God Created the Heavens and the Earth

God Created the Heavens and the Earth

Pastor Ed Evans

Genesis 1:1-13

1 When God began to create the heavens and the earth — ² the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— ³ God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. ⁴ God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God named the light Day and the darkness Night.

There was evening and there was morning: the first day.

⁶ God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” ⁷ God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. ⁸ God named the dome Sky.

There was evening and there was morning: the second day.

⁹ God said, “Let the waters under the sky come together into one place so that the dry land can appear.” And that’s what happened. ¹⁰ God named the dry land Earth, and he named the gathered waters Seas. God saw how good it was. ¹¹ God said, “Let the earth grow plant life: plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened.¹² The earth produced plant life: plants yielding seeds, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was.

¹³ There was evening and there was morning: the third day.

Prayer

          Father, we enjoy Your presence, and we look forward to shining the light of knowledge on the Scriptures You have kept alive for us.  We offer prayers and concerns for those unable to be with us this day, and thank You for the time and the place to come together in Your presence.  We know Father that for You a thousand years is as a day, while we struggle to understand the how and why of that which You are capable.  So in faith we put our trust in You, and thank You for Your patience and Your love, and the opportunities to share them with others.  We thank You, Father, and ask these things in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Introduction

          Some of you may be wondering why we are starting back at the beginning, and this is because the tradition here is to go through the Bible every six years.  So as our banner says, “We Are Going Back Home”, we’re starting over In Genesis.

          I do think that regardless of what we believe about Genesis, or what we have been told, that we will benefit from a fresh reflection on these Scripture passages.

          We get a close-up picture here of what the hymn-writer calls the “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”, in action.  Especially in this first Chapter, it is only us and God, and we can focus directly on Him.

          For example, have you ever wondered about the fact that God created a day and a night before he created the Sun and the moon and the stars?  Where did that light come from?  We’ll find the answer to that next Sunday.

          And how wild is it that God speaks things into being?  And we will see this goes beyond being limited to light or plants or human beings. 

          Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). Genesis means beginning. Moses, who lived 120 years, was the one called by God to write this book for a four-fold purpose:

          1. To teach Israel that there was only one living and true God, the One who had created and purposed all.

          2. To teach Israel its roots, that they had actually been chosen by God Himself through Abraham appointed to be the chosen line of God’s people.

          3. To teach Israel that the promised seed, the Savior was to be sent into the world through them. Salvation—the Promised Seed—was to come through Israel.

          4. To teach Israel that they were to receive the Promised Land, the land of Canaan, and that God would be faithful to His Word and give them the Promised Land. Hebrews 11:3 "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

          Now, often we read Scripture to learn about God’s nature or to hear our Savior speak.  As we meditate on a passage, we listen expectantly for a word of counsel, we seek insight into the purpose of life, or we try to fathom the fickleness of the human character.

          How curious is it, then, that often when we open our Bibles to the early chapters of Genesis, especially to the account of Creation in Genesis 1, we lay aside our normal reasons for reading Scripture.  Instead of listening for a word about God, we regard Genesis as if it were a modern scientific treatise.

          What might we learn about God and His Creation if we once again tried to read Genesis 1 as a religious – rather than scientific – text?

          In Genesis 1:1, the beginning of the beginning, we find there are eight actions attributed to God – create, say, see, separate, make, name,  put and bless.  God does all those things.  But perhaps the most intriguing is the first.  In the Old Testament, only God is able to create.  Human beings can make, we can produce, shape, cast, form, prepare, craft, and so forth.  But we cannot create.

          Still there in Genesis 1:1, we find that the term “Heavens and earth” refers to more than just the divine and human abodes.  Just as we pair together a couple of contrasting nouns (night and day, east and west, north and south, Republicans and Democrats) to imply everything or everyone, so did the Hebrews.  So we find that “Heavens and earth refers to the entirety of creation; the universe; all that is; the spiritual and the physical – literally everything.

          The Nicene Creed puts it this way, God is the “maker of heaven and earth (in other words), of all that is, seen and unseen.”

          Now, the translators of the Common English Bible – as used in these lessons – made significant changes to the traditions King James Version rendition of the first two verses.  First, they replaced the tradition “In the beginning” with the pedestrian-sounding word “When.”  Then they changed the verbe from the simple past tense (“created”) to the continuous past tense (“began to create”).  These two changes are grammatically defensible, but signify a changed theological stance that will become apparent in the translation of verse 2.

          In the second verse the two words “without shape or form (shapeless and formless) also appear in tandem in Jeremiah 4:23.  They describe an inhospitable, trackless, featureless expanse, similar to what one would experience at sea, in a desert or wilderness, in a howling blizzard, or,( to use a more contemporary metaphor) in the aftermath of a devastating bombardment.

          If we take it at face value, the phrase “it was dark” describes a landscape devoid of light.  Yet when linked to the preceding an succeeding phrases, “dark” evokes a sense of perilous foreboding and heart-stopping dread.  When in Exodus 10:21 the ninth plague is introduced, a similar use of the word “darkness” names something more tangible than a mere absence of light, “a darkness that you can feel.”  Is something out there?

          The phrase “the deep sea” refers to the fathomless ocean depths.  Since God had not yet separated water from land, the waters covered everything.

          Still in verse 2 we have Hebrew and Greek words such as “ruach” and “pneuma” for wind, breath, and spirit.  And only the context helps one determine which word to use.  The fact that God’s wind “swept over,” “was hovering over”, or “moved upon” the waters suggests God was keeping attentive watch on it.

          We see that what happens in verse 2 follows the actions of verse 1.  That is, since God existed prior to Creation, God created the universe “out of nothing,”  And yet we have dashes at the beginning and end of verse 2 suggesting that it is describing the situation God happened upon “when God began to create … that is, God fashioned the universe out of already-existing matter.  But what?

          In verse 3, we have included all the events in verses 1 – 5 as Day One.  The more common understanding of other translations has viewed the events of verses 1-2 as occurring sometime prior to verse 3, with Day One including only the events in verses 3 – 5.

          Which is correct?  Since we weren’t there, we don’t know.  Another question to ask Him when we see Him.

          Here in verse 3 God the Creator is revealed to be also God the Speaker.  Most of the acts of Creation in Genesis 1 were commands spoken into existence by the word of God.  Isaiah 55:11 suggests that God has never stopped speaking things into existence.  Into a world that was ominously, dreadfully dark, with no sign yet of life, God spoke light into being.  It provided a glimpse, literally, of things to come.

          The simple correspondence between God’s words and the resulting act – “God said … And so light appeared” – is easily to overlook.  Yet it offers a stark difference between God and us.  How rarely to our actions correspond to our words!

          If I tell my wife I’m going to feed the dog, I’ve got to get up, open the dog food bag, fill the bowl, give it water, etc.  I can’t just say it and sit there.  And of course, later I’m going to have to take that mutt outside, too.

          In verse 4, we have the action of “God saw.”  The notion of God standing back and taking appropriate pride in a job well done is one we can appreciate, and one that should bring a knowing smile to our face.

          The only one whom Jesus said can justifiably be called “good” evaluated the creation of light and judged it to be like its Creator: “good.”  God acknowledged the otherness of the newly-created light when He “separated” it from the darkness.  Whether this separation was a mental classification or a physical act, its full import becomes apparent in the next verse.

          Verse 5, having completed the first Creation project, God identified the work of light by giving it the name “Day.”  That which was not light (or darkness) God named “Night”.  Still today, the ability to name an item correctly requires wisdom and implies authority.

          So now we have our first “day”, an evening and a morning, and we are led to believe other acts of creation will follow.

          But there is an unspoken mystery here associated with this first day.

          Anyone know what it is?  For thousands of years people have wondered ….. how can you have a “day” before you have created the sun and stars?  And we’ll get to that in Lesson 2 next Sunday.

          In verses 6 and 7, God speaks a second creative act into being.  Having separated light and darkness, God now addresses the water covering the earth.  God calls into creation a dome which He names “sky” to separate the upper and lower waters. 

          In verse 8 now having a second morning and evening, God labels this one the second day.

          Verse 9, God sets boundaries for the land and water.  The waters are called into one place in order that the land may appear.

          Verse 10, God names the dry land earth, and the lower waters the seas. 

          Verse 11, God focuses His attention on the newly formed dry land, called Earth, and spoke into being “plant life”; vegetation and grass.  These included two types of self-sustaining plant life.  The first that God instructed to grow were plants yielding seeds.  The second were fruit trees, with each type capable of reproducing “according to its kind”.

          Verse 12, as God had commanded, two kinds of plant life began to spring from the earth.  And these plants, herbs, and fruit trees were replete with seeds that would guarantee their continued existence.

          Martin Luther suggested that God’s good work should cause us to marvel at the results.  Said Luther, speaking to us from the 14^th Century, “The first creation without seed was brought about … as a result of the power of the Word.  However, the fact that seeds now grow is also a work of creation full of wonderment.”

          Verse 13, once again God has brought about an evening and a morning, when He immediately labeled it “the third day.”

          Well, what about it, have you heard anything yet that surprised you?  Something you didn’t know or hadn’t thought about?  Your Study book asks the question, “What questions or concerns have always puzzled you about Creation?”

          When I was a child, my favorite book was Hurlbut’s Book of the Bible, with lots of color pictures of the stories of the Bible.  And the story of Genesis was filled with the wonder of green plants and new animals, and Adam and Eve sitting around naming the animals.

          What about you?  Did any of you attend Sunday Schools that captured your imagination with the stories from Genesis and God’s creation?

          You may remember that at the beginning of this class, I that God demonstrated this ability to speak things into action, and yet it went beyond being limited to plants and animals.

          God sometimes speaks truths into us that make us new.  Have you ever had a set belief about someone or something and suddenly – you don’t know where it came from – but you are aware of a truth you had not considered.  You mind is changed.  Something new has happened to you.  It’s like a new day!  It’s happened to me so many times I’m just not surprised at what He can and will do within a life.  Has that happened to any of you?

. . . . .

          Throughout the Bible, the writers of Holy Scripture are consistent regarding their use of the word “create.”  Only God can create.  You and I, we can craft, we can manufacture, reproduce, but not create.

          You and I can smear colors on a white canvas and have it approximate boats in an blue ocean dock, or green vines climbing up a white fence, blossoming with multicolored flowers.  But that’s just reproducing. 

          What does the distinction mean to you that God has the ability to create, even with His spoken voice, and you and I, His creation, do not have that ability?  Is there a reason for that distinction, do you think?

. . . . .

          In the handout I gave you from the Sunday School Lesson Editor, Jan Turrentine, she talks about light and dark, and she makes the statement, “New life starts in the dark.  Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

          She goes on to say, “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion.  I need darkness as much as I need light.”

          What about you?  How do you feel about light and darkness?

          Good or scary?

          Any other questions, comments, discussion?

          

          Lord God, we understand so little and speculate about so much.  Forgive our arrogance in believing that we can have all the answers.  Help us instead to trust You completely.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.