This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Let's read scripture together. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was morning one day. Evening and morning, by the way. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Let's pray together. Father, how we thank you for your word. We thank you that in it you disclose yourself to us, you reveal yourself. Father, we thank you that you take the initiative to do that. We thank you for these two powerful opening passages, one from Genesis, one from John. We thank you, Father, that when nobody else was around to see this, that you decided that you would reveal it to us through your word. And Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you that he is our great high priest whose name is love. We thank you that our names are written on his hand and on his heart. We're secure in him. And Father, we pray for your help during this time. And we commit this time to you as we study your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, somebody asked me as I was rushing in with suitcases if I was prepared. The answer is yes, I am prepared. We're gonna cover Genesis 1.1. All right. Now, Genesis, and I'm gonna remind you this 100 times. Genesis is divided into two major sections. 1 through 11 covers what we could call primeval history. That's from the time of creation up until the call of Abram. And then from 12 to 50, we have patriarchal history with major sections being devoted to Abraham, less so to Isaac, tremendous amount on Jacob, and then mostly focusing on Joseph. And I would actually argue that it's subtly focusing on Judah, but we'll have to wait and get there. Now, as we consider the primeval history, chapters 1 through 11, we begin with the account of creation. The account of creation in Genesis is covered from 1.1 to 2.25. Now, it's important that you understand that because Many less conservative scholars argue that what's happening in Genesis 1 and 2 is two different creation accounts. And that's just simply not so. What we have is we have one creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. And so I want to just give you a brief overview of the way that these chapters, two chapters work. In 1.1, we have a summary statement about the creation of the universe. It is one of the most profound statements anywhere any place, any time. And by the way, once you give credence and embrace Genesis 1.1, everything else is a no brainer, all right? You keep that in mind. Once the God of Genesis 1.1 is true and what he said is true, then for instance, the resurrection is no problem, all right? So that is our summary statement of the creation of the universe. Then in verse two, we have the earth in its uninhabitable form, which we'll get to later. And then one, three to five, we have day one, six to eight, day two, nine to 13, day three. And then in 1.14-19, we've got day four, 20-23, day five, and then the most detailed of the days, 24-31, focusing on the creation of land animals and then man. And that is 24-31. Then, really the end of chapter one is actually chapter two verses one to three. it's a bad chapter division actually because in chapter 2 verses 1 to 3 we have day 7 at that point and day 7 is a summary of the first chapter with the inclusion of the Sabbath day which is blessed and sanctified on the seventh day and so in a sense what you have in one 1-2 and 2-1-3 is you have bookends of the first snapshot of creation. That's the way that it works. And one of my favorite commentators on Genesis is Gordon Wenham and he says, he says, in its present setting, Genesis 1-2-3 serves as a splendid introduction to the whole book of Genesis. It declares that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is no mere localized or tribal deity, but the sovereign Lord of the whole earth. The apparently petty and insignificant family stories that occupy the bulk of the book are in fact nothing less than the cosmic consequence for God has chosen these men so that through them all the nations of the earth should be blessed. And so what we have in 1.1 through 2.3 is that first snapshot of creation and it serves as it were as the introduction to the whole book reminding us that later on we get to chapter 12 that the God of Abram who calls Abram out of Ur the Chaldees is none other than the one who has created absolutely everything. Then in 2.4, we have the first Toledot statement. I told you about the Toledot statements. This is the account of, or the genealogy of, or the generations of. What's interesting is there's 10 of these Toledot statements. They serve as unit dividers in the book of Genesis. This is the only one that is not focused on, let's say, Adam or Seth or a person. All of the Toledots in Genesis are focused on a person, the generations of a person. This first one actually is the, account of the generations of the creation as God made it in heaven and earth. And then from that, we enter into the next section. And so, some people think this is a second creation account, and it's not. What happens is, what Moses does for us in 1.1 to 2.3 is he gives us this gigantic panoramic picture of the entirety of God's creative activity in that first creation week, but then what happens in 2.4 to 2.5, Moses then narrows the focus to the most important part of God's creation, which of course is man. And so in one sense, 1-1 to 2-3 is this panoramic perspective, but then 2-4 to 25 now focuses in. So it's like seeing a family portrait. You step back, you see the family portrait, you describe everybody, but then you narrow in on the last two people and talk a little bit more about them and their significance. in the story, and that's what happens. And so in 2, 5 to 7, we have a detailed account of man's creation. And in 2, 8 through 14, we have the preparation of the garden. Now when we get to that section, we're going to see that there actually has been a lot of study, a lot of research that has pointed to the fact that creation in general and the garden in particular are both very temple-like. so that what God is preparing for man's habitation is not just simply a garden park, but rather a garden temple. And so then after the preparation of the garden, in 2, 15 to 17, we have Adam's probation, the test of obedience. And then in 2, 18 to 25, we have the first wedding. It's gonna be glorious. I read these two chapters and they astonish me every time I read them. This is the revelation of the creator of the ends of the earth. Dawkins wasn't there to see this. God had to reveal it. Now, as we think about that now, we're gonna now focus our attention a little more. We are getting to verse one, trust me. the days of creation are divided neatly into two triads, all right? Days of creation are divided into two triads, so you have days one, two, and three, and then days four, five, and six, and those days actually correspond to the phrase that we see in one two, formless and void, or you're gonna hear this a lot because it's so fun to say, tohu vobohu, all right? That's Hebrew for formless and void. So what I want you to see is this is the expression, formlessness and void or emptiness, tohu vobohu in one two, that's the state of the created world in 1-2. What happens is days 1, 2, and 3 deal with the formlessness of the earth. In other words, days 1, 2, and 3 begin to give form to that which is formless. Then days 4, 5, and 6 begin to fill in the form. So 1, 2, the earth is formless and empty or void. Then what God begins to do is he gives form to the earth in days 1 through 3, and then he fills the earth in days 4, 5, and 6. What also is interesting is if you notice the way day 1 corresponds to day 4. God creates light on day one and then in day four the lights the Sun the moon the stars Lights for day and night day two. He creates the sea with sky and on day five Creatures for the water and the sky day three. He creates a fertile earth day six he creates a creatures to actually inhabit and benefit from that fertile earth. And so, there is a wonderful form to the days of creation. Now, as we get to these days, each day roughly follows the same pattern. There is an announcement. And God said, And God said. That seems so amazingly simple to us, and yet that announcement, which by the way, in the creation account, occurs 10 times. By the way, none of these numeric interesting points are accidents. And God said 10 times. 10 times, and God said, and what we see is we see the creator of the ends of the earth actually bringing things into existence by speaking. So Kenneth Matthews says, God, in these phrases, and God said, God is depicted. as an autonomous master who has by his uncontested word commanded all things into existence and ordered their design and their purpose, and the spoken word is the preeminent motif of Genesis's affirmation concerning God as creator. There's no one like God. There's no one that just says something and it happens. Then after the announcement, and God said, then there is the commandment, let there be, all right? So this is the form of each of the days, and God said, and then there's the, what he said, and let there be, and then there is the result, and it was so. So this morning on the plane from Dallas to Reno, I went through and just underline each one of these phrases so that they're just, they just jump out of the page, off the page for me. And it was so, and it was so, and it was so. Is it an accident that the result phrase, and it was so, occurs seven times in Genesis? Then there's the evaluation. And God saw. and it was good seven times, with the last time being the intensified form of very good. Then there's the chronology, evening, morning, first day, second day, so forth. The week is seven days. Seven is, of course, absolutely huge in Genesis. Verse one, which there weren't verses in the original, but when versification did happen, it happened according to the, grammatical and poetic structure of the text. So verse, what is to us, verse one is actually a unit in the Hebrew Bible, okay? So 1-1 consists of seven words, 1-2 consists of 14 words, and then 2-1-3, which is also a self-contained unit, consists of 35 words. And I know what you're thinking, did you count this yourself? Or did you just have somebody else count for you? No, I had somebody else count for me 35 words, which of course is, if my peachy folder came in true this morning, seven times five, right? So which is multiple seven. Elohim, 35 times. Haaretz, the earth, 21 times. This is amazing to me. Heaven or firmament, 21 times, and it was so, seven times. God made or created, seven times. God saw that it was good, seven times. The picture that we get in Genesis 1 and 2 is a picture of a good creation, a perfect creation, a world that turned out just the way the creator designed it. Now, let's actually look at verse one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You ever see, so Jay Leno, man on the street thing where they go out and ask, I wonder if you would just went out and just maybe like during Carson Valley days, right? Went down to Gardnerville, hung around, milled around the parade, and just asked people, what's the first verse of the Bible? How many of you think the majority of people would get it? It's hard to say, isn't it? Now, rewind the clock 50 years ago. Vast majority of people get it, right? Right? What are the first words of the Bible? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There's an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. And I would suggest to you that we actually have lost the absolute wonder of this first verse because it is so, so familiar to us. What this verse does is that this verse is an out-of-the-gate declaration that there is a God who has created absolutely everything. And it is this God who actually has formed and fashioned us, and it is this God who is worthy to be worshiped. Now the text begins by saying, in the beginning, And I take that to probably be an absolute statement of an absolute beginning that we would maybe just call the beginning of time. Now, there are people who look at this and see it as a temporal statement that goes something like this, in the beginning of God's creation, or in the beginning when God created, so that it's more of a temporal expression. Grammatically, it's possible, but it seems very unlikely to me. By the way, there sometimes is a hidden agenda with the temporal idea of in the beginning, and that is that God doesn't just create out of nothing, he creates out of pre-existing materials. Okay? Now, the way that I understand Genesis 1-1 and in the beginning is that this is an absolute statement. In other words, there was a point in which there was nothing but God. Okay? Think about this. This actually will blow the circuits of our little brains if we let it. There was a point in which the only reality was God. God as Father, Son, Holy Spirit in the fullness of the Trinity, absolutely, perfectly happy within Himself. And then at some point, which the Bible identifies as in the beginning, God then created and brought the entire cosmos into existence. The text says, in the beginning God created. What's interesting about Genesis 1.1 is that it is not an apologetic for the existence of God. The Bible does not make for us. explicit arguments to defend the existence of God. The Bible comes to us as divine revelation which assumes that which is patently true. And that is that there's a God who exists and who brought all these things into being. And this book is going to tell you who he is. All right. And so, by the way, when you're talking to people about the gospel, don't get overly hung up on trying to come up with clever answers that defend the existence of God. Okay? There are some people that are very good at this, and there are many people who waste far too much time with this. Okay? If we take Romans 1 seriously, every human being that comes into this world has an innate sense of the Creator, and that is the common ground upon which we communicate with them. The minute that we start to, as it were, give in to the unbelievers worldview, we do as C.S. Lewis said years ago, put God in the dock and God never belongs in the dock. The dock, by the way, is the place in the British court system where the accused sits. As we come to the Bible, God's not on trial, man is. And so that makes a big difference in the way that you go about talking to people about God and the gospel. When it says God, when you hear God in English, by the way, that is fairly abstract, isn't it? When we use the English word God, it can be very abstract. In Hebrew, there's no such abstraction exists. God, Elohim, is the one who is the God who speaks. He is the God who acts. He is the God who is seen through his works. He is the God who is known. through his works. Elohim is not some abstraction out there, the blind watchmaker theory. Rather, Elohim is both this magnificently, transcendent, majestic, awesome creator who is also known to his creation. So Bruce Waltke says so beautifully, God, unlike human beings, is without beginning, begetting, opposition, or limit of power. Now, you may have heard before that the expression Elohim is a plural noun. That is true, but every time Elohim is the subject, and it's talking about the God of the Bible, the verbs are always singular. This is a grammatical anomaly. Well, it's actually not a grammatical anomaly. The idea of Elohim being plural, I think, you know, you have all different kinds of people that, you know, plural of intensity, a plural of majesty and so forth. I actually think that the plural indicates plurality within the Godhead. And the reason I think that is because when we do get to chapter one, verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image, right? And so what I think actually we have is, as it were, the seeds of the triune Godhead. Now, to be sure, as Moses wrote this, and as Israelites heard it or read it themselves, they didn't go, oh, look at that, the Holy Trinity. You need further revelation, right? But remember, the Bible is like, it's like a seed. that is planted, and then it grows, or it's like a rosebud which then opens up. Now when you see the rosebud, you're not overly impressed, but as it opens up, it's actually the exact same as what it was, it just has now unfolded. God's Word is exactly like that. So as we come to Genesis 1-1, and we hear Elohim, and we hear the plural, him, in the noun, and then we see the Spirit in verse 2, and then we see, and God said repeatedly through Genesis 1, and then we get to John 1, and see that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I look at Genesis 1, 2, 3, and say, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I read my Bible from right to left. I don't read the Bible as if the incarnation has not happened. I don't read the Old Testament as if Jesus is still just a long-awaited promise. I read it in light of the fact that he is the fulfillment of everything that's been said. So, the verb. Okay, so subject, verb. You know what we're doing now. Grammar, okay? Verb. The verb is created. Great Hebrew word, bara. And guess what? It's only used in the Hebrew Bible when God himself is the subject. Human beings never bara anything, only God, the God of Israel can bara. Okay, now, Wynham says here, there is a stress, using the word barah, there is a stress on the artist's freedom and power. The more so in the Hebrews, the word is used solely for God's activity. Now, some people have argued that barah is a technical term for creation out of nothing. And the fact is, is that's not true because barah is used with God as the subject in many other contexts where he has preexisting material. For instance, God creates Israel. The idea, though, is God creating something new, God forming something new. It's context that leads us to draw out that God is bara, creating, out of nothing. And then we have the double direct object. Subject, God. Verb, created. Direct object, the heavens. and the earth. This is a figure of speech, heavens and earth. And by figures of speech, I don't mean that somehow we don't understand that God created the heavens and the earth literally. What I'm saying is that the figure of speech, the heavens and the earth, actually is what's called a merism, where you typically take two extreme parts and use it for a figure of speech to imply totality. So we say from head to foot, or from head to toe, okay? Now we don't mean just literally from head to the toe and exclude everything in the middle, we mean actually everything, the totality, right? So it's a merism, you use two different expressions to include totality. So when it says the heavens and the earth, what it actually is saying is that God created absolutely everything. the totality of the universe, the heavens and the earth, was created by God. The expression is not limiting whatsoever. In fact, it is as expansive and inclusive as you possibly can get, so that if they send out a telescope that's more powerful than the Hubble telescope, and they discover 100,000 more galaxies that's included in Genesis 1-1. When Moses wrote Genesis 1-1, how much of the universe do you think he was aware of? Well, he wasn't aware of nearly as much as we are. But for Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it's just really clear. God created absolutely everything. And the more stuff that we find out, it's just more stuff that we now know he created. And so, Genesis 1.1 describes God's first creative act in its totality. Waltke says his creation reveals his immeasurable power and might, his bewildering imagination and wisdom. Isn't that wonderful? Creation is a revelation of God's immeasurable power and might, his bewildering imagination and wisdom, his immortality and transcendence, ultimately leaving the finite mortal in mystery. That's what Genesis 1.1 should do to you. That's what singing number 44, how great thou art should do to you is leave the finite mortal in mystery. An old Dutch scholar says, the first words of scripture purposely lift our hearts on high to God. And it is in this way that it becomes apparent from the outset that Holy Scripture by its very nature is indeed the revelation of God. So don't miss this. God has revealed himself in Genesis 1.1 as the absolute sovereign creator of everything. And by virtue of the fact that we have Genesis 1.1 inscripturated in the first canonical book of the Bible actually tells us something. Not only is the God of the Bible the absolute sovereign creator, but he is also the God who has taken the initiative to reveal himself to you. That's what Genesis 1.1 ultimately implies for us. Yes, it's a glorious declaration of his absolute sovereignty and his bewildering imagination and wisdom and so forth, but understand this, God initiates the self-disclosure of himself to human beings who could have never known this apart from his self-disclosure. God reveals himself as the God who is transcendent, true Elohim, but he's also the God who's not only transcendent and the God who's incomprehensible, but he's also the God who's knowable, and we know he's knowable because he's revealed himself. And so the Creator can be known through His revelation, especially the revelation of His Son, who is called the Word in John 1. It is hardly accidental that John's gospel begins with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And it is also not accidental that John would tell us without apology that it was through the word all things came into being and nothing that has come into being came into being apart from him. So the fact that we can know personally and intimately the God who made all things is an awesome reality. And through this ancient Hebrew text, The Holy Spirit invites you to know the one who made you. He invites you to trust him and to love him and to bank all of your hope on his words and on his word, his son, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, what a glory. What a glory. We thank you for this opening chapter of Holy Scripture. Father, we pray that we would not just move quickly by it, but that we would let our hearts marinate in the reality of it, the revelation of who you are. your power, your wisdom, your might, Lord, all of those things. But Father, may we not miss that in the revelation of who you are, you are revealing to us personally and intimately who you are for us. Father, we pray that we would love you and trust you and embrace your son. Father, we thank you today for your glorious word and we thank you for your glorious son. In his name we pray, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.