sun and moon; great creatures; even ourselves. Any of those things
can seem more accessible and easier to understand than God, but
it’s a huge mistake to put any of them in His place.
Sea is an interesting image all through the Bible. In v2: “the
waters” are unformed and chaotic. God has to subdue them and
impose form on them. In v9 the seas are removed from the land, making
our kind of life possible. In the Old Testament (for example Psalm
74) the sea is often threatening, containing great sea monsters. When
Jesus calmed the storm He was reasserting God’s authority. Later
in Revelation 4:6 we see a glassy, clear sea; completely subdued in the
presence of God. In Revelation 13:1 a terrifying beast comes out of the
sea, but in Revelation 21:1 there’s finally “no more
sea”.
God’s emphasis in His creation is that things should “be
fruitful and multiply”. There’s a right way for His
creation to function. We disturb this and drive things into extinction
at our peril.
God pronounces His creation “very good” Himself. We can
agree. When we notice things that don’t seem good (diseases etc.)
this is a reminder that the creation isn’t how it should be
– it has been spoiled by sin. We’re promised, though, that
it will be restored. If we sometimes now find God's creation
awe-inspiring, we haven't seen anything yet!
The
creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be
revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own
choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the
creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought
into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
Romans 8:19-21
That phrase “children of God” brings us back to what I said
before, that the account would show us not only what God has made, but
also where we fit into it. The most striking thing said about human
beings is that we’re made “in the image of God”. What
does that mean?
- It obviously doesn’t mean simply that we look like Him; He is invisible.
- It doesn’t mean we’re like Him in physical
characteristics. It’s important to notice that “male and
female” are both created in God’s image.
- I think it does mean that we like making things!
We bear the image of the Creator of everything. Tolkien has one of his
characters say, “The making of things is in my heart from my own
making by Thee”. If you’re an engineer or a bricklayer or
an artist or you like knitting or even playing Minecraft, that’s
because you bear the image of the Creator.
- We’re placed in authority. That maybe
wasn’t obvious in ancient times but these days technology has
made our control complete. That doesn’t mean we can do what we
like: we’re responsible for the condition of the world we have
dominion over.
- We know good from evil. God pronounced His creation
“good”, and we’re able to recognise good from evil
too. This could be where we differ from animals: if a tiger eats you,
it’s not because it’s evil, it’s just being a tiger.
But we can recognise good and evil in our own actions.
- It has to be said that our perception of good and evil
has been warped by sin: that’s described in the next chapter
where Adam and Eve are tempted by the “knowledge of good and
evil”. (“Knowledge” might be better translated as
“experience” – they choose to experience both!) Now
people will insist on mixing up evil and good, or rationalise that evil
is good, or deny that there’s any difference, all because of sin.
But we can still know the difference by God’s help.
- God’s help extends to becoming one of us! Dying
because of sin and setting us free from its power. In doing this, He
has created Himself in our image! That’s probably more
complicated than I can go into now. I’ll just mention that Jesus,
in John chapter 5, appears to contradict the last verse we read about
God resting from His work. He says, “My Father is working still,
and I am working!” (John 5:17). That was deliberate, and
we’re meant to think about why He said it.
Any sermon needs to pass the “So what?” test. We need to
learn not only about God and what He does, but about ourselves and how
we should live. What can we learn from this passage?
- Acknowledging God and our place in His creation is important.
- We need to live up to the realisation that we bear His image.
- We make things because He creates. We need to strive to
make things well; so that afterwards we can see that what we’ve
done is “good”. This applies most obviously to our work but
can extend to everything else we do too.
- We must take responsibility generally for “the
environment” and also the things in the world we have control
over on a smaller scale.
- We need to recognise good and evil, and choose good.
Avoid rationalising (explaining to ourselves that what we want is
“good”) – which human beings are so good at.
- We need to put our faith in Christ, who is God
Incarnate – God made one of us. And we need the realisation that
the whole point of being a Christian is becoming gradually like Him!
Showing His love to others and so making the image of God we bear
clearer and more evident.
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