Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 1 | Date: June 13, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

in Jesus’ name, amen. Good to have all of you here this morning. Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. I’ve asked you to read ahead, Genesis 1, so I’m going to assume that you have. And we will read now just verse 1. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

The first verse of the Bible has always been recognized as just brimming with implications that just keep going forever. This marks the beginning of the universe. This marks the beginning of the world of space and time and history. This is where it all starts. And particularly, the first four words of verse one have prompted endless discussion. What are the implications of that? “In the beginning, God.”

So we have the beginning of the universe. This is where everything starts. It’s the beginning of space, time, history. It’s the beginning of the universe. And we start with, “In the beginning, God.” So who is this God? Where did he come from? The Bible nowhere really argues for the existence of God. It’s just from the given and from the outset, it’s a given. The direct implication of verse 1, “In the beginning, God,” is that he pre-existed the universe. The beginning here is the beginning of the universe, time, history, all of that. But it’s not the beginning of God. He already was there. And He began everything else. Everything else comes from Him, the Creator, who began everything else.

So in this book that’s named Beginnings, as we saw last week, or Origins, a book that is marked throughout—in fact outlined by—”these are the generations of,” “these are the generations of,” “these are the generations of,” remember the Toledoth passages? And a book that’s heavily marked by so-and-so begat so-and-so, and so-and-so begat so-and-so, and he was the father of so-and-so, and he was the son of so-and-so, son of so-and-so. In a book that’s marked throughout by origins, and beginnings, and family trees, and genealogies, and all of that, we have God who has no beginning. He’s just already there. There’s no family tree; there’s no time of arrival. And so verse one marks the beginning of the universe, the beginning of time, history, but God already was there.

Now we’ll see more of this next time, but keep in mind as we go through this this morning, that Moses here is in some ways practicing what we call polemic theology. That is, he’s contrasting God to the gods of the ancient Near Eastern myths. And here’s one big difference we’ll see already, that in the gods of the ancient Near East there, the gods were the product of the universe. It was the universe that was eternal, and the gods are the finite products of the universe. They came about in various ways, often through warfare and things like that. But the Bible reverses that entirely. God is not beneath the creation. He’s the Lord of creation. He’s the maker of heaven and earth. The universe has its beginning with the God who made it. So apart from God, there would be no universe. Apart from the universe, there would still be God.

What Do We Learn About God?

So we say, first of all, when we come to verse one, what do we learn about God? Title of the lesson this morning is “The God of Creation.” What do we learn about God?

He’s Eternal

First thing we learn is He’s eternal. He’s eternal. But once we have said all that we’ve just said, we have to say a little more. Not only is He eternal, He is self-existent. This is the attribute of aseity. I don’t know another word to tell you, but theologians like to give you Latin terms because it makes theologians sound like we know more. Then we have to explain it. And you say, well, why didn’t you say that in the first place? Well, I don’t have another handle for it, but it’s the doctrine of aseity. It’s from two Latin words: a, from, and se, self. He exists from himself. Self-existent. God is not dependent on anything. He’s not dependent on the created order. We are dependent on all kinds of things. God is not. He self-exists. And from eternity, God has existed because he’s not dependent; he’s independent, and just of himself, he exists.

So God is both eternal, and once we’ve said all that, we have to say he’s self-existent. Now we’re in way over our heads already, and we call this mystery. But once you grasp that, once you see it, it makes perfect sense. And in fact, it answers all the necessary questions. It provides the answer of origins that we’ll look at in more detail later on in this series. If everything has a cause, then you work that back and you end up having to say, well, there has to be somewhere then an uncaused first cause that brought everything else into being.

Now, what would be irrational—this is mystery—but what would be irrational would be to say something like, “everything just happened, it came out of nothing.” Now, it’s ultimately what evolution has to say. There was this great big explosion; well, where’d it come from? Nothing. So, nothing exploded and it became everything. And that’s the explanation for everything. Now, the Bible may ask us to embrace mystery, and it does, but I think that is just irrational. And the Bible comes to us then with this—we’re in over our heads, yes, it’s mystery—God pre-existed the universe, God is eternal, God self-exists, but it gives us then the necessary information we have to have to explain the existence of everything else. And that’s essentially what verse one is telling us. In the beginning, the eternal, self-existing God created everything that is.

Now there’s some more implications here we should recognize. And all of this sets us up for all of the rest of the Bible. And that is next, the absoluteness of the creator-creature distinction. The absoluteness of the creator-creature distinction. The two are not the same. The two are distinct. From eternity there was God and there was nothing else. And now whatever else there is came into existence because he made it. And it is not him. He made it. It is other than him. He is other than it. There are these two realms of existence. There’s the uncreated and there’s the created. There’s God and there’s everything else that he made.

So there’s no dualism here—the idea that there are two ultimate realities eternally. There’s certainly no pantheism here—the idea that the distinction between God and creation becomes so blurred that they’re indistinguishable. The Bible here has God alone as eternal and everything else that came into existence came into existence because he made it. So there’s these two categories: God and everything else. And the everything else is not an extension of God, it’s not an effusion from God, it’s a creation of God. There’s God and the created order. This is part of the ground of the Bible’s insistence in its condemnation of idolatry and making idols.

He’s Transcendent

Once we’ve said all that, what else can we say about God from this? Well, we have to say next, he’s transcendent. He’s above everything else, beyond it. He’s other than it, and he is independent of it. Now, God is also immanent. You know that word, imminent, I-M-M-I-N-E-N-T, imminent, close with regard to space. There’s another word, immanent, I-M-M-A-N-E-N-T; it’s close with regard to time. God is immanent in that he is very much involved in his creation. He’s not like the deist idea of God, that God is transcendent and so far beyond the created order that he really makes no difference in the way that things are run today. No, God is immanent. He is involved in his creation, but at the same time he is transcendent and beyond it. And the two are not to be confused. And all of that then is implicit in Genesis 1:1. God’s eternality, his aseity, his transcendence, creature-creator distinction—all of that is implicit in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

His Omnipotence

And then, particularly as the narrative unfolds in Genesis 1, we see more of God, and that is his omnipotence. There’s a heavy emphasis on that throughout Genesis 1. In verses 3 and following, we have the details of God’s formation of the earth, making it habitable to fulfill his created purpose. And I’m gonna read through several verses here, and I want you to notice the repeating line, “and God said, let there be, and it was so.” “And God said, let there be, and it was so.” Okay, watch that.

Verse three: “and God said, ‘let there be light.’ And there was light.” Verses six and seven: “and God said, ‘let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.” Verse nine: “and God said, ‘let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so.” At verse 11: “and God said, ‘let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.’ And it was so.” Verse 14: “and God said, ‘let there be lights in the expanse from the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so.” Verse 20: “and God said, ‘let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.'” Verse 24: “and God said, ‘let the earth bring forth living creatures, each according to their kind.'” And then they repeated, “and it was so, and it was so, and it was so, and it was so.” God said, and it was so. God said, and it happened.

Now this is the beginning of a huge theme that we have that runs throughout the Bible, and that’s the power of God’s word. It’s picked up with reference to the written scriptures, the prophets that spoke God’s word. With that refrain: “this will happen, and this will happen, and this will happen, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.” God says it, it happens. It’s picked up in the context of preaching, picked up in the context of reading God’s word. God’s word is a powerful thing. God speaks and it happens, and that all starts right here. God said; he just gave the command and it was so. And it has then—we could add another—the distinct ring of majesty about it. God just spoke and look what happened. Now, that’s just stunning, and there’s something about the narrative of Genesis 1 that is meant to arrest us and catch our attention with regard to God. He just said it, and there it was.

Now, we call this, again, a Latin phrase, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Creation—we say that so that we can give the translation, and you’ll know—creation out of nothing. If you say it in Latin first, it makes you sound like you’re more educated. But there’s this distinct ring of majesty about it. God just speaks and the worlds appear. There’s the earth, the planets, the planets in orbit, there’s lights, there’s water, there’s dry land, there’s all the living organisms, there’s the day-night cycle, there are the seasons, there’s the weather systems. All of that because God said it. Now we call this creation by divine fiat, or command. God just commanded, and there it was.

Biblical writers pick up on that in a few different places. Psalm 33, verses six and following. Why don’t you look these up with me? Look at Psalm 33. Psalm 33, verses six through nine: “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made.” There it is again. “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. By the breath of his mouth, all their host.” I take that as a reference to the planets. “He gathers the waters and the seas as a heap. He puts the deep in storehouses.” Now notice what he exhorts: “Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.” Why? “Because he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm.” That is why you fear God, because he is this kind of a majestic, great, omnipotent God. All he has to do is speak and worlds appear.

And so creation, God as creator, is the ground of praise and worship. Look at Psalm 148. We have more of the same. In Psalm 148—we’ll probably look at this later on in the series in a little bit more detail—but he’s calling for all of creation to praise the Creator. Psalm 148, verses 1 and following: “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise him, all his angels. Praise him, all his hosts. Praise him, sun and moon. Praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord.” Why? “Because he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever. He gave a decree and it shall not pass away.” That is, this God is one to be worshipped because of his greatness, and that greatness is seen like nowhere else in that he just spoke, and the universe came into being, and all of its systems, and all of its laws that hold it together in its operation—all of that came as a result of God’s spoken decree. From eternity, there was God alone, and then he spoke, and then all of this created order with all of its intricacies and all of its systems and its functions appeared and came into being.

Now with all of that, there’s a prominent sense here of the effortlessness of God’s created work. God said, and it was so. It was that easy. God said it, and it was so. And so all of the powers of nature are brought into existence and put in order simply by God’s order. He said, “let there be,” and it was. So we should think of this not only in terms of planet Earth, the universe, but think of it in terms of all of what science has discovered. The laws of planetary motion, law of gravity, law of buoyancy, law of thermodynamics. All of the laws that science have discovered—and they reduce it now all to mathematical formulas—all of that came into being because God said, “let there be,” and it was. That’s a stunning thing.

And no less than an Albert Einstein remarked about that. When he recognized—the more he recognized—he said that these scientific laws can be reduced to mathematical formulas, the more he was just astonished at what a vast superior mind there must be who has put it all together. In fact, with regard to the effortlessness of God in creating it all, not only in that he says—he just says, “let there be” and there was—but also in terms of the language of creation. The word “create” is used sparingly in chapter one. It has a synonym, the word “make” or “do.” He made—the Hebrew word just means that, he made it or he did it. And then there’s the word “create.” And create doesn’t quite mean the same thing as to make. I’m not quite arguing that the Hebrew word here means creation out of nothing; we’ll talk about that another time. But with the word, the sparing use of “create” in the narrative, He is using it only at important new junctures in his creative work.

So for example, in chapter 1, verse 26 and 27, you’ll see the two words used together more or less as synonyms. Genesis 1:26 and 27: “Then God said, ‘let us make man in our image after our likeness.’ So God created man in his own image.” So there’s a sense in which they overlap and that happens several times through the passage. But they’re not quite synonyms. As I say, the word “create” is used more sparingly throughout this passage, and it’s used in reference to new moments with something fundamentally new arriving, some kind of fresh start. So chapter 1 and verse 1, we have the creation of the material universe out of nothing. God said, and it was so; that’s creating. Chapter one, verse 21, it’s used with regard to the sea creatures. Here we have living creatures arriving. That’s a fresh start in God’s creative work with new living creatures. Then verse 27, man, a living creature made in the image of God. That’s a fundamentally new start. So that there’s some difference in the terminology and yet, and yet the two words are used almost interchangeably, leaving us with the impression with, “oh yeah, creation, that’s just another thing God does.”

His Wisdom

So God is transcendent, he’s eternal, he’s self-existing, he’s majestic, omnipotent. Notice also here the emphasis on God’s wisdom. Again, throughout the narrative, there’s the emphasis on the order and the ordering and the right alignment of all of the created order. So verse 10, “God saw that it was good.” God said, “let there be this,” and it was good. And we have it again in verse 12, “God saw that it was good.” Verse 18, “God saw that it was good.” Verse 21, “God saw that it was good.” Verse 25, “and God saw that it was good.” Verse 31—this is day six, sums up everything—”God saw that everything he had made, behold, it was very good.” And then in chapter two, verses one to three, he rests. And it’s not because he’s tired. He rests in the sense of just taking delight in the work that he has done.

So God creates the whole created order, it’s all in place, it’s all functioning the way he wants it to function for his purposes, and it happens, and it’s all very good. Now look at the contrast between Genesis 1, verse 2, and verse 31. Genesis 1:2: “the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.” This is the original stuff that God created, verse 1. It was originally when he made it without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And then verses three and following, we have him putting it all into order to serve his purpose and his function that he designed for it. And then verse 31: “God saw that everything that he has made and behold, it was very good.” From a bare, unproductive existence to a well-ordered cosmos, the whole of his creation here is functioning perfectly to fulfill the purpose that he had designed for it. Every part serving its own function.

So again, think in terms of the lights, the day-night cycle, life, food chains, water system, water cycle. A couple of notes here. The Earth at just the right distance from the sun; otherwise, it’d be too hot or too cold for life. We have the Earth’s rotation at just the right speed; if we had it any slower, the temperatures might be too cold at night, life would be impossible. Any faster, the wind velocities would be too great to sustain life. Moon at just the right distance from the Earth; if the gravitational pull were any stronger or weaker, it would affect water cycles, the tides, and life would be impossible. And as I mentioned, don’t think just of the universe as we see it, but think of the patterns, the regularities in nature, the systems and the laws and how they all function. All of that, you’ve got to ask, how did that happen? How was that put in place? And Moses directs us here to think, God just spoke, and there it was. God said, “let there be.” And all of this that we spend the rest of human history trying to discover and understand, he spoke into being.

You have to ask at some point, what kind of a mind put all of that together? What kind of a mind thought that up? Jeremiah chapter 10 and verse 12: “it is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.” There’s been a strong movement in recent years—I’m sure many of you are familiar with it—called the Intelligent Design Movement, where scientists—many Christians, some are not Christians, most I think are Christians—are just looking at the design of the universe and detailing in the kind of specificity that only a scientist can at how the universe works and how it appears to have been created with a design, a purpose to sustain human life and so on. We won’t spend a lot of time looking at that. We’ll take some references to it at some point. Remember we did that a couple of years ago with some videos that we did. I wanna mention it here just to say that at some point, that kind of evidence, not just reasoning, but that kind of evidence becomes just inescapably convincing. What kind of mind put all this together?

We learn something also about God’s ascetic qualities. Beauty. We learn something of the beauty as judged by God. Symmetry. Colors. Cohesive functions. All of this God spoke into place.

God’s Goodness

We also learn something of God’s goodness. God’s kindness. We read, of course, that he saw this and saw that it was good and he saw that it was very good. But one of the striking things about the narrative in chapter 2—and we’ll see this when we get there—is that we’ve no sooner read, “God saw that it was all very good,” and God says, “it is not good.” It is not good that man should be alone. We’ll look at the implications of all that when we get to chapter 2. But here, just to point out that here we have God creating everything that is and we see a note of concern, compassion, kindness toward his newly created man. It’s not good that he should be alone.

Now it’s very interesting because in one sense, Adam was not alone, he had God. But he had no one on his level. And so God brings all the animals past him and he names them all. And it ends up with that narrative saying there still was no one fitting for Adam. And so God made him a woman. And Adam says, “yeah, now we’re talking. This is what I needed.” And we see something in all of that of the kindness of God caring for his creation. And not only that, but in the narrative talking about God providing food for every level of creation, something of God’s kindness. It’s a wonderful picture of God, carefully concerned with providing for all of his creation and just what they need. And with man in particular, providing for him someone that is perfectly suited for him, both body and soul.

So at the outset of history, we have glimpses of the kindness of God that remained throughout history. In fact, we have something here of what theologians came to call common grace. God does these good things, not just for his redeemed creatures. He does this for all of his creation, even after the fall. So for example, Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, “you have heard, ‘love your neighbor, hate your enemies,’ I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” Why? Well, because that’s what God does. Why? Because he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and he sends the rain on the just and the unjust. God is good to all. Common grace, we call it. Acts chapter 14, verse 17, the Apostle Paul says, “God did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven, fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Well, that’s one aspect of God that is reflected for us in the created order: his goodness. And Paul says we ought to have seen it all along in the seasons and the rains that come and God providing for his creatures.

All that to say that when we read Genesis 1, our first focus ought not to be, “what does it say about evolution?” Our first focus ought to be, “what does this tell us about God?” What does Moses have in mind here to tell us about God? And that, of course, is picked up by later biblical authors as well. Famously, Psalm 19: “the heavens declare the glories of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.” Every day, all the time, for everybody, we see it. The heavens declare the glory of God. Now, it’s not worshiping nature, but it’s reflecting on nature in a way that we have to see the greatness of the God who made it. And there’s a huge emphasis on that in the scriptures: the greatness of God who created all that is just by saying so.

So the Bible begins where it does, not just for chronological reasons, although that’s a good reason—we start at the beginning. It starts where it starts in order to paint for us the big picture to understand everything else. And so we have in Genesis, God who is God, everything else that’s his creation, everything else responsible to him—we’ll talk about that more next time, his lordship over creation. We have the world as it is created by God, dependent on God, obligated to God, and that picture is sustained throughout the rest of history. This is how we start forming what we call a worldview. This is how we understand the rest of history. It’s basic to everything else about us. God is the creator. We are the creatures. And here we learn to worship and to praise.

Isaac Watts, as you know, wrote hundreds of hymns besides setting all the psalms to meter as well. He published in his lifetime a book of songs for children. And I’m fascinated by it because of the songs that he included in that. I don’t think that children were any smarter back then than they are now, but I do think that parents expected a little—that they could learn a little more than parents evidently do today. The songs that were included there are pretty substantive. Today, we write children’s songs like, “I am a promise, I am a possibility,” or whatever. But one of the songs he included in that was “I sing the almighty power of God.” That’s the original wording of it. “I sing the almighty power of God.” I think in all the hymnals today, it’s just “I sing the mighty power of God”:

I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at his command, and all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord that filled the earth with food,
Who made the creatures with his word and then pronounced them good.
Lord, how thy wonders are displayed wherever I turn my eye,
If I survey the ground I tread or gaze upon the sky.

There’s not a plant or flower below but makes thy glories known;
And storms arise and tempests blow by order from thy throne.
Yea, all that borrows life from thee—

Don’t you love that phrase? That’s just a great turn of phrase.

All that borrows life from thee is ever in thy care,
And everywhere that man can be, thou God, art present there.

That was written just by reflecting on Genesis chapter one. Look at what this God does. What does that say about him? As I say, next time we’ll pick up on this more, and in particular, we’ll look at it with reference to how Moses is actually trumping the gods of the surrounding neighbors, making reference to their gods and showing specifically how this God is superior to all that is. But we’ll look at a God versus the gods next time. Then we’ll look at the purpose of God and creation, and we’ll move forward from there. All right, any questions?