God Creates the Universe

Start in Genesis....the first book of the Bible, the book that begins the story of the Bible… a story that presents itself as the true story of the world. So if that’s true, and of course I believe it is....then Genesis contains all kinds of important truth for the story of your life and mine. Our stories are connected to Genesis. Excited to begin this series. In my 15 years here at NWCRC, we’ve never gone through Genesis together, so it’s high time.

Not Eden to Egypt....but Eden to Eternity....Genesis marks the beginning of history....a beginning that really takes the human family into eternity.

Genesis 1:1–2:3 NIV

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

This morning I hope all of us will catch a glimpse of how this foundational story gives a wonderful meaning and purpose to our lives.

You may not have though Genesis 1 does that—gives wonderful meaning and purpose to our lives--but it does!

Our text first and foremost is about GOD.....God revealing something about Himself to us....and this God is wholly other from all the other gods that would have been in the minds of the people who first read this.

[Comment about first audience....]

God revealing something of Himself

God revealing His purpose for the world....for all creation.

God revealing His purpose for the creatures made in his image....male and female...

…this story gives wonderful meaning and purpose to our lives....

Now before we get into the text more specifically, I want to say something about worldview and how we are to read the text as we have it before us.

Worldview.... how do we think about the way we live out our lives in the world.

Simple questions of a child:

Where do I come from?

Where am I going to?

What is the meaning of life?

So how might you answer those questions if you think like this 20th century paleontologist???....someone who I think captures the way many people in our culture think...

This kind of worldview is expressed by a 20th cent. paleontologist...

George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984) drew this conclusion from his study of evolution: “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” This is in fact a story, albeit a bleak one, that puts our lives in perspective. Actually if it is the true story of the world it sounds like a heightened version of waht Macbeth described in Shelkespeare’s play, one he discovered that Lady Macbeth had committed suicide: “Life’s …a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” (John Collins, 29)

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That kind of worldview leads people to despair.

That’s not the worldview of Israel..... influenced by Egypt, by other neighboring Mesopotamian religions....gods are very active…sun, moon, thunder, fertility,......gods often battling with each other..... the world in a very real sense in the battleground of the gods.... and human beings are pawns or slaves of the gods..... very special people, like the Pharoah of Egypt.... he was the image of the god....

I have argued in another book that Genesis 1-11, which bears so many points of contact with the origin stories of these other cultures......Mesopotamian stories of origins, ancent kings, the flood, and subsequent kings, is the beginning of an alternative worldview story to the Mesopotamian ones, whose “purpose is to shape Israel’s view of God, the world, and mankind, and their place in it all. (John Collins, ?)

Now I feel I need to say something else about how we read our text....and it’s connected to worldview.

And in order for me to get to point I want to make I want to ask you this question.... it will feel like a very random, unconnected question, but trust me, I think it will illustrate my point....

“What is a star?”

A fiery ball of combustible materials. A large burning sphere of fiery substances.

a point of light in the sky used for navigation

a reminder in the sky that we belong to an almost infinitely large human family

a light in the sky that tells us something about ourselves and our future.

Most of us, I’m guessing gave a STRUCTURAL ANSWER...... what is a star made of...... but fewer of us gave a FUNCTIONAL answer.....what is the purpose of a star.

The point I’m trying to make is that we must not read Genesis 1-11 from a scientific perspective.

Genesis and Science

Genesis: A Commentary Creation and Science

First, Genesis and science discuss essentially different matters. The subject of the Genesis creation account is God, not the forces of nature. The transcendent God is a subject that science cannot discuss.

Genesis: A Commentary Creation and Science

In Genesis, the narrator only tells us that God commands the earth to bring forth life. He does not explain how that bringing forth occurs.

Third, the purposes of Genesis and science also differ. Genesis is prescriptive, answering the questions of who and why and what ought to be, whereas the purpose of science is to be descriptive, answering the questions of what and how

Understanding Function today vs. in ANE

Genesis Bridging Contexts

When we ask the question “How does the cosmos work?” we seek an answer that discusses physical laws and structures, matter, and its properties. In our worldview, function is a consequence of structure, and a discussion of creation therefore must, of course, direct itself to the making of things. In contrast, when an Israelite asked “How does the cosmos work?” he or she was on a different wavelength, because in the ancient worldview, function is a consequence of purpose.

Genesis (God and the Forces of Chaos (1:2))

If the text were going to talk about the manufacture of matter, it would begin when no matter existed. But since, as we have seen, it intends to talk about bringing the cosmos into existence by organizing and assigning roles and functions—that is, by bringing order to chaos—it will start with the cosmos in a chaotic state. That is just what it does. James Barr puts it this way: “Genesis is interested in an organized world, as against a chaotic world, and not in the metaphysical question of something against nothing.”21

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Genesis 1:1–2 NIV

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

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tohu wabohoo.....formless and void

there is no moral judgement made about the formlessness of the earth....

Formless and void

Genesis (God and the Forces of Chaos (1:2))

In Egyptian views of origins is the concept of the “nonexistent” that may be close to what is expressed here in Genesis.26 ......[ remember not Nonexistent in terms of structure..... but rather in terms of function...... It is viewed as that which has not yet been differentiated and assigned function. No boundaries or definitions have been established. The Egyptian concept, however, also carries with it the idea of potentiality and a quality of being absolute. These concepts are likewise supported in biblical usage where tohu generally refers to a desertlike wasteland or to “emptiness.”27

Genesis God and the Forces of Chaos (1:2)

There is nothing sinister or menacing about this chaos in Genesis; it is simply the indication that God has not yet done his work

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Narrative begins with a description of God’s Spirit hovering over the nothingness and emptiness....formless and void… No form and empty...... Chaos and empty.....

Day 1,2,3 God brings form and order....... Day 4,5,6 God fills the form so that there is no longer emptiness.

1. Light - Day and Night.... - Time

2. Vault - Space - Sky above and Waters below

3. Land separated the waters and had all kinds of plants...

4. Filling the Day and the Night with Big light and lesser light, sun and moon

Sun Moon

Genesis: A Commentary Creation and History

Certain “difficulties” in the order of the days seem clearly to represent a dischronologization. On the first day (1:5) God creates the evening and morning, but he does not create the luminaries to divide them until the fourth day (1:14).82 If this is a straightforward historical account, God created evening, morning, and days without luminaries and then created luminaries in order to effect them.83 Are we really to conclude that the division occurs without the dividers? It seems reasonable to assume that the narrator has offered a dischronologized presentation of the events in order to emphasize a theological point. God is not dependent on the luminaries. The

5. Filling the Sky above and Waters below with birds and fish

6. Filling the land with all kinds of living creatures each according to their kind......

And after every day....it was good.

Then came one last creature.... humankind..... all of humanity......and we encounter a very important word.....let us make humankind in our image..... in his own image..... in the image of God he created them....

King’s, like Pharoah in Egypt, or ancient Mesapotamian or Babylonian kings..... Only the King was image of God..... Only the King could go into the inner sanctum of the Temple of the gods.... because only the King was God’s image..... and that meant only the King had the authority to rule....

In this creation story humankind is made in God’s own image....and that means humankind has been created to co-rule with God over all creation.... God puts his own image in the Temple....

Now I haven’t said anything yet about this account being about God forming a Temple for himself.....I’ll say more about that next week. But allow me at least to say this....

In his book the Lost World of Genesis 1, John Walton says that any person in the Ancient Near East, that is the time and culture that Genesis 1 was first written for, any person in the ANE would not conclude that this chapter was intending to tell us that the world was created in a literal 6 24-hour days. No one would have thought that, and neither should we. That simple fact should end decades of debate on whether the Bible can be trusted.... you know the line..... science tells us billions of years, the Bible tells us 6 24 hours days....the Bible is wrong so it can’t be trusted. No. No person in the ancient world first reading this passage would have assumed the point of Gen. 1 was to tell us how God created the world.

So you ask, what would the ancients have believed about Gen. 1?

They would have believed that the God being described was creating a Temple that he himself intended to dwell in...

Temple?..... But the text describes a Garden? (Talk about Egypt experience (colums, lotus, papyrus, paintings, fruitfulness, lush gardens..... describe Tabernacle decor and Solomon’s Temple decor.)

A Temple was a place of order and beauty and fruitfulness.

Balance bw Days 1-3 and 4-6

Genesis Original Meaning

The literary balance between days 1–3 and days 4–6 results in highlighting day 7 as the climactic moment, when God takes up his residence and history begins under his exclusive sovereignty

Purpose of Gen 1

The narrator’s concern is not scientific or historical but theological and indirectly polemical against pagan mythologies. The narrator wishes clearly to establish that it is God who has created all and has dominion over all, including the seas, sun, and moon (Bruce Waltke)

Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 76.

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How does this text bring a wonderful meaning and purpose to our lives...... talk about how are lives in some very real sense are about confronting chaos and bringing order.....

....Doctor

....pipeline engineer

....therapist

....bankers and economists

God blesses us so that we can confront the chaos

Genesis: A Commentary (Blessing)

Because of God’s blessing, the natural world is teeming with life. Blessing is God’s gift of potency and power. Thus Armstrong says, “People experience this divine blessing as an enabling power that [helps them] to transcend [their] fears and discover a new source of strength in the depths of [their] being.”59 Blessing enables God’s creatures to fulfill their natures and to live in their element.

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Overall summary

Genesis Original Meaning

The cosmos functions just as it was designed to function—it was good. People are portrayed as the pinnacle of creation, endowed with dignity as those made in the image of the Creator. They are made in order to serve God, not as slaves but as partners, whom he delegates to do his work in the world. They enjoy his favor (blessing), and he provides what they need (food).

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In the beginning was the Word.....

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