In the Beginning God Already Was

Psalm 14:1 says,

Psalm 14:1 KJV 1900

1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, There is none that doeth good.

The word “fool” has three meanings, and I am pulling them from the Hebrew,

Stupid person

Wicked person

Insane person

Meaning? You must be an insanely, wicked, stupid person to not believe in God! No one who ever visited the Louvre in Paris, has ever stopped in front of the Mona Lisa and said, “Would you look at this marvelous portrait. You know, I bet this is the result of an explosion in a paint store that after millions of years formed this painting.”

Meaning? You must be an insanely, wicked, stupid person to not believe in God! No one who ever visited the Louvre in Paris, has ever stopped in front of the Mona Lisa and said, “Would you look at this marvelous portrait. You know, I bet this is the result of an explosion in a paint store that after millions of years formed this painting.”

Yet every day millions of people look at the vastly complex world we live in with its billions of species of plants and animals, its billions of gallons of water and the countless creatures living in them, the intricate ecosystems, and proclaim, ‘Yep. There’s no God. This just happened by accident.”

I love how the Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning God...” No backstory, not history, no explanation of where God came from, the Bible simply begins with the assumption that the only reasonable conclusion a thinking person can reach is that we are here because someone created us. My friends, that Creator is affectionately called, simply, “God.”

Genesis is the book of origins, in fact it is the only book that has ever claimed to explain our origins. From where did we come? From God. In the first verse of the Bible we see three outstanding truths about our Creator God. We see, first...

The Preexistence of God

Go to any college campus in any state and ask any student if they believe in God and most will respond with, “No.” One of the most popular responses among young people revolves around the question, “Where did God come from?” The reason for this is that one of the first college classes a student will take is “Philosophy”. Philosophy seeks to answer life’s big questions: Where did I come from, what is my purpose, and where am I going - but it teaches this from a secular worldview, leaving God out of the equation.

The thought is that God did not make man, but rather, man made God. The Bible answers this question right from the beginning…God did not have a beginning…Genesis 1:1 Explains He is...

Eternal

The Bible offers no:

Back story or origin story for God

Explanation of God - what He was doing before creation, etc.

No justification for God’s existence whatsoever.

The Bible only offers this information: “In the beginning, God…”

The word translated as “beginning” in the Hebrew means “the first”

It can refer to rank

It can also refer to time, the context determines the meaning

A similar word is used in John 1:1 “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The Greek word for “beginning” is “arche”

Literally the word means “From the commencement”

Evolutionists claim:

That matter is eternal, but they cannot answer where the matter came from.

The Bible claims that God is eternal, and that He is responsible for the creation of matter!

The Bible says, “In the beginning God...” Meaning, “In the beginning, God already was!” My friend, there is no “before God” because God always was, and because He is eternal, He always will be! Not only does this verse teach us that God is eternal, but it teaches He is...

Transcendent - beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.

We hear the word “Beginning” and immediately think of “time”…there is a good reason for that, but we will wait until next time before exploring that!

But, when the Bible mentions the creative act of God in Creation, when it refers to God being “in the beginning” it is not referring to God coming into being!

See, God was able to create everything, because He exists beyond anything!

God did not need the universe to be complete.

God did not need the earth to be fulfilled.

God did not need mankind for fellowship…He is beyond such things!

God exists outside the realm of the physical in the spiritual…why then did He create our physical world?

For you.

So that you would have a place to exist, to live.

So that you could see His great love for you, and so that you could choose Him...

God is eternal, my friend there is a very real part of you that is eternal too! Your body will wear out and wear down, but your soul will live forever, somewhere. God created this place for you so that you could know Him better. We’ll explore this same subject later, but for today let’s continue looking at these outstanding truths in Genesis 1:1, notice next what it teaches regarding...

The Person of God

The word God in 1:1 is “Elohim” and it is the word used for God throughout all of the first chapter. Its meaning is somewhat difficult to understand. David Sorenson explains that it means “The Mighty One” and Henry Morris declares that this name stresses His “Majesty and omnipotence.” The Word demonstrates:

The Triune God

Uni-plural in nature

The Hebrew word for God is “El”

The suffix “im” is plural

Yet the context is clearly speaking of only ONE person, God.

The only possible explanation is a veiled reference to the Trinity

Some dare say “There is no Trinity” - Yet the Bible teaches it very clearly!

In Genesis 1 we see...

The Father - the first person of the Trinity present already at the time of Creation.

The Son - Genesis 1:3 “3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

“God said”....when you speak, what do you use? Words?

John 1:1 “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is a clear reference to Jesus who was present in the beginning, alongside God, and is God…He is called the “Word of God”

The Spirit - Genesis 1:2 “2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

The word translated as “spirit” can mean “wind,” but the context refers to the spirit having an actual purpose and power in the creative act

The word moved means to shake or flutter and is akin to our word “vibrate”, in other words the Spirit is seen energizing the earth.

Three persons, one God!

The word speaks not only of the Triune God, but...

The Supremacy of God

There are times when the word “elohim” is used to describe other gods and even creatures of heavenly descent - what we typically call angels and demons

The context ALWAYS determines if the Bible is referring to God or a lesser god

BTW - rescuing our biblical worldview, means that we MUST also rescue our biblical understanding of the supernatural as well.

We are going to see very soon that there are two forces at work in our world, the force of God and the forces of evil.

What we learn in Genesis is that God, the Mighty One, is greater than any force in the universe!

This is demonstrated in the final outstanding truth in Genesis 1:1...

The Power of God

“In the beginning God CREATED...”

The word “Created” is the Hebrew word “Bahraw” and it means literally, from NOTHING God was able to make everything! The matter that evolutionists claim is eternal, was created by our eternal God!

Go back though to my last point about the supernatural. I mentioned that there are forces of evil that are opposed to God....nowhere is this more evident in the multiplicity of attempts to discredit the Creation account of Genesis. If the enemy can get cause you to doubt the validity of Genesis, he can convince you to doubt the validity of the rest of the Bible. If he can convince you that there is no supernatural, transcendent God, then he can convince you that evil doesn’t exist either.

Friends, the only logical conclusion a reasonable thinking person can reach by looking at the world around them is that we are here, and there must be a reason. The reason we are here is because there is an eternal, transcendent, powerful God that spoke the world and everything in it into existence.

Conclusion: Where do you fit in into all of this? God is eternal, and God has an eternal plan for you. God’s plan for you included the creation of the universe, if for no other reason than to cause you to say “Wow!” The same God who created the universe has a plan just for you. “What is that plan”, you ask? It is for you to be saved.

You say, “What do I need to be saved from?” Your sin. “How can I be saved from my sin?” By understanding that you cannot save yourself, that someone else had to pay your debt, that someone was Jesus. The One who spoke the world into being became a man, lived a perfect life, died a horrible death, and rose from the dead to prove His power to save you. Right now if you will turn to Him from your sin, He will save you.