Formless and Void and Creation

The first day of creation

What is formless and void?

The word for “void” here is the word for “Waste” in describing the judgment of God.

God speaks all of creation into being and it is this unformed matter, but we think so much of creation as perfection, but there are actually 3 problems w ith creation. There is formlessness, there is void or emptiness, and there is darkness.

-What this passage shows us is how God the primitive creation full of chaos into order. That God makes the uninhabitable into the flourishing.

-We also see there was darkness. Throughout the Bible darkness will be representative of sin and death. But from it God will create light

-This seems odd to us, because from the beginning of creation it seems as if there is darkness and chaos as a result of God’s creation. Some believe this describes the original fall of Satan, that the world already needed salvaging from the beginning. But the text doesn’t tell us that.

-We will see this theme again and again. That which is chaos, God makes into order.

“The theological significance of this was not lost on the ancient reader who recognized its polemical undertones regarding pagan cosmogonies…Whereas the hero god in the cosmogonic myths is threatened, the god of the Hebrews had no battle to rage for control and ownership of creations.”

But what do we see? The Spirit of God “hovering over the waters”.

God had a design in mind for this formless void, a divine activity. It is the work of the Spirit in putting a form to this watery void. We see the trinity already active!

What this gives a picture of is a picture of God’s redemptive plan, taking the world a making beauty out of it.

God’s divine plan makes order out of chaos.

But there is also hope, because the Spirit is hovering over it all. The days are good not in a moral quality, but they are good in that they are "intended for now". They are complete, not good or bad. We see a God who has a purpose, He wants the "earth to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord". God works through chaos to create an ordered creation. That is what God does in our own lives.

God runs into this problem in the 2nd verse but then this thing that seems like a big problem to us isn't a big problem to God. It is incredibly hopeful to learn something about who our God is, that emptiness isn't a problem to our God. We come to face to face with our emptiness when we deal with boredom, loss, fear about the future, isolation, etc. But then we look at God and then as we trace the story we see that over and over the things that are too hard or impossible for us, but we see they aren't a problem for God. We can't filled the world with image bearers, but we can fill the world with His Word. As the Gospel goes out and people are made new, the earth is being filled with the glory of God. The Spirit hovers over the womb of Mary, and then the Spirit hovers over Jesus as He is baptized and Jesus is now the beginning of the New Creation and then ascends into the heavens to create a new creation for us and to bring us back to Him where we will be His image bearers. God is full and overflowing with His attributes. From Jesus fullness we receive God's grace. Even now we are filled with His Spirit and we have a future of fullness. We experience the riches and the super abundance of all that God is and does through Christ and that flows into eternity. "You can't fill something that is already full...we need to be empty so that we can be filled with God. We are blessed when we recognize our need to be full." The fact that everything begins with emptiness means that God can do His work through His Spirit. It is His fullness that meets our emptiness." Eden is provided with food, we are given a liturgy of being empty and God filling us. Our need is part of the created order before the fall. The question is...what are you going to fill yourself with? We can so easily fill our lives with other things. Like passing restaurants so we can find the Chick-fil-a because Burger King isn't as good, but if we eat before we get there we are filled with something not as good. Don't be filled with Netflix, food, alcohol, the internet, or whatever...be filled with God.

What we see here at the beginning is chaos, something with no definition. For us it is the “unmaking of society”. Where we go from social organization to chaos. Only God keeps it all together.

The world will continue to repeat this chaos.

People tend to see the universe in 1 of 2 ways. Either the universe is absolute chaos and everything is random and unpredictable, therefore nothing has meaning and I can live life the way I want.

Others see the world as absolute order, everything has purpose and a cause, there is no random chance, and we see our life being uniquely purposeful.

-God made order out of the chaos, and the world will constantly be in this back and forth of chaos and order, but God brings everything into focus.

-We don’t like this because it makes us unnecessary, we aren’t the “center of the universe”, we aren’t a necessary part. God created everything because He loves His creation. It reminds us that God’s love is expressed outward toward us not because we have done something to deserve it. This free’s us to act in the same way towards others.

The Days of creation

Israel hears these words for the first time, the creation story, in the wilderness in Exodus. He writes these words to give the "roots and shoots". You're creation story will shape how you see the world. During the time of Exodus every culture had a creation story, this is God's argument as Him as the one who created all things. They have to undo other creation accounts. We all have a creation story. We have to be "de-constructed" with our worlds creation accounts. But that also means we have to see Genesis in context of the questions they are asking not what we are asking.

Our questions we ask of the text are things like "how old is the world?" There isn't an answer to this question in Genesis 1. You have competing supernatural accounts, there isn't a "naturalist" views, there weren't atheists. It also asking answering "how". Genesis 1 is answering "who" and "Why". They aren't bad questions, just not what it is asking.

There is structure to the text. It is written beautifully. There is the "Framework theory". Those in Genesis are hearing this, not reading it. Some think "a plain reading" of Genesis 1 is a days creation belief. We come with the notions and questions of our culture. We have to cross the gap.

5 elements of each day:

1. Command (God said) - this is important, just as God will say “I am” that the Word of God creates life, that what He says will be as He says.

-God chooses to speak. It shows God’s communicative nature. He did have to speak in order to create, but that is the form He chose to create from. From God’s language He forms reality.

-Later we will see at the tower of Babel people try to use their own language in order to make their own order separately from God. But it is only the language of God that is able to do so perfectly. Our words can build up, they can shape society, they can impact cultures and thinking, but can also be that which breaks everything down, that leads to violence. God’s Words are perfect.

. 2. The report (and it was so)

-It points to the fact there are fundamental truths that can’t be denied. Things that are fundamental to God’s creation. But what we see in God saying “it is good” is that we can’t just reduce the universe to a set of facts. That we can “naturalize” or make a math equation out of the universe and figure out. There is beauty to it that goes beyond the facts.

3. The assessment (it is good)

-Why does God call it good? Did He not know it was good when He made it? “It is not a realization, but a declaration” (Watkin). We see that God doesn’t just make material with no meaning, but God makes Creation with depths of meaning. It doesn’t just have a physical or scientific purpose, it has a spiritual purpose.

-It reminds us as well that God is the judge of what is good and what is not good.

-It shows, against some who considered the world as inherently evil, that God had made it good from the beginning. And that one day God will make all things good again.

-It is a combination of the subjective and the objective. Some beauty and goodness is up for interpretation, while some things are objectively beautiful. To state these things as good is to give them inherent meaning, one intertwined with God’s speaking it into existence and stating it as good, it shows us there is an objective truth to creation. But the world isn’t just facts, it isn’t just truths that we can learn from science. Things we cannot argue with. It shows that the Creation has a value that we should seek to value ourselves with the way we care for God’s creation.

-Sometimes we can make too much of the goodness of God’s creation, we can give it too much meaning. Interpreting stars and seasons to have specific meanings. We go from meaning to mystic and pantheistic. But all things have meaning because they come from God to point us to Him.

-This also points us to Jesus, who is “the Word made flesh” the incarnation is the completion of God’s spoken Word. He is the alpha and omega. In fact, this “Word” that spoke everything into existence is the Son.

4. Dominion (God called) - This is God’s sovereign dominion over His creation. To name something is to have authority over it. Later we will see God allow Adam to name the animals in the Garden, showing God has given Adam authority over the animals.

5. Time marker (there was evening and morning) - We see “literal days” of this creation. Every time this word is used with a number it is always 24 hours. It is clear what is being depicted for these 7 days.

One significant marker is missing on day 7

The 7th day has no time marker, because there is no end of the 7th day. God is making all things new. In the NH and NE "there is no end to its day"

One marker that shows up a few times but not the whole time. “All” and “every”. Why did God make SO MANY things? Why didn’t He create just enough to give us what we need? Why does God make in such abundance and grandeur. Not just a solar system, not just a galaxy, but more galaxies than we can literally count. Galaxies we wouldn’t see for thousands of years from that point. Why creatures that we can’t even finish naming even to this day?

-God wants His creation to flourish. He doesn’t just want a black and white, simple universe, but one full of diversity. Full of colors and beauty. God is a God of beauty, yet He made everything to work together perfectly. Ecosystems that are made out of beauty, but in perfect order. If you just look at a pond, you have a whole ecosystem that flourished together, yet is held together by important factors. He made us to be different, to show beauty in many different ways, yet not without order. It is what makes music wonderful, dance made in all different forms, all kinds of sports and activities, different kinds of paintings. “All snowflakes are the same, and all snowflakes are different” (Watkin). God made the perfect combination of beauty and order. It reminds us of God’s Trinitarian nature, there is difference between them that makes them unique, but in perfect order.

We will also see a chiasm. Days 1 and 4 deal with light, 2 and 5 are about the sky and water that are filled with fish and birds, 3 and 6 are about the productivity of the land that will benefit humanity and animals.

Form Fullness

Day 1 Light and dark Day 4 Lights of day and night

Day 2 Sea and sky Day 5 Creatures of water and air

Day 3 Fertile earth Day 6 Creatures of the land

God makes darkness and light

God calls the light good, and God divided the good light from the darkness.

-We will see that God will make divisions between the holy and the wicked throughout the story of His people. Between the Holy of Holies and from the people. Between His people and the wicked nations.

Every morning as we see light we should be reminded of God’s first creation of light and God’s faithfulness that the sun comes up every day.

-Israel in the wilderness will follow God by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God will guide them by His creation.

This original light does not have any source, rather it comes from God’s glory. It is God’s presence in His creation.

-Revelation 22:5 “Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

-2 Corinthians 4:6 “For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.”

John 1:4–5 “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.”

-At the time this is being written God’s presence would be seen in the tabernacle, it was there that God “revealed” Himself to the priests and prophets.

God separates the waters

God separates the waters, the water under the sky and the water above, and He creates dry land. Again, we will see God confronting waters many times. The Flood, at the Red Sea. Waters coming over the dry land is always coming back to chaos.

God forms the dry land and vegetation

Rather than believe that we are able to produce our own food, or that food randomly comes up from the ground, it is an act decreed by God.

That God made the skies is important, because it means that God rules over everything in the heavens, that everything in them serves Him.

God creates the sun, moon, and stars

These remind us that God rules over time, and over all the universe.

Notice that they are created “to serve as signs for seasons, days, and years.” It is made to serve the interests of humanity, rather than the other way around of us being dictated by what happens in the stars.

It says God created the “greater” and “lesser” lights. It doesn’t describe them not as cosmic deities but as lights that serve people. Many nations has sun gods that were very important, but here the sun is controlled by God.

-Deuteronomy 17:2–5 ““If a man or woman among you in one of your towns that the Lord your God will give you is discovered doing evil in the sight of the Lord your God and violating his covenant and has gone to serve other gods by bowing in worship to the sun, moon, or all the stars in the sky—which I have forbidden—and if you are told or hear about it, then investigate it thoroughly. If the report turns out to be true that this detestable act has been done in Israel, you are to bring out to your city gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing and stone them to death.”

Psalm 19:1–2 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.”

God creates the “large sea creatures” and everything in the water.

These were things that other people groups worshipped. In fact, this word for “large sea creatures” is connected to the same word as “serpent” later. But God is the creator of all of it in this account.

-This is called the “chaos monster”. God creating this shows His sovereignty over all the forces of nature. Here it is just a sea creature with no greater significance

-Psalm 148:7 “Praise the Lord from the earth, all sea monsters and ocean depths,”

God blesses all these animals and allows them to procreate. That God enjoys His creation and wants it to continue on.

God creates animals and mankind