And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. All right, let’s bow for prayer.
Our Father, what a privilege it is to have your word. This morning in particular, to have this amazing revelation of how everything began. We’re struck with the greatness of our God and his creative work. We praise you, Lord, for it. We pray that you will give us a deeper appreciation of it this morning. Help us to see in it your greatness and to see in that a God who is to be feared, a God who is to be worshipped, praised, and a God who may be trusted. Open our minds and our hearts, we pray to your word this morning, in Jesus’ name, amen.
Last time, we took a broad look at Genesis chapter 1 to see what it’s all about. We said it is not so much about creation as it is about God. God here speaks, and the worlds appear. And we saw the importance of the first verse and the first four words of that first verse: “In the beginning, God,” and then starts the story. And we saw from all of that that God is eternal. He predates everything. He is the first uncaused cause of everything that is.
And in fact, God is not only eternal, we saw that implicit in this then is that He is self-existent. The technical word is aseity. God exists from himself. He’s self-existent. He’s not dependent on anything in the created order. The entire created order is dependent on him. We saw that God is transcendent. We saw that he was omnipotent, that he is majestic. We saw something of the wisdom of God, the beauty of God. We saw something of the kindness of God in providing for his creation. All that we tried to survey quickly in Genesis 1.
I read this just last week from a commentator. I think it was a very helpful observation. He says, if the creation around us displays the glory of God—that’s Psalm 19, remember? The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork—so he starts with this: if the creation around us displays the glory of God, how much more the account of the origin of that creation in Genesis. And I think he captures exactly the point that Moses is trying to make here, that from beginning to end, this passage emphasizes the sovereign majesty of God, who created all that is, and he created it all simply by his spoken word. And he created it out of nothing, a subject we’ll see later on in the series.
So think in terms of the solar system, think in terms of the earth, think in terms of the dirt. Think in terms of the microbes and the atoms and everything on the cellular level. Think in terms of the animals, the bugs, what we call natural laws. God made it all. He spoke it into being, and there it was. By simply saying it and commanding it, it stood fast. And so the point overall has to be the greatness and the majesty of God.
The Lordship Of God
I want to add one more point to what I said last time, and that is not only do we see God as eternal and self-existent and transcendent and omnipotent and majestic and all of that, but we should learn something here also about the lordship—I’ll just call it that—the lordship of God. As the God who made everything that is, he is the unrivaled Lord over everything that is. He’s God over all. He has no peer. He doesn’t even have a rival. He is God over all, lording over his creation.
My point here has to do not simply with God’s power, that he can speak and worlds appear. That’s God’s omnipotence. I’m speaking here more in terms of God’s authority. So what’s the difference? Omnipotence has to do with God’s power to do what he wants. Authority has to do with God’s right to do what he wants. So the old story, the old joke: a 500-pound gorilla comes into the room, where does he sit? Wherever he wants to, right? That’s not exactly the point here.
The point here is more like when I was a kid. When dad comes in the living room, where does he sit? He sits wherever he wants to sit. It’s his living room. And the point there is not so much with, well, he can beat me. The point is, it’s his. He has authority over it. He has the right. And we see that in Genesis 1, that not only is God powerful, ruling over all, but by right of creation, he owns all that is. It all belongs to him, and it is there to be used at his disposal and at his determinations. So not just the power, but he has the right, the ownership, the authority. He is sovereign over it all. He has the right to rule.
The psalmist mentions that in Psalm 24. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell in it.” For—there’s the explanation—the earth is the Lord’s, the fullness thereof, all that dwell in it. Why? Because he has founded it upon the seas, and he established it upon the rivers. He is the maker, and therefore it is all his, and he rules over it all.
Now, we see some reflection of that in Genesis chapter 1, in that God no sooner creates, but he begins to name his creation. So for example, in chapter 1, Verse 5, God called the light day. Darkness, he called night. That’s a function of authority, to give names. We’ll see more of that when we get to chapter 2 as well. Chapter 1, verse 8, God called the expanse heaven. Verse 10, he called the dry land earth, and so on.
But then, with regard to man himself, later in the chapter, chapter 1, verses 27 and 28, God no sooner creates man, but he puts him in a garden and he commands him, telling him what to do and what not to do. So chapter 1, verse 28: “God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them”—here’s the command—”Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And then if you’d like to look ahead, look at chapter 2, verse 15. We have God commanding again. “The Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it, and he commanded him, saying, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it,” and so on.
So God here creates and begins immediately exercising his authority. He is Lord over his creation. Now everything that follows from Genesis 1 throughout the rest of Genesis, throughout the rest of Pentateuch, the Old Testament, New Testament, through the whole Bible, everything flows out of that. This basic fact that God is the creator and therefore he is Lord over all. He’s king. He has rights over us. He has authority over us. We are his. We belong to him. And so most fundamentally, God is not here for us. Most fundamentally, we are here for him. We are his creatures to serve his purpose, created to do his will. He is the universal, unrivaled Lord.
Now with that also, I think—and this is jumping ahead in terms of the rest of the Bible, but we’re set up here for something—and that is the question of miracles. Now in our modern day, the last couple hundred years in particular, probably increasingly so over that time, the idea of the biblical miracles has come under real assault. Are we really to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin? Or in the Old Testament, are we really to believe that an axe head floated? Are we really to believe that someone was raised from the dead? How can the modern mind really accept that?
And the answer ultimately comes back to Genesis chapter 1, and particularly verse 1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Here is God, who made it all by his spoken word, rules over it all as universal Lord. Well, if you can get past Genesis chapter 1 in verse 1, and if you can get past Genesis chapter 1, “God said and it happened, God said and it happened”—if you can get past that, the question of miracles is easy. There’s no problem with that. This is the God who rules over everything that is, and at his will he can work according to the laws that he has spoken into being into this universe, or he can overrule however he wishes. Now we still may have trouble in the persnickety classroom trying to define exactly what is a miracle and how do you define that in the best way. Those are questions we can still deal with another time. But the fact of miracles is easy. No theist, and particularly no one who recognizes Genesis chapter 1, can have any trouble with the question of miracles. Once you say “God,” and once you say “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” the question of miracles is easy.
Now, it’s important for us to see this. I think it’s very obvious that that’s Moses’ point in giving us Genesis chapter 1. In our day, Genesis chapter 1 has become the battleground over questions of evolution and so on, and it has its place for that. That was not Moses’ first intent. He intends for us to see the majesty and the glory of God and his lordship over creation. That just lies on the surface of the passage.
Comparison To Ancient Near Eastern Myths
Now it’s helpful to see that also in its historical context, and that’s where I plan to spend the rest of our time this morning. In the mid-19th century, archaeologists in the ancient Near East uncovered all kinds of clay tablets and things. And some of the most fascinating with regard to biblical studies, with regard particularly to Genesis chapter 1, was the discovery of some of these ancient creation myths dealing with the gods, and how they brought about the world.
And so we have Egyptian creation myths. We have Sumerian creation myths and Assyrian creation myths. And we have Hittite creation myths. We have Mesopotamian creation myths, all talking about their gods and how things came about, trying to account for the beginning of the world and for the beginning of the gods, for that matter. Most famous among them is the Enuma Elish. Some of you have heard of that. That’s just the first two words of the Enuma of that particular creation myth. It’s Akkadian words meaning “when in the heights.” But it begins the story of how things came about.
Those creation myths have two basic concerns. One is what’s called cosmogony, that is the beginnings, the origins of the world, of the universe. And then theogony, the origins of gods. Where did they come from? And these creation myths are given to tell us all about that. So they’re creation accounts of a sort. They explain the beginnings of the world, the universe, the gods, humanity, and you have elaborate mythologies describing the shadowy events of prehistory, letting us in on supposedly how all things came about. And you have generations of gods and they have squabbles between those generations of gods and fighting for power, how they all came into being, that kind of thing. And you also have some flood stories with them as well.
Enuma Elish is a creation that tells us that the creation would result specifically from the power struggle in the pantheon, power struggle of the gods. So you have this cosmic conflict among the leading deities. You have a struggle for power, you have gods battling basically on two sides. The primary opposing gods: one was Marduk, the chief god, who would become the chief god. He is actually a sixth-generation god. And on the other side, you have the goddess Tiamat, who’s the dragon goddess, the goddess of chaos.
Tiamat has prepared monsters and lesser gods to go on the offensive. Against the gods of the Pantheon, it’s a struggle for supremacy. Marduk says to the gods, if you assist me in it and do what I say, I’ll go after her. But if I succeed, I expect to be the chief god and be bumped up to the top. They make the agreement. Marduk comes up against the Pantheon. Tiamat has other lesser gods and monsters that she’s created to go into this great battle. Marduk comes against Tiamat. He’s got this great big club. Hits her in the head. He wins. Because he wins, the gods build him a city. That’s the origin of Babylon. When he hits her over the head, he splits her body in half. One half of the body is the sky. The other half of the body is the earth. Her two eyes become the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. So you get the idea. This is interesting stuff.
Well, on discovery of all of these ancient Near Eastern creation myths, scholars immediately found some connections to Genesis chapter 1. Both Genesis chapter 1 and the Enuma Elish begin with primordial waters. Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, “the deep.” And so the question immediately became, who’s copying whom?
Now, it’s a tough thing to decide. Sometimes, often it’s very difficult. In fact, the Enuma Elish may date back further than Moses. There are actually other creation myths that have been discovered that date back further than the Enuma Elish, which is certainly then before Moses. But then the question is, did Moses have source materials of his own? And it seems that he did. That’s another study of another time. And then, of course, there’s the question of divine revelation that comes immediately to Moses, which I think is the origin of Genesis 1 and 2. Who else could have reported it? Nobody else was there. So it has to be a matter of divine revelation.
Well, deciding who’s dependent on whom is a tricky thing. The problem with the whole discussion is, it is one thing to establish some kind of connection between the two. It’s another thing entirely to say that one is dependent on the other. It seems to me that since we are dealing with a similar theme in all of them—the origin of everything—you’re going to have things that are similar because we’re dealing with particular questions that are common to both.
But you have then the critical scholars who have said now for generations that it’s clear Moses is just dependent on them. He changes a little for his own purposes, but he’s dependent on them. Then you have some evangelical scholars who are saying, no, he’s obviously dependent on it, but he’s whitewashing it. He’s cleaning it up to make it consistent with monotheism and so on.
Well, the problem, I think, with the whole discussion is that it’s one thing to affirm some connections, some allusions, one to the other. It’s another thing entirely to say that one is dependent on the other. I hope you can see the difference in that. Another problem is many of the supposed similarities are really, really vague and even superficial. So for example, the one that I mentioned: both begin with the primordial waters. Tiamat is the goddess of chaos, and she’s the one ruling over the waters and bringing the rebellion against Marduk and so on. Tiamat is her name. Well, the word for the deep in Genesis 1 verse 2 in Hebrew is tehom. And so critical scholars say, “Aha, tehom, aha, see, that’s Tiamat.” And I’m not sure how anyone can say that with any confidence, but that’s one of them.
But you have some other proposed similarities as well. In Genesis 1, we have seven days. The Enuma Elish is recorded on seven tablets. Oh, there it is. Both begin with the primal waters. Both have order brought out of chaos. But as I say, both are dealing with some similar questions, so I think we should expect to see some similarities.
Polemic Theology: The Differences That Matter
But here’s what I want to emphasize. What is striking and what has not been adequately appreciated, particularly by critical scholars, is that what’s important, what’s striking is not the similarities between Genesis 1 and these ancient Near Eastern accounts. What’s striking is the differences. And it’s one thing to cherry-pick and say, “Oh, look at this. That looks like that. See? He’s dependent on it. Oh, here’s another. And that looks like this. He’s dependent on it.” That’s one thing. But to read them both whole, top to bottom, and let them stand in contrast to one another, then you get another picture entirely. And I think when we do that, we find another way of looking at these ancient Near Eastern documents entirely.
So for example, here’s some differences between them. Let me just run down a quick list of them. In the ancient Near Eastern creation accounts, we have many gods, and all of them with rivals. In Genesis chapter 1, we have one God who is unrivaled and overall. In the Enuma Elish, we have the product that gods are the product of the universe. In Genesis chapter one, we have God, of course, as the transcendent creator of everything that is. In the ancient Near East, we have stories of gods with limited power. They have no power over the natural elements. They have rival gods, there are struggles for supremacy, and that in contrast to Genesis chapter one, where we have God who is omnipotent and Lord over all.
The ancient Near Eastern gods are essentially superhumans with depraved minds. They’ve got perverted actions that I just wouldn’t be fitting to talk about here. In Genesis chapter 1, we have the God who is holy, just, kind, compassionate, and good. Stark contrast. In the ancient Near Eastern myths, we have great concern with the origins of the gods. So the first god created himself out of the pre-existing primordial waters, which were eternal. There’s the eternality of matter. Other gods came into being through sexual reproduction with previous gods. Some gods came into being by other gods spitting and other ways that I just won’t mention. One myth is that the sun god, Ra, was naming the parts of his body. And as he named the parts of his body, new gods sprang out. That’s how they came to be.
Well, you have all that in the ancient Near Eastern myths. In contrast to that, you don’t have any concern of theogony at all in Genesis chapter 1. It’s just, “In the beginning, God.” In the ancient Near Eastern myths, you have creation from the pre-existing primordial waters. In Genesis chapter 1, God made those primordial waters. So in Genesis 1, you have God who is God alone. He’s eternal. He’s self-existing. He’s transcendent. He’s majestic. He’s omnipotent. He’s unrivaled Lord over all. He’s incomparable. And he creates just by divine fiat. He just speaks, commands, and it happens. There’s no struggle with rival beings of any kind. It’s just God alone doing what he pleases.
In fact, very different also between Genesis 1 and 2 and the ancient Near Eastern myths is that in the ancient Near Eastern myths, man is created basically just to be the slave of the gods, to do what they didn’t want to do. But in the Bible, in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, we have man created with a high dignity at the climax of creation to rule over the earth as God’s vice-regents with dignity.
My point in all of that is to say that whatever connections that you can find between Genesis 1 and the ancient Near Eastern myths, they do not show a following on the part of Moses or a dependence on the part of Moses on them. So the question then is just what do the connections, if there are any, what do they show? What do the contrasts show? You can point to some places where it’s similar; other places you can point to where it’s starkly different. What’s the point of it all?
A number of years ago, a man, a professor by the name of John Currid at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, wrote a book entitled Against the Gods. There have been others who have dealt with this as well. This, I think, is the easiest to deal with in this regard. But his point in the book is to say that Moses makes some deliberate allusions to those ancient Near Eastern myths, but not to appropriate them. To repudiate them is his point. And so he calls it—I think it’s very appropriately called—polemic theology.
Now look at Genesis 1 in that regard, where Moses is writing against the gods, to show who God is, and you see the contrasts and allusions you might find between the two, you find it in a very different light. And so let’s—and again, by the way, if you selectively choose some similarities, you come up with one thing. And you can say, “Well, see, he’s dependent on that.” But if you read it whole and note the differences and the contrasts, it seems pretty clear what Moses is doing. Simply, he’s trumping the ancient Near Eastern myths and their gods.
So with the pagan myths in mind, go back and read Genesis 1 again. So chapter 1, verses 1 and 2: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 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 waters.” So you have this vast, original ocean. Now in the ancient Near East, the water itself was the original stuff or the material of creation from which everything else originated, even the gods. In the Enuma Elish, this is the chaotic realm of the lesser gods. It has to be overcome by Marduk, the god of order. It’s the place of battle against Tiamat and so on. In Genesis chapter one, by contrast, the God of heaven is himself the originator of all of it, the primordial waters themselves. And the waters are not some rival deity. It’s just another part of God’s creation put there by God to serve his design.
Or another example is verse 3 of Genesis 1. This is day one of creation. Out of the original darkness of verse 2, now in verse 3, God commands the light to shine. And there was light. But not until verse 14, that is day four, is the sun made. Now isn’t that interesting? The sun’s not even named, in fact. Get to verse 16, it’s called the “greater light.” So you’re left with the impression that whether or not there is a sun is a rather insignificant detail to this God. He can make light with or without it. Now in fact, Ra, the Egyptian sun god, was the supreme god to the Egyptians. And here we’re left clearly with the impression that rather than the sun being and the god Ra being the foundation of all life, it is God himself who makes the sun. It’s just another part of his creation. Another thing he did. Genesis 1, God doesn’t need the sun for light. He has light without it. He can make the sun when he chooses. And when he does, he only has to command it, and it’s there.
Go on to day four. This is chapter one, verses 14 and following. God creates the luminaries, not just the sun, but all the lights of the heavens, and he sets them in their place in the sky. Now in the ancient Near Eastern myths, the making of the stars is tied to the creation of the gods. And names of them are given, and this is why you have, in so much of pagan religion, the planets being associated with the gods and the planets ruling life, and you have some of that in astrology still. These are the principal deities, these luminaries in the sky. In Genesis 1, these luminaries are just nameless objects designed by the creator to serve humanity. No names are given. Verse 16, they are just called the greater lights and the lesser lights. It kind of has the impression of like God put in a light bulb here, God put in a light bulb there, put in a light bulb over there. It’s that simple. There’s no association with life of any kind on these planets or with these planets. No gods associated with them. They’re just material objects, just the handiwork of the all-sovereign God who made all things.
In fact, verse 16 has the effect of telling us how easy it was for God to make the planets and the stars. Verse 16: “God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.” Notice that—”and the stars.” Almost a throwaway line. It’s kind of an, “Oh yeah, the stars too.” That’s the idea there. In verse 17, “God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.” So you paraphrase verses 16 and 17, it’s something like this: He put them in place and they function just as he designed. All of them. Yeah, the stars too. So consider then all of the galaxies—and this is what Moses is directing us to think—consider all of the innumerable stars of the heavens. And Moses says here, just almost by the way, “Yeah, God made those too.” There’s a sense of the ease with which God created everything that is.
Day five, this is verse 21. God creates the fish and the birds. And notice in verse 21, it adds the detail, “God created the great sea creatures.” I say that because—well, you’ll see in a second. These are the—this is a word that’s used for large serpents, dragons, crocodiles, sea monsters; all of that is in view with this kind of a word, depending on the context. Now, why does Moses add this detail? Well, the same word is related to words used in the Babylonian myths and the Canaanite mythology as well; dragons or the monsters were often worshiped. They were the primary enemy of the fertility god, Baal. In Genesis chapter one, “great sea creatures” as it’s translated here—they’re no enemy at all. They’re not a rival. There’s no rebellion. It’s just a side note, another creature made by the God who made everything that is.
You’re beginning to see with all of that, not similarities, you see contrasts. And I think it is very right to call it polemic theology then. This is the greatness of the true God. In the ancient Near East, you have power struggles of the gods resulting in the creation and the order of it and so on. In the Bible, you just have the one God who is, the God who made everything that is. And at his word, they came into being. All of that again to drive us to see in Genesis chapter one the unrivaled universal lordship of God over all creation. Again, Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof and those who dwell in it. Why? Because he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”
You have something like this, by the way, in the prophet Isaiah. The prophets are not above mocking false religion and mocking the false gods. And Isaiah, in particular, likes to draw the contrast between the God who hears and the God who speaks with the gods of the pagan neighbors around them. They get a piece of wood, they cut it in half. With half of it they make firewood and cook their meals. The other half they take to a craftsman and he wraps it in silver, shapes it, and then they bring it home and they prop it up and put it against a tree and they worship it. And it can’t hear and it can’t speak. And you can just hear the mocking tone. And that’s something of what Moses is doing here. See the contrast. He’s trumping the pagan myths around him.
The Significance To Israel
Now I think that that in itself is just fascinating to observe it in its historical context. But now let’s ask the question, how is that significant? Why was that important for Moses to do that? He’s writing, after all, not to the neighboring nations around him. He’s writing to the new nation of Israel. So this is after the Exodus at some point, somewhere around 1400 BC. He’s writing this to the new fledgling nation. What’s the significance of all this to them?
Number one, having seen all of this, we must recognize that this God, this God, is God over all. He has universal reign. He rules over all of his creation. He made it all. The gods of the neighboring nations are associated with the moon, they’re associated with the sun, the animals, the rivers. This God made all that. And so, this is the God, as I mentioned earlier when I prayed, this is the God who is to be feared. This is the God who is to be praised. This is the God who is to be worshipped. This is the God to whom everyone in Israel and everyone everywhere else, this is the God to whom everyone is accountable. He made it all. There is no pluralism here. God is not whatever you imagine him to be, and your truth is as good as anyone else’s. None of that here. Here’s the God who made everything that is. He rules over all, and this is the God to whom you are accountable. This is the God who is to be worshiped. That’s the first significance.
Number two, this God—and this is very, very significant in this historical context—this God is the God of Israel. Moses is writing after the exodus, to the new fledgling nation, and it is important for them to know that this God who has just brought them out of Egypt, this God who has just made them his people, this God who has just given them his law, this God who commands their obedience—this is the God who’s God over all, and in fact, this is the God who has committed himself in covenant grace to the people of Israel. So this is not just our God as over against the gods of our neighboring nations, where we wonder who might be stronger. This is the God who is God over all, and he has committed himself to us in covenant grace.
Number three, how’s the significance? This God can be trusted. This God can be trusted. Because he is great, and because he’s never threatened and because he’s unrivaled and Lord over all, this is a God who can be trusted. Now there are many passages in the Old Testament in particular that take this concept with that application exactly. One, probably most famous, is Job. Job questions, “What’s going on here? I wish I could talk to God. I’d like to straighten this out because he doesn’t understand it.” Remember when finally at the end of the book of Job, God speaks? He says, “Job, where were you when I made the world? Did I need you then? Consider this. Consider the greatness of the universe. Consider the animals and how they’re fed. Consider the whole system and how it works. Do you think I need you now, having put all of this into place, that I need your wisdom?” This is a God who can be trusted.
We find it in the Psalms entirely that this God, who is God over all, who has promised to redeem Israel, this is the God whose purposes cannot be interfered with. He’s unrivaled Lord. He can be trusted. We find it in Isaiah, many times in Isaiah. Isaiah has been recognized long as the theologian of creation. In Acts chapter four, you’ll remember the early disciples were arrested and threatened with speaking any more of the name of Jesus. Remember, they went back to their community and they prayed. And the whole essence of the prayer is their confidence in God. And right at the outset of the prayer, their confidence in God is grounded in the fact that he is the creator and he is then the preserver of everything that is. This is a God who can be trusted.
Well, there’s much more of that, and we’ll see more of it as we go along, but I hope you can see that in Genesis chapter 1, the point here is not just to go fighting against evolution. We’ll do that. That’s very important in its own place. But first of all, this is here to tell us about the greatness of God. In its historical context, the greatness of God is in contrast to the gods of the neighbors of Israel.
All right, any questions quickly before we close? Yes.