the god of creation

8/6/2019 The God of Creation

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The God of Creation

Introduction to the Creation

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 morningthe 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 morningthe second

day.

...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....

....God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there

was morningthe sixth day.

-Genesis 1:1-8, 28, 31 (New International Version)

I. INTRODUCTION

There are numerous teams within Christianity with their owninterpretation as to what exactly Genesis 1 means. In the followingoutline we will explore the awesome portrait of our Creator God that isall too often overlooked due to a misunderstanding as to what type of

literature we are dealing with here. Let us start with a brief introductionto the passages genre and move from there to these very importantelements that we often miss.

II. THE GENRE OF THE PASSAGE

A.Genesis 1 and 2 Seem to Contradict


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1. Creation Order 1 (Genesis 1)

a)Heavens & Earth (1:1)

b) Light (1:3-5)

c) Sky (1:6-8)

d) Dry Land & Seas (1:9,10)

e) Vegetation (1:11,12)

f) Sun, Moon & Stars (1:14-18)

g) Fish & Fowl (1:20-22)

h) Land Animals (1:24,25)

i) Man & Woman (1:26,27)

2. Creation Order 2 (Genesis 2)

a) Heavens & Earth

b) Man (2:7)

c) Vegetation (2:8,9)

d) Rivers (2:10-14)

e) Fowl & Land Animals (2:19,20a)

f) Woman (2:18, 20b-22)

3.It isnt logical to assume that the writer would contradict himself in the very next

passage.

B. Genesis 1 as poetic prelude to Genesis 2

1. Other exemplary Hebrew passages:

a) Crossing of the Red Sea

(1)Exodus 14: Historic Account

(2) Exodus 15: Song of Miriam

*Do we read the succeeding poetry and think, What must Gods hand

have looked like as the text says He hurled His enemies.

b) Israels Triumph Over General Sisera

(1) Judges 4: Historic Account

(2) Judges 5: Song of Deborah


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*Do we read Deborahs song and ask, What must the richter reading have

been when God marched for Israel?

*Should we say there is contradiction since chapter 4 says that Barak was

instructed to fight the armies of Sisera when chapter 5 describes the

armies as captives and that Barak merely took charge of those captives?

2.The structure of the passage is filled with repetitious statements:

a) ...and there was evening, and there was morning... (1:5,8,13,19,23,31)

b) ...and God said... (1:3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26,29)

c) ...and it was so.... (1:7,9,11,15,24,30)

d) ...that it was good... (1:10,12,18,21,25)

III. WHAT DOES THE POEM CONVEY?

A.God exists objectively in multiple persons (1:1,2,26)

1.Gods existence is not defended, it is simply declared (1:1)

2. God speaks to Himself and states that man will be created in Our

image (1:26)

*He cannot be speaking to anyone or anything apart from the Godhead, because

the text immediately refers to the image-bearers having the singular His Image(1:27; Isaiah 40:14)

3. A Divine essence of Himself is described as His Spirit and He is performing

the action of hovering or moving.

*The Hebrew word for hovered is peculiar: its only use is to describe the

nurturing actions of a mother bird.

4.God spoke everything into existence (1:3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26,29)

a) Gods word has agency, as opposed to the human need to do in order to bring

about.

b) The reason that Gods word can create things is because His Word is a person.

(John 1:1-3; John 1:10; Psalm 33:6; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews

1:2)


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B. God exists singularly in one being (Isaiah 44:8; 45:5,18,21; 46:9 cf. John

12:37-41)

1. The specific language of the poem itself

a)The pronoun He (and His) in direct reference to God. (1:5,10,16,27,31)

b) God says I in direct reference to himself. (1:30)

C. God is the ultimate cause of all that exists

1.Everything, from as large as the celestial bodies (1:16) and the properties of light

(1:3-5) to as minute as plant reproduction (1:11), was created by God.

2. The word for created in verse 1 is the Hebrew word barawhich means to

createfrom nothing.

D.God created man in His Image (1:26,27)

1.The Image of God is both...

a) Communital, because God exists in fellowship with the plural persons within His

being (1:26a)

b) Authoritative, because man is given dominion or ruling influence over the

subservient creatures (1:26b)

E.Gods creation was very good (1:31)

1. Matter is not evil and pleasure is not bad.

2. God enjoys the creation, and we should too.

3. The reason we are moved when we see nature is because nature, according toGenesis 1, is singing the praises of God.


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The love we feel for the splendor of the heavens, the plains, the sea and the

mountains, for the silence of nature which is borne in upon us by its thousands of

tiny sounds, for the breath of the winds, or the warmth of the sun, this love of

which every human being has at least an inkling, is an incomplete, painful love,

because it is felt for things which are incapable of responding, that is to say for

matter.-Simone Weil, "Waiting on God"

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty

enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words--to be united

with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to

become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods

and goddesses and nymphs and elves--that, though we cannot, yet these

projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which

Nature is the image.

-C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

IV.CONCLUSION

A. Genesis 1 is clearly a poetic prelude to the brief historic account of Genesis

2.

1.It is illogical to assume that a writer would write one narrative and then immediately

contradict himself in the next passage.

2. This clearly was not uncommon as we have seen from other Hebrew texts.

3. Much like a song, there are various phrases which are repeated many times in the text.

B. What Does the Poem Convey to the Readers?

1.The Trinity:

a) The Father purposes the Creation

b) The Son, or the Word, brings the cosmos into existence

c) The Spirit is present lovingly nurturing the cosmos as it is all brought into

existence to the Glory of God.

2. God is the uncaused Cause responsible for bringing everything into existence using

nothing.


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b) Conversely this shows the majestic power of the preexistent Christ.

2. The unity of our God is very evident here.

a) The Fathers acting is the Sons acting

b) The Fathers will and the Sons working are simultaneous.

C. Christ is the Means by which All things were Brought into Existence

Through Him All Things were Made...

1. Christ is that Agent we met in Genesis 1

2. The Passage restates this in the negative sense ...without Him nothing was

made that has been made.

the god of creation

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