Creator God

I want to begin a journey through some foundational truths of what we believe. I want to make sure that I know what I believe and I hope that you do as well. It is one thing to have faith in something without all the evidence to support it, it is another thing to believe in something you know nothing about. That is a problem that we can address and I hope to do that through this series.

As we begin, the perfect place to start is with God. We need to know God as best as we are able to. We are going to take some time on this topic alone because as most of us know, God is a Triune God. Triune is a mysterious term that describes how God is one God and yet three persons. This is an impossible task and yet we want to try anyway.

The scope of this task alone is daunting because we are finite human beings trying to understand an infinite Spiritual Being. We the creation strive to understand the creator. We the sinner try to understand the savior. We the disciple try to understand the master. We the chosen try to understand the chooser. God is too big for us to truly comprehend, and yet He wants to be known. He wants us to know Him. He has revealed Himself to certain people throughout history and inspired certain people to write down certain stories and accounts and to gather than into the Bibles that we hold in our hands. I want to address the topic of the Bible at a later time, but for now we keep our eyes fixed on God. Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent… all powerful, all knowing and everywhere!

Our first step in considering God is to look at our introduction to Him in scripture. One commentary states it nicely.

The Bible’s first words announce how Israel’s God can be known.

K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 126.

Our focus today is on the Creator God. The origin of all things! We might be tempted to start thinking about what science has to say or some arguments atheists might use to try to disprove God, but the fact of the matter is that the origin of all things is a complete mystery to all of us who were not there to witness it. But the fact is that there was a witness to creation… the creator! And because God still lives, we need to consider His account that He has passed down to us. We won’t be looking at creation this morning and trying to refute arguments against it, but there are resoures to consider if you are interested. In fact, we will be having someone coming in later this year to speak on the subject of creation, and some of you might recall that we spent some time on this very topic during Sunday School a couple years ago. Our focus today is on God Himself, and we are springboarding off of the introductory chapter of the Bible as the account of His creative activity.

Genesis 1 is an effective introduction to God.

Introduction to God

Genesis 1:1–5 NIV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 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. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he 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.

Warren Wiersbe comments on this passage:

No scientist or historian can improve upon, “In the beginning God …” This simple statement refutes the atheist, who says there is no God; the agnostic, who claims we cannot know God; the polytheist who worships many gods; the pantheist, who says that “all nature is God”; the materialist, who claims that matter is eternal and not created; and the fatalist, who teaches that there is no divine plan behind creation and history. God’s personality is seen in this chapter, for He speaks, sees, names, and blesses.

Warren W. Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1993), Ge 1.

The very opening lines of the Bible does a great thing for us in that it introduces us to God’s existence. His creative activity that follows demonstrates His power and attention to detail. It hints at His care and concern for what He created, and more importantly, as the narrative progresses and reaches its apex with the creation of Adam and Eve, it demonstrates His concern that His creation needs to be cared for.

I’ve chosen to highlight only the first five verses of Genesis 1, not because that is our sole focus, but more as an abbreviated stand in for the rest of God’s creative work… all of which is important to consider and there is much to learn, but I really do want to scan through all of scripture to see reflections on God’s creative acts and what the Bible writers thought about it.

One thing I would like for us to consider in addressing these opening verses and by extension, the chapter, I want us to consider what we might learn about our Triune God from this account. It can be easy to fall into the thinking that the Old Testament is all about God… or the “Father” of the Trinity. But the truth is that all three are present in the Old Testament just as much as they are in the New. In the first three verses alone, the Trinity is there if you are looking closely.

First of all we know that we are talking about God… the Father is present just as we might have assumed from the beginning. But look at verse 2. It’s pretty explicit if you are looking for it. “The Spirit of God” was hoving over the face of the waters.” The presence of the Holy Spirit is fairly obvious throughout the Old Testament if you are watching for it. There are many places where it talks about the Spirit of the Lord or the Spirit of God. It might be that for those of us trapped in the thinking that the Old Testament is about the Father, that we never considered how the Holy Spirit might be present too. We just kind of subconsciously group them into the one aspect of hte Trinity.

But what about Jesus? Where is the Son of God in creation? We are going to dip into our second point for the message this morning, so I want to highlight verse 3. “And God said...” God spoke. This is significant because of what John 1 teaches us about Jesus.

God Speaks

John 1:1–5 NIV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

In Identifying Jesus Christ as the Word, and then as Light (the first thing created), John nicely ties together the notion that the Son of God was present and active in God’s creative activity. Not only was Jesus the spoken word that created all things, but He is intimately connected with the very first thing created through Him, Light. I am tempted to go on a bit of a rabbit trail here and point out that in the New Heaven and the New Earth described in Revelation, we are told that there is no need for a sun or moon or stars because God is our light. The curious can check out Revelation 22:5 to see for themselves.

But I won’t chase that rabbit any further. Let’s get back to our Creator God whose voice is powerful! Jeremiah 10:12-16 describes this creative activity.

Jeremiah 10:12–16 NIV

But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols. The images he makes are a fraud; they have no breath in them. They are worthless, the objects of mockery; when their judgment comes, they will perish. He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the people of his inheritance— the Lord Almighty is his name.

Jeremiah beautifully declares the power of the Word of God. His voice causes a tumult of waters in the heavens. It is God’s incredible power that accomplishes so very much!

God Sees

As the creation narrative formula goes, we have these statements about God’s activity. The first thing God does is speak, but then after He has spoken, creation has occured and God sees it. God sees what He has done. Verse 4 - “God saw that the light was good...” And in seeing that the light was good, we are told that He separates light from darkness. Upon seeing His creation, He then knows what it needs to be taken care of. Let’s check out some passages that highlight this for us.

Job 38:4–11 NIV

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?

The book of Job is an interesting study that debunks the claim that only good things happen to good people. Job is as good as they come and yet had to endure hardships from the devil himself. The debate between Job and his “friends” takes up the majority of the book, but by the end, God Himself speaks and rebukes Job for the depression he has worked himself into. And what does God point to? To creation itself! Look to creation and consider who designed it, who made it, who sustains it? God challenges Job to consider if he was there to witness creation being established. If you were to continue reading in the context, God points to various creations as proof of His power and His responsibilities. God sees all of creation and knows it intimately.

Luke 12:7 NIV

Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

In seeing His creation, God knows His creation. Part of knowing creation is knowing how to refer to it… or as the source of it all, God names it.

God Names

Going back to the creation formula, God Speaks and creation happens. God sees and takes care of creation. The next thing God does is to name His creation. Genesis 1:5 says: “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.”

An argument could be made that Adam had a hand in naming things based on what occurs in Genesis 2:19-20

Genesis 2:19–20 NASB95

Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

But as Adam only names the living creatures, it would seem more evident to me that God’s invitation to name living creatures is an appeal to the image of God in which Adam was made. Adam is able to name things because he is created in God’s image, who names all things. But back in the creation narrative of Genesis 1, we see the formula continue where after God speaks it into existence, then sees that it is good, then He names what He has made. Appealing to our example of Genesis 1:1-5, God calls the light day and the darkness He calls night. You can read for yourselves how God named other things created on other days, but it is important for us to consider how in naming things, God is demonstrating His great care and concern for that which He created.

Amos 4:13 NASB95

For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind And declares to man what are His thoughts, He who makes dawn into darkness And treads on the high places of the earth, The Lord God of hosts is His name.

Prophetically, Amos ties together the notion of God creating things, informing people what to think, and then finally demonstrating a desire to be known. “The LORD God of hosts is His name.” God wants to be known!

God Blesses

We need to look a little further down the creation account to see this next part, but its there all the same. By the time we read about God creating creatures, we see a new element added to the formula whereby God blesses what He has made and tells it to go and multiply. We see this in verse 22 for the birds and the fish and in verse 28 after He creates all the land animals, as well as Adam and Eve. They are all blessed and told to go and multiply and fill the earth or to subdue the earth.

Genesis 1:22 NASB95

God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28 NASB95

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God is rich in His blessings and abundant in His provisions.

Romans 1:20 NASB95

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

His creation is twofold. It is a blessing in and of itself, but it is also a testament to His existence and concern.

Conclusion

As we begin to bring things to a close this morning, I want us again to ponder the significance of our God as Creator of all things! He is God. His love and His concern for us are significant. The way in which He has created all things demonstrates an attention to detail beyond human comprehension. Try as we might, the best we can do is to only begin to discover what He is up to. Think about all the work that has gone into mapping the human genome… studying DNA until we know what it does and how it works. It has taken the collective work of many scientists dedicated to that one task and yet we are still baffled by its origin. How it all started cannot be explained by science, and has to be understood through faith. Science demands that things be studied through repeated experimentation and observation. Creation was a one time deal. It cannot be replicated or studied.

Hebrews 11:3 NASB95

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Hebrews 11:1 NASB95

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith. Faith in God is where it all begins. God is the source of how all things began. God is still at work in His creation bringing about His will in miraculous and wonderful ways that still defy human comprehension to this day. And still somehow He loves us and provides for us and is concerned for us.