In the Beginning

Do you like mystery novels? crime shows? You can explore mysteries in books, plays, and movies. Some people like to wonder, track clues, and determine: whodunnit.

For some, the origin of the world is a mystery. Marvel at

this beautiful globe circling the powerful sun,

mountains, lakes, and fertile land

forests, wildflowers, or frog resting in a pond

The world is AMAZING! Where does it all come from? Whodunnit?

Wisdom keepers and priests of ancient cultures told stories of their gods creating the world. Most gods in ancient Sumer, Egypt, and Greece are more like comic-book superheroes than like the all-powerful Creator revealed in the Bible.

The idea of these wimpy gods and demigods emerged from the primordial water of earth and accidently produced the rest of creation by fighting or sexual activity is hard to imagine.

One way to study the origin of the world is by studying the world. The Belgic Confession was written in the 16thcentury during the Reformation, a time of scientific discovery. Reformers agreed that creation shows the truth about God.

We know God … by the creation, preservation and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God.

It’s a good reason to study biology, chemistry, and physics.

Modern scientists have theories on the origin of the universe. Physicists study the universe with telescopes. They developed Big Bang theory: universe began when a very dense ball of stuff exploded releasing enormous amounts of energy 13.77 y ago. I read an article on the Big Bang, but I can’t get more technical.

Yet there’s a problem with the Big Bang. Even if the theory is true – and I can’t prove or disprove it – the Big Bang theory doesn’t answer the mystery of where matter, antimatter, and energy came from; doesn’t describe what sparked the Big Bang. I cut and pasted from Wikipedia:

The Big Bang model does not describe how energy, time, and space were caused, but rather it describes the emergence of the present universe from an … initial state.

Big Q remains: where did energy, time and space come from? Whodunnit?

There’s a similar problem with the widely accepted theory of origins of life on earth. Evolutionary history of life teaches:

single-celled organism mysteriously appeared 3.7 B y ago

multicellular life 2 billion years ago

which grew into clams 700 million years ago

producing dinosaurs, 200 million years ago

primates, 100 million years ago

humans, 300 thousand years ago

Evolutionary history of life was developed by studying fossils. This theory on the origin of life is based on genetic mutation. It takes a lot of faith to believe it life on earth began by chance.

Don’t misunderstand. I acknowledge genetic mutation. Animals change over generations of breeding. I’ve seen it. Robin & I have bred GSDs for over 30 years.

With breeding we can select for different coats and colours, bigger or smaller dogs, and desirable temperaments. We screen breeding stock for genetic diseases. But when you mate dogs to dogs, you never get cows. You get dogs.

Same thing with plants. At John & Charlene’s firepit a few weeks ago I listened to a discussion about cash crops. Corn yields are bigger today than 30-40 years ago. Yet even with the differences in yields and other characteristics, corn is still corn. Sweet corn and feed corn are different, but both are corn.

Is it just random mutations that created the variety of grasses: corn, wheat, rice, oats, millet, and timothy?

Is there a better explanation? Who created all this?

When the Lord God introduced himself to Abraham & Sarah and Moses and the Israelites, in the opening lines of Genesis, he introduced himself as the Creator. The very first line of the Bible answers the mystery of creation. Whodunnit?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

Who? God. When? In the beginning.

We don’t get a good sense of time here. The prof. in my OT intro. class at university told us that nobody knows how much time there was between Gen. 1: 1 and 2. There could be billions of years between God creating the heavens and the earth and when God focused on the earth, describing it as formless and empty. We don’t know. Only God was there.

Perhaps there’s a reason it isn’t explained.

God doesn’t usually overwhelm people with more information than they can handle. How could Abraham & Sarah or Moses and the Israelites comprehend billions of years in which the universe expanded or how the earth began to orbit around one star in a galaxy, now called the Milky Way?

Out of kindness, God opens the story of earth at a place most people can understand:

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. Genesis 1:2 (NIV)

Formless and empty …

The description has a haunting quality. It’s a big blank canvas to be filled with colour and imagination! From this beginning, God’s word explains how the LordGod gave form to the earth, filled the emptiness, and shone light in the darkness.

The beautiful, poetic way that Moses tells the story of creation tells us about the Creator. The Creator is a God of order. You get a sense of order in God’s creation.

Some Bible scholars highlight the structure of Genesis 1:

Problem, Preparation (Day 1-3), Population (Day 4-6)

Darkness, Separate light from darkness, Create sun, moon, and stars

Water, Sky, separate clouds from water, Create birds, fish, and sea creatures

Formless Earth, Separate ground from water; create plants, Create living creatures on land and humankind

In a world where thunderstorms, earthquakes, and waves are more powerful than you or me, it’s comforting to know God controls the world. God’s creation responds to his voice better than a pet; better than Alexa.

God speaks and the world jumps to obey.

How long the Spirit of God hovered over the waters: planning, designing, and delighting in the prospects of his creation, we don’t know. From where we sit, we just marvel at creation and are filled with awe at the power and creative genius of our Creator and Lord. Along with the Psalmist, you’re invited to respond with worship, to confess in the words of Ps. 24

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Psalm 24:1–2 (NIV)

Looking at God’s creation gives you a sense of the honour, glory, and obedience we owe to God. He created us. As humans, we bear his image. We have a responsibility to care for God’s creation: the land, plants, animals, and other people.

You know the pleasure you have in looking over a garden or field you planted and seeing the plants grow?

That sense of pleasure in creation is one way we bear God’s image. God loves his world. He’s pleased with his creation. On Day 6, after all his work on his creation, God stepped back and said, “It’s good; very good.”

You know how quickly kids get angry if someone stomps on their sandcastle or dismantles their Lego creation?

If we fail to care for God’s creation, we’re being disobedient and rebellious. If we fail to love and care for other people, we aren’t living up to the responsibility as God’s stewards and image-bearers. You can understand God’s anger if we neglect or misuse his creation. God has reason to respond in anger when we harm to his creatures – esp. other people.

We face God’s anger if we don’t live up to our calling to love God and neighbour. We face his anger if we don’t live up to the cultural mandate to rule his creation and care for it. Yet that’s what began in Genesis 3. Our first parents went rogue, disobeying God and rebelling against his instructions. To cover their shame, they stripped leaves off a fig tree and cobbled together coverings for themselves.

All of us follow Adam & Eve into rebellion and fall under their doom. Disobedience and rebellion are punishable by death.

But did I mention that God loves his creation? In one of the most famous NT verses, we hear about God’s love and his rescue plan:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16–17 (NIV)

When Jesus died on the cross, he took the punishment for human sin on himself. He is God, so Jesus could bear the punishment. He is human, so he could take the punishment humans deserve.

Three days later, he rose from the grave. He defeated sin and death and guarantees new life for all who believe in him.

Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the new creation, the renewal of God’s good creation. That’s why, when John tells the gospel story, he begins with the same words you find in Gen. 1:

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. John 1:1–5 (NIV)

Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness …

The same God who separated the light from the darkness at the dawn of time has pierced the gloom and darkness of a world tainted by sin and set off-kilter by human disobedience.

As people whom Jesus has rescued from sin and death, we’re set free to fulfill our original role in creation. We are caretakers and stewards of God’s creation. We have a role to play, working the ground so it produces food. We have a role to play caring for animals and caring for the environment. We have a role to play: creating, procreating, and caring for infants, children, and all who can’t care for themselves.

We care for creation because our world belongs to God.

And as we study creation and learn about how it works, whether we learn about gardening or animal husbandry, whether we study small creatures through microscopes or by doing chemical analysis or whether we study the moon and stars through telescopes and rocketry, our study of God’s creation should result in worship, marvelling at God’s handiwork, moved to compassion and care for all creatures great and small, and pausing to say, “wow, God, your creation is amazing and you are wonderful and worthy of a praise, worship, and obedience.”