Sunday Sermon: In the Beginning (Genesis 1:1-2)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Opening of Genesis and the First Reading of Creation

Let's come to our scriptures today. We are in Genesis chapter 1. Now we may not get all the way through this as far as a lesson goes. I may be splitting this up between this week and next week. We're going from chapter 1 into chapter 2 verse 3.

That's lesson 1. So that may be split between these two Sundays. But at least for now, reading through the entire text, something you've heard many, many times, but as it may be for you as it is also for me, that we read something we thought we were really, really familiar with and come to find that the Lord shows new things to us, right?

So let's come to this. I'm going to be reading from the English Standard Version. This is Genesis chapter 1 beginning in verse 1. In the beginning, hear the word of the Lord. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and 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 face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And 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 evening, and there was morning, the first day.

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.

And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.

And it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas. And God saw that it was good. 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. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day. And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.

And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and also the stars.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day, and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures, and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So 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, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and 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 God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

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. Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray again. Heavenly Father, as we come to our lesson today, I pray that you bless the substance of what it is that we will look at. We have heard the word of God, and now let us consider what we are to glean from this.

Even how it is applicable for our lives. We're not just looking at information about the way that God created things in the very beginning. But we're also seeing that this word and this creation account governs our lives even now.

So lead us in these things for your namesake. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Shortly after I came here to First Baptist Church in Lindale, I was asked to lead the teaching on Sunday evenings.

And at the time, we were going through our confession of faith, the Baptist faith and message. We had gone from meeting in here to across the street in the knoft in 21, because we were going to be doing renovations in this particular room, if you'll remember that.

And it was about the time that we went over to the knoft that we were on the article concerning creation. Now Tom was teaching on something the week right before, and I cannot remember what it was that he taught on.

But then he kind of led into, Gabe is going to be teaching next week on our article of faith concerning creation. And he prefaced that by saying, you know what we believe here at First Baptist Church in Lindale?

We believe in the seven day creation. We believe that as it says that God created on day one, day two, day three, so on and so forth, that these were actual literal days. That is what all of our teachers believe as well.

And so that is what you're going to hear from Gabe also when he teaches you next week. Well once he said that, I was like, Hmm, well, I think we have a problem here. And I didn't tell him what the problem was.

He wasn't there that next week I was teaching and he wasn't in the audience. But I got up in front of the group that was gathered there in the knoft and I said, folks, Tom and I don't disagree on much concerning our doctrine.

But he said something last week concerning creation that I do disagree with. He said that God created the universe and all things in seven literal days. And I'm here to tell you that is not what the Bible says.

God did not create the universe in seven literal days. He created it in six days and rested on the seventh. Thank you. Judy was a little concerned there for a minute. Whoa, wait a minute. Where is this going?

Yes, six-day creation resting on the seventh. And notice something here at the very beginning. I'm going to give you an outline in just a moment. But look at it, but the outline we will find in the first two verses.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And 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 face of the waters.

So we can kind of break this down. We can break Genesis 1 through 2, 3 down in a few different ways concerning our outline. But first of all, this very first statement, this is the statement that opens up all of scripture for us.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So it is implied that before God created anything, there was nothing. Just God, who dwelt forever in his glory. As Jesus prays in the high priestly prayer in John 17, he says, Father, glorify me with you, with the glory that I had with you before the ages began.

So what was going on before anything was created? It was just God glorifying in himself. And in fact, we even have other statements in scripture about things that were happening before time began. 2 Timothy 1 .9, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Consider also Titus 1 .2. Paul says that he is an apostle for the sake of the faith of God's elect in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. So consider what we are hearing in those two statements, in those two pastoral epistles, that before God had even created anything, he had already placed his affection on you and had predestined you for salvation in Christ.

Yes, sir? We have the effect of scripture references when we're talking about God.

Gotcha. Okay, those scripture references once again. 2 Timothy 1 .9 and Titus 1 .2. 2 Timothy 1 .9 and Titus 1 .2. Duane?

Gabe, help me out here because when I talk to non-believers and try to share the first thing that they come back to is, well, yeah, you can go to Genesis 1 .1, but where did God come from? And that's what always starts the conversation.

Right. And then afterwards, I mean, very easy if you believe in God, you have to work with the rest of us, right? Yeah. But then that question always is the big boulder or the elephant in the room when you're trying to visit with those who don't believe.

Yeah, right. Where did God come from? Right.

Yeah, they think that's a gotcha. But the reality is that everything that is caused needs a cause, but he who is uncaused does not need a cause. Now, that's difficult for us in our finite minds to wrap our heads around that concept, but God doesn't need a beginning.

We have a beginning. That beginning has to come from something outside this finiteness in which we exist. So the infinite created the finite.

And I'm glad you said it that way because the next position that I go to as well.

Creation, the Triune God, and the Meaning of Elohim

Is the most important. Right. Yeah, what are you going to do with that knowledge now? Yeah, exactly. That there is something that has created us, as it says in Hebrews 11, that all things that are seen came out of those things that are unseen.

God created from nothing that which is something, which is sensible, but the whole Darwinian model or the atheist model of where everything came from is not sensible. That something came from nothing, which is impossible.

That can't happen. So somehow that something came from nothing and became material, and then that material became life, and that life, which started as a single cell, evolved and became dinosaurs. I'm not really...

You know, they say that we believe fairy tales, and that's complete nonsense. It doesn't make any sense at all.

Yes, sir. Something jumped out at me that I've never really seen before. Okay. Verse 26, because everything is God did this, God did this, God did this. Verse 26 is where he is. Then God said, let us make man.

The us jumped out. Right. Is that the first reference to the triune God?

Actually, the first reference to the triune God is probably the word God in verse 1. Now, that's a theory, but the statement, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the Hebrew word there for God is Elohim, and that word is actually plural.

So, why Elohim is plural is not known. Like, even scholars, even Hebrew scholars that study this don't really know why Elohim is plural.

Because us has never jumped out at life. Right.

Yeah, right, right. So, that is a reference to God being triune. Whether or not that's the case with the word Elohim is a mystery. There's two possibilities. Either Elohim is plural because of the triune Godhead or because the Hebrews regarded God's majesty as being so great and abounding that it just... the word for God was just made plural.

So, it doesn't mean that there are multiple gods because the way that the Hebrew language works, there are words around it that qualify whether we're talking about multiple things or a singular thing.

So, the way that Hebrew works, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the people who are tell me these things. The word created is singular. So, therefore, God is one being. We're not talking about multiple beings that created everything.

It's one being. So, even though God is plural, it's still just one God. And the rest of the Old Testament echoes that. You consider that Moses was the one who wrote Genesis and Deuteronomy 6 .4 says, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

So, there's only one God, which the Pentateuch testifies to in the rest of the Old Testament as well. But for whatever reason, that word God is also plural. And as you pointed out, that God says, let us make man in our image.

Yeah.

Yes, sir? My home version, verse 27, didn't we have. He created man in His image? Yeah, His image. Ours and His. Right. Right. Is there any translation problem with that? I'll tell you next week.

So, now, this is why I knew we would not get through this lesson today. These are great questions. We haven't even gotten to the outline yet. But this is the very first statement in Scripture. And it is, without question, the most well-known opening sentence in all of literature.

You could go out into Lyndale, and you could stop anybody on the street, and you could ask them, quote for me, a verse from the Bible. Now, you might think maybe John 3, 16 is the most popular. No. I tell you, 99 times out of 100, if you stop anybody and say, give me a verse from the Bible, they'll go, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

I even, before I wrote this lesson, experimented with my kids. Just said, hey, Z, give me a verse in the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I asked my eight-year-old. She had the same answer.

So, just like my kids will do that. That's the first verse in the Bible. And if anybody even has never even attended a Sunday school class or a church service before, they at least know, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

It's even more popular than some of these opening lines in other famous works. See if you recognize some of them. Call Me Ishmael. What book is that? Moby Dick. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Tale of Two Cities. Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. Chronicles of Narnia. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

There you go. If my wife were here, she would have been right on top of that one. Pride and Prejudice. Two households both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

Romeo and Juliet. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, you all knew that one. And yet, all of those opening lines don't even hold a candle to how well-known it is to hear, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, that first word in the beginning in Hebrew is actually just one word. But it opens up the entire Bible for us as we begin our study of the book of Genesis. Okay, so our outline then here in verse 2, 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 face of the waters. Did you notice anything about the pattern of the creation account as we went through those six days?

The first three days, God was creating forms. And in the next three days, he was filling those forms. And that's our outline. So, we have days 1, 2, and 3, God creates the forms. Days 5, 6, and 7, or sorry, now I'm doing the seven-day creation.

Days 4, 5, and 6, he filled those forms. And then we can single out even day 6 because we spend more time talking about the creation of man. And then lastly, we have those three verses about the seventh day on which God rests and makes holy.

So, there's your outline for Genesis 1, 1 through 2, 3. Now, coming back to those days, what do I mean by God created the forms? Well, consider this, whenever, like right across the street over here, they are filling the sidewalk with concrete.

They're putting new ramps and everything like that leading up to our Sunday school classes across the street, the knoft. So, what do they lay down before they put concrete down? They put down forms, right?

There will be the rebar and there will be those boards and the concrete will fill that form and then once the concrete dries, then they'll remove the forms. So, in the same kind of a way, God is making forms and then in the next half of creation, he fills them.

What is day 1? Day 1, God creates what? Light. On day 2, what does God create? He separates the sky from the earth. On day 3, what does God create? God creates dry land and separates the dry land from the water.

So, now we have three forms. What does God create on day 4? The sun, moon, and stars, which is filling the form of light, right? The separation between light and darkness and now God is filling that form with sun, moon, and stars.

What does God create on day 5? Creates the birds that fill the heavens and the fish of the sea, which fill the seas. After, remember, day 2, he had separated the sky from the waters. Then what does God create on day 5?

Sorry, that was day 5. What does he create on day 6? Animals and man, now filling the land that he had separated from the seas. So, again, you have those three forms and then God doesn't leave those forms void.

He fills the void and that's what you have in verses or in days 4, 5, and 6. Now, you'll notice, and in fact, I'm not going to do this. You'll notice that I have not gone through all the different objections or views of creation and that we're not really talking about six literal days.

We're actually talking about a broad period of time. And because this seems to have that poetic nature to it, three days of forms, three days of filling those voids, then therefore there's something poetic going on here in Genesis, and we're really just reading some sort of an allegory or metaphor which has been written down to summarize something that happened over millions and millions of years of time.

And I'm not going to make an argument for that at all because the person who makes the argument that the Genesis account is actually talking about millions and millions of years more than what we're reading about here has the burden of proof to actually show that this means something other than exactly what it says.

This is not poetic. This isn't even apocalyptic literature. What do I mean by apocalyptic literature? Well, at the end of the Bible, you've got Revelation, which is an apocalyptic book. There are other prophets that are as well, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc., half of Daniel.

But in Revelation, where you have the unfolding of things that are happening at the end, the revealing to us how God is going to bring to completion all of redemptive history, there are pictures and things like that that are going on there that represent other things.

That's a completely different genre of literature. Because I've heard some say, well, if you take Genesis literally, then you have to take Revelation literally, where there's like this beast that rise up with seven heads and ten horns on every head.

Do you think a literal dragon is rising out of the sea? Do you think, as it says in Revelation 1, that Jesus literally has a sword coming out of his mouth? Because if you're going to read Genesis 1 that way, you have to read Revelation that way.

It's two different genres of literature. And Genesis is not, in any part of Genesis, revealing itself to be something poetic or allegory. It's a history book. And it tells us exactly what happened in the beginning and exactly the way that it happened.

Yes, sir? Isn't that where the controversy is whether Moses wrote it? Because that's Genesis. Right. And we're assuming that that was God.

Yeah. Right. So you're saying part of the controversy also was Moses really the one that wrote Genesis. There are things we're going to talk about regarding that as we go through Genesis. We get to some more of the historical things after Garden of Eden.

So it will be after Fall of Man and things like that. But I will say in response to your question, we've got five books that Moses wrote. And all five of those books look the same. Like when you're reading Deuteronomy, it sounds like the same voice that you're reading in Genesis.

And when I became a student of Scripture and started reading things through like that from beginning to end, without, you know, pulling pieces out, just looking at segments at a time, but just reading straight through it, it was astonishing to me how even in the English language you can hear voice change.

When you go from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy to Joshua, there's a voice change. When you go to Judges, there's a voice change. So you can tell that there are different writers behind this.

And the history that we're reading about in Genesis sounds really, really a lot like Exodus. Almost sounds like we don't even change anything from Genesis to Exodus. You can take the titles off and you would feel like you're still reading the same story through.

Now, of course, we know that the Bible has the same author. It is God. Though written over a span of 1 ,500 years, it was the Holy Spirit that was guiding the men to write exactly what they wrote. 2 Peter 1, no one ever wrote a prophecy from himself, but men wrote from God as they were guided by His Spirit to write.

And you know, 2 Timothy 3 .16, all Scripture is God-breathed. And so even what we read here is given to Moses by God. Now, how would Moses have known anything about the creation account if it were not given to him by God?

Nobody's there standing with God on that day when He says, let there be light. In fact, we know from Proverbs 8 that the only thing that was with God on that day, when He brought all things into existence, all things that we know seen and unseen into existence, the only one that was there with God was wisdom.

God in and of Himself does this. No one caused God, but He causes all things. And we even know when we get to chapters of the Bible like John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, that it's specifically the Son who speaks and brings all things to be.

So when we read in Genesis 1 .3, God saying, let there be light, it's even the Son of God who speaks and brings all those things to be. Because it's in Him that God has created all things, and through Him all things hold together.

The same word that He spoke that brought all things into existence is the same word that continues to govern all things and hold all things together. Amen? So as we come to that understanding, that realization, that makes even what we're reading about here in Genesis of great comfort to us.

We do not worship a deist God. Now, what do I mean by that, a deist God? Well, the deists believe, yes, there is a God, but He is so high up there, and He is so out there, and He is so powerful and beyond us, there is no possible way that we can perceive of Him or even get to Him.

Now, there's a certain extent to which I agree with that, with the deist. We are sinful fallen man. We cannot ascend to where God is. We would not be able to have any kind of relationship or fellowship with God whatsoever, because He is holy and we are not.

He is high above us, and we are down here. And we would not have that fellowship with God if it were not for the fact that He condescended Himself to come to us. And I'm not just talking about sending His Son, although that was the greatest, most humble act in all of cosmic history.

I'm just simply talking about the fact that God gives us His Word. That God spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai or in the Tent of Meeting. As it says in Exodus, Moses spoke with God as one man speaks to another face-to-face.

And because God condescended Himself in this way and had this kind of relationship with Moses, so God gave Moses His Word, which He's written down here, that we may know God. And we would not have had this chance to know God if it were not for what God did for us.

As you read in 1 John, we love because He first loved us. And then, of course, as that verse goes on to say, and gave His Son to be a propitiation or a ransom for our sins. So it's because God condescended Himself and gave us this Word that we may know God.

So the deists are right in the sense that we would not be able to get to God if it were not for God coming to us. But where I disagree with the deists is this idea that God is so out there and beyond us, He just created all things and set it in motion, and He is no longer interacting with His creation.

So that's what I mean by we don't worship a deist God. Because the deists say, He just created it, but He's not here anymore. He's so out there, and He doesn't even care about what it is that we're doing.

We see right here in the Genesis account, God has His hands in all that's being made. Even gets His hands dirty, forming things out of the ground. Speaking all things into existence until we get to day six, and then He's forming stuff out of the dirt.

And then even after this, God has a relationship with Adam and Eve. Because of Adam's sin, that relationship was broken. But God doesn't just, fine, you guys, you're on your own. I'm out of here. I'm going to be way out here on the other end of the universe.

Good luck getting to me. God would have been just in doing that. But that's not what He did. We even see God interacting with creation in the next, you know, that happens in chapter three, so the next chapter is four through eleven.

Where God is grieved over the sin that is on the earth, brings judgment on the earth. But He has mercy on a righteous man named Noah and his family. And then even when the people, the families that come from the lines of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, again rebel against God and create the Tower of Babel, God still doesn't leave after that, confuses the languages and disperses them over all the earth.

We see God continually interacting with that which He has made. And of course, the greatest interaction that God has had with us is sending His Son. And we read in Philippians 2, 5 through 11, Have this mind in you which is also in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, and we're reading about forms here in Genesis 1, though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and made Himself nothing, taking upon Himself the likeness of man and became a servant.

And He humbled Himself even to the point of death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

The greatest condescension that God left His throne in heaven, put on flesh, lived a perfect life, suffered and died at the hands of the creatures that He created, rose again from the dead, so that all who believe in Jesus Christ will not perish under the just judgment of God, but in Christ our sins are forgiven, atoned for, and we have everlasting life.

And we will see, even as we go through the story of the Garden of Eden, that gospel account come to life, the promise of that gospel. Now, at the time that this was written, the people of Israel, the Hebrews, did not know those things, that God was going to do those things and bring it about.

They hoped in God, they trusted in God, that He was going to send a Savior who would make all things right. But they didn't understand how that was going to happen. So Paul talks about that multiple times, Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3, about that being a mystery that has since been revealed to us.

Those things that were mysterious to those who were in the Old Testament at the coming of Christ has since been revealed. And Jesus also reveals to us the Father. So as I said, when we read in Genesis 1 -1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and we know that God there is triune, there's Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The creation account is a triune work. You have, going on in the next verse, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. But we even also come to know the identity of the Son and the Father because Jesus revealed the Father to us.

Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 11. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone the Son chooses to reveal Him. So we are able to read Genesis 1, and we see a triune work of God happening in creation because of what Christ would later come and reveal to us.

Now, Jesus would say, Abraham knew me, Moses knew me, and they longed to see my day. So there were certain prophets that were able to see more than the rest that everybody else got to see. But we only come to know who the Father is through the Son, and we only come to know who the Son is through the Father, and it's said in 1 John 5, it is the Spirit who testifies to the identity of both.

Creation is a trinitarian work, and, my friends, your salvation is a trinitarian work. We've read already about those things that God had predestined before time began. The Father predestined it. The Son bought and paid for it.

And the Spirit brought its effect into your life, that you might come to faith in God and fellowship with Him and be saved. You know, we see the Trinity at Jesus' baptism. When Jesus is baptized, there's the Son.

The Holy Spirit descends from heaven on Him like a dove, and we have the voice of the Father from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And hear this also, friends, because this is just cool.

This is mind-blowing. The same Trinity that was there at Jesus' baptism is the Trinity that is with you at your baptism. What did Jesus say at Matthew 28? All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always to the very end of the age.

From before time began to the very end of the age, God is for us. Is that not amazing? The very God who brought all things into existence by a word ministers to you by that same word. We have hope by that word.

We have life by that word. And that all begins here in Genesis. Now, that's the lesson for today. You see why there was no way I was getting through all of Genesis 1 in one Sunday. We'll come back again next week, and we'll start to talk about more of those particulars regarding what God was making on each day and even the significance of those things.