What is Genesis chapter 1 Teaching?
The primary message of the Bible is to teach us about God and the importance of a right relationship with him. Unfortunately it has got into the popular mind that the opening chapter of Genesis is primarily about creation and how the world began. Yet such thinking misses the primary message of this opening section – it is describing the character of God.
This explains why so many of the details of the ‘creation story’ do not fit neatly together. They are clearly not meant to, as the creation is not the primary point of the story.
The chapter consists of many short sentences with repeated verbs. These verbs describe what God did and so tell us much about this God. A study of these verbs shows that this God has the very same character as the God described throughout the rest of the Bible. This unity is extraordinary.
God Created . . .
The opening phrase of the Bible states that this God ‘created’. The Hebrew word used here is ‘bara’ which is only used in the Bible for a creation of God. This has always been a major philosophical problem since the world began. “How did the world come into being”. Man has always seen the logic and laws of nature. Where did these all come from? Even with the increasing sophistication of science the same underlying problem cannot be answered more precisely than this sentence. “In the beginning God created . . .”
In the creation myths of ancient civilisations, such as those of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, their multiple debased gods appear in an already created world. This chapter directly attacks those religions where objects are worshipped as if they were divine. Thus the sun and moon were often a focus of ancient worship yet in this chapter these two are demoted to the fourth day of the creation story. They are not even called by their usual names so that there can be no confusion. They are simply the ‘greater light’ and the ‘lesser light’. The stars, which were attributed with having considerable authority in controlling events were dismissed with the throwaway line, “He also made the stars”.
This opening sentence has so many implications. The world God created reflects his character, just as artists’ paintings reflect theirs. This world can be explored and enjoyed. Beauty is real because it comes originally from a God who has aesthetic values. All of God’s creation is to be enjoyed.
It is no coincidence that the renaissance of science was associated with the rediscovery of the significance of the Bible as God’s word to man. Many of the early scientists were deeply committed Christians. Believing in a creator God meant that the laws governing his creation could be investigated. Thus Kepler, who defined the elliptical orbit of the planets recognised that science was, “Thinking God’s thoughts after him.”
It is no coincidence that hospitals have been associated with the Christian church since it began. Buddhist societies were primarily interested in the soul and so there was little concern about the physical world. This is why hospitals were not characteristics of Buddhist societies. It was the Christians who recognised that God was concerned about all aspects of life, the physical, the aesthetic and the spiritual.
God said . . .
This verb is repeated again and again throughout the chapter and for good reason. The God of the Bible is a communicating God. This concept is rare in other ancient religions. Three Hindu brothers returned home from university and their Father asked them,
“What have they taught you about God?”
The first brother spoke for half an hour describing what he had learnt. The second spoke for fifteen minutes. The third spent no time at all. Their father turned to the third son and said,
“You are the wise one because our Gods do not speak so we cannot know them.”
We communicate by language. The transfer of precise information to another person depends on meaningful symbols and words. They are vital. You cannot have a legal system based on impressions – precise definitions are needed. So it is when God wants to relate with man – meaningful words are needed.
A doctor was talking with a Christian friend about the meaning of life.. The doctor said that he had so far failed to find any convincing answers.
“Where have you been looking?” his friend asked.
“I have been thinking about these matters”
“Oh, then it is no wonder that you haven’t found the answer. God is not to be found in you mind. You have to look where he has revealed himself. Jesus claims to be that revelation of God. Investigate him and you can find the answer.”
Argen was a Hindu boy who went off to university. At the end of the year he came home to his village only to meet a funeral procession. Horror of all horrors – the dead person was his sister. This set in train a search for the meaning of life. What is life for? He travelled all over India asking many gurus the two questions, “Is there a God?” “Can he be known?” One guru told him that the only way for him to know God was to wade out into the river Ganges, till he is standing up to his neck in water and to recite the thousand names of God. He decided to try this novel approach. He waded out deep into the river and began reciting. The strength of the current then took over and he started to be swept away. He fought for his life but after a considerable struggle he was rescued and brought back to the bank. He realised what the guru meant. You cannot know God in this life!
Argen continued his search. One day a man with a friendly face offered him a lift and Argen gratefully climbed up next to him.
“You know I am an untouchable,” his new friend explained.
After moving a little bit further away from his host, Argen explained his search.
“I’m looking for God – can he be known?”
“Oh yes he can,” came the surprising reply. “ I came to know him 5 years ago.”
He then went on to explain how the almighty God who created the universe entered this world in the form of Jesus. He told Argen that this God is a speaking God who tells us what we need to know about life in his book, the Bible. He speaks so as to make himself known so that we can have a relationship with him.”
This is indeed the main message of the Bible – God can be known. The Bible explains how. It is not through trying to be good people – we can never be good enough. This relationship comes as a free gift to all who put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. The Bible does emphasise our need to know God. This is clear from so many of the character studies in the Bible.
God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. Genesis 3:8
Enoch walked with God. Genesis 5:4
Abraham was a ‘friend of God’. Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7
Moses spoke with God as a man speaks to his friend face to face. Exodus 33:11
God has repeatedly said that this relationship with him is the most important thing anyone can receive. Thus the prophet Jeremiah quotes the Lord,
“‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts, boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 9:23
God does communicate with His creation through His word.
God saw . . .
God not only sees all that is going on but he then evaluates everything he sees.
“God saw that the light was good.” 1:4
In the following chapter God saw that Adam was alone. “It is not good” was his response so he created Eve. God sees everything in the world. He sees what we do in private, even what we cherish in our thoughts. Nothing is hidden. He evaluates whether our actions are ‘good’ or ‘not good’.
In so-called Christian countries there is still a tradition that holiness and morality are linked. This is not true elsewhere in the world. The gods of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and Babylon are religious but far from moral – they cheat, lie, fight, murder and are promiscuous. Hindu holy men may avoid food, work and washing but they are not known for their being particularly moral. If they are not given a gift they may even follow you down the street with a string of oaths coming out of his mouth.
Yet the presence of right and wrong gives life a moral purpose. Without God there is no real purpose as ‘existentialist’ philosophers have realised. Without absolutes, life is meaningless and any purposes in life are only artificial.
The book of Ecclesiastes is a search for meaning and purpose in life. At first everything seems meaningless, even success. But at the end of the book the writer finds the answer to his quest,
“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter;
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring everything into judgement, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
The judgement of God makes sense of life. God cares when people lie. God cares when people steal and cheat. God cares when a man hits his wife or bullies others.
In Australia, Bishop Paul Barnett came home to hear his daughter complain
“My teacher doesn’t love me”
“I’m sure she does,” he replied.
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Of course she loves you.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“why do you think this?” he asked.
“She won’t mark my work!”
Love and judgement go together. It is an unloving parent who doesn’t care what his children get up to after school and who they are mixing with. The loving parent is bothered when his children lies, bullies, takes drugs or becomes sexually promiscuous.
This teaching at the beginning of Genesis becomes personal. This God sees what I am doing and thinking and assesses me. He knows if we have committed the greatest sin.
What is the greatest sin? It is surely breaking the greatest commandment. An expert in the Jewish law once asked Jesus,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law?
Jesus replied,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:36
If this is the greatest commandment then the greatest sin is to refuse to do this. Treason is a very serious crime in all societies and treason against the Lord God is very serious indeed. God sees what goes on in our hearts.
God separated . . .
This word keeps being repeated in Genesis 1 – indeed after God creates it is the most notable feature in the chapter.
v.4 When God created ‘light’, he separated the light from the darkness.
v.6 and v.7 Here God separates water below from water above by an ‘expanse’ called ‘sky’. The word separates is used twice.
v.14 God ‘separates ‘days’ from ‘nights’.
v.18 God separates ‘light’ from ‘darkness’.
This cannot be coincidence. After Adam and Eve rejected what God had commanded about not eating from ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’, he banished them from the garden. They were separated from his presence.
When Cain murdered his brother Abel, God sent him away.
“Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence.” Genesis 4:14
Later when God saw all the corruption on the earth, he separated the family of righteous Noah from everyone else on the earth. They were saved in the ark whereas everyone else was destroyed in the flood.
This is the warning of the whole Bible. Rebellion against God, which is symbolised by darkness, will inevitably lead to separation from God. It is his nature to separate darkness and evil from the light. Jesus emphasised this,
“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.” Matthew 25:32
The Spirit of God hovered . . .
This verb emphasises that the same Almighty God who speaks, evaluates and separates is also gentle and caring.
This word ‘hover’ only occurs one other time in the Bible. Moses is describing the relationship God has with his own people.
“In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” Deuteronomy 32:10-11
This is a beautiful picture of an eagle who, when the time is ready, nudges its young eaglet out of the nest, yet then hovers around it with great gentleness and care.
There is another beautiful passage in the Bible where God reminds Moses of the love and care he has shown to his people. Again he compares his love with the protection an eagle shows to its young.
“”You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Exodus 19:4
This is so striking. The powerful creator God of Genesis 1:1 is also very gentle and loving. The rest of the Old and New Testaments repeatedly tell us of this immense love God has for the world he has created. Genesis chapter two emphasises this love God has for Adam and Eve which persists in spite of their rebellion in chapter three. When they recognise that they are naked it is God who provides clothes for them. All the rest of the Bible is about God’s rescue plan for a rebellious people. We will all stand in the dock before him and we will have to plead, ‘Guilty’ to the charge of rebellion against God. We are in the dark and deserve to be separated from his presence. Yet, it was this love that compelled Jesus to come to this earth to pay the penalty for our rebellion. The apostle John, towards the end of his life, recognised the immensity of this love.
“This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10
How can the Almighty God balance all these characteristics? He sees what goes on in the world and evaluates it. It is his holy, righteous nature to separate the darkness from his presence. Yet he loves all people, however wayward we have been. He longs to save us. How can God’s righteousness and his love be reconciled?
A group of early settlers in the United States were travelling west slowly, by wagon train, across those vast dry, hot prairies. Two days after crossing a river they were horrified to see ahead of them a long line of smoke stretching across the prairie. The wind was from that direction. The fire was being blown towards them rapidly. There was no time to return to the river. What could they do? One man had the answer. He told the others to set fire to the grass behind them. The wind drove these flames away from them leaving burnt ground. In a few minutes they were able to move back onto the burnt land.
As flames approached them rapidly from the west, a little girl cried out,
“Are you sure we shall not be burned up?”
The leader replied,
“Don’t worry, the flames cannot reach us here, for we are standing where the fire has been.”
The fires of God’s judgement burned themselves out on Jesus and those of us who stand in Christ are safe forever - we have been saved.
God rested . . .
This final verb is very important. Many seem to think that man was the end of God’s creation. This is not true. ‘God’s rest’ is the final destiny of the world – heaven is the ultimate purpose of God.
“So on the seventh day he (God) rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and called it holy . . .” Genesis 1:2-3
This ‘rest’ (Hebrew sabbat) is real. It is a gift or blessing from God. It is holy. The New Testament confirms that this rest will ultimately be found in heaven. We can enjoy something of it now as we walk with and rely on our Lord. However the fulfilment is yet to come. Those who belong to the Lord Jesus and are God’s people will experience this in heaven. Here we live by faith in the hope of what is yet to come. The apostle Paul emphasised this,
“God has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” 2 Corinthians 5:5
Those people, even religious people who do not genuinely turn to God and his Son will not enter this rest, just as he said to those of his chosen people who rebelled against his rule,
“So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.”
Psalm 95:11 quoted in Hebrews 3:11
This truth that the aim of life is to enter this rest of God is further emphasised in the New Testament book of Hebrews.
“Therefore since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” Hebrews 4:1
How can we ‘enter this rest’? Hebrews says that it is only by responding to the rescue offered by God himself. The children of Israel had to leave Egypt to enter the Promised Land, their rest, and this is a picture of the eternal rest God offers all people that comes through the forgiveness available through following His Son.
“For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest . . .” Hebrews 4:2-3
This is why our response to the gospel is urgent. If we keep saying ‘No’ to God we will eventually become hardened. The writer of Hebrews goes on,
“It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before,
‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’” Hebrews 4:6-7
God finished . . .
So this opening passage of the Bible teaches us that the world begins and ends with God. He is an:
Almighty creator
He speaks to us
He sees what goes on and makes judgements
He separates the light from the dark, the forgiven from evil
He is gentle, caring and protective of his own
He has prepared a Sabbath, a rest, a heaven for his people
One day we will meet our God and Saviour. He longs to have a close relationship with all his people, just as Noah, Abraham, David, the apostles and other ordinary Christians through the ages have enjoyed.
When Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans he emphasised that the nature of God can be clearly seen in creation.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
Is this not the very point that the opening chapter of Genesis teaches us?
