[Music] welcome folks to another episode of The Bible show my name is Sam and joining me today is Will and we are continuing our Series in the early chapters of Genesis today we're going to be jumping into Genesis chapter 1 uh with the account of creation and there's just everything about this is so foundational there is so much here when God launches the story of redemption we should expect that he does so with great purpose and that there is a lot to mine here and as we'll see there really is yeah we're not reading this
a science textbook we're saying okay God's telling us about himself God telling us about us we're not just looking for okay does everything match up we proved that the last episode that it all matches up yeah now we're getting the text so one of the fascinating things about this is you know creation is one of those things that probably people argue about debate about talk about more than any other thing and of the whole Bible even just in this first book of Genesis like if ask most people what's the Book of Genesis about they probably
say creation but it's just two chapters in a 50 chapter book and even those two chapters are more talking about the character of God and who he is and he's dropping hints about how he moves and how he operates even more so than giving us the granular details of how it is that he did all these things and most of Genesis is the story of his covenants with his people and one chosen family Abraham and Isaac and Ja Jacob and his 12 sons the nation of Israel so you get out of the gates you get
a sense that God's heart is not so much to give us insight into the how but far more to help us to understand the why what is it that he is seeking to accomplish by bringing about the creation of the world and so with that we're going to jump right into the text let's let's go verse one in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth and in our last episode we talked about how the universe is made up of time space and matter and right there in that first verse God checks all of
those boxes there's a beginning which is time the heavens is the space the Earth is the matter and then he says something that I think should hit us as being fairly surprising it says verse two the Earth was without form and void empty lifeless and darkness was over the face of the deep now why should that hit us as surprising I mean he created something that wasn't created almost it feels weird like he starts with a project that's not fulfilled yeah it's and it's not great yeah you know like everybody thinks at the moment of
creation everything just emerges with absolute Beauty and it's wonderful and it's identic and everything is exactly the way it should be and yet verse two of the story it's not where you want to end no yeah like this why would he start it this way God could just speak and say exist everything perfectly like bring everything about the exact way that I want it perfect and I'm just going to enjoy it and yet he brings it about with all of these negative words without form void Darkness over the face of the deep which is like
the chaotic Waters there myy it says the spirit was hovering over the face of the waters and so when God brings about a creation he starts it with kind of a messy yuck beginning like this is not where he wants to end why would he do that he's showing us something yeah he's showing us something he's let it which is fascinating that he's letting us walk the process with him MH like he could have just done it like that but then we don't learn a lot if someone just gives you a final product you don't
know how it happened correct but when you get back in the kitchen you see how the steps are made you're like oh that's different yeah because God in his sovereignty knows that we can relate personally like God foresees the end he knows the fall is coming he knows redemption's coming he knows glory is coming in heaven and everything else and yet from the beginning he's writing out the story as the author of Salvation the author of Redemptive history that says let me show you what I can do I start with things that are empty I
start with things that don't have purpose I start with this messy dark chaotic mess and watch what I can do with a dark empty chaotic mess why is that good news for us to learn right out of the gates cuz I feel more dark and chaotic than I would like to right like when you feel empty when you feel like you're void of purpose when you feel like there's darkness and chaos and everything else isn't it great to know that you serve a god this is not foreign to he controls that he controls it he
comes to bring purpose and Order and Beauty to the mess and what's going on here I mean it's like the the word there that with the spirit is hovering over the face of the waters it's like ready to pounce like he is the spirit of God which carries out all of God's actions and beauty and and mediating his purposes into the World by his power here's the spirit who's looking at the mess he's looking at the chaos he's looking at the darkness and the spirit is ready to bring about beauty and so verse three the
famous part of Genesis 1 and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the Darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day so we know there's going to be six days of creation this is day one and what are some of the things that already God is showing us about who he is and how he works there's a lot going on already there's a lot
I mean he speaks and things happen MH so I mean let's let's take that like for the rest of the story when God speaks it doesn't say and God said let there be light and then a team of Agents came forward and they went to work creating light no God speaks and it happens like he is authoritative over creation he can speak and it comes to be so God's word is powerful at bringing about New Beginnings God's word is powerful at letting light triumph over Darkness God's word is powerful at accomplishing whatever it is that
God's will desires so why that is really interesting in light of the entirety of scripture is when you jump into the gospels you know how the Gospel of John starts yeah and very similar to this it's intentionally very similar to this and it's in the beginning what was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and verse 14 you find out the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us wait a minute the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us what does that mean that means that this word the word of
God that brings about light into the dark chaotic meaningless word world is who it's Jesus it's not a what it's a who the word of God is Jesus and when John comes what do we find here you find the light of the world H who's also Jesus comes into the world as the word and what's his mission he too is coming to a spiritually dark a a meaningless a purposeless a void an empty a chaotic world and what is that word coming to do he's coming into a dark spiritual world as God's will declaring let
there be light to here he is and so this pattern that God is setting forth from the beginning the word bringing about a new beginning a Salvation from the darkness a bringing of the light I mean that's Jesus personifies this it's incredibly beautiful and it's foretelling what he's going to do and then what happens separation separation John also says that when the light Shone into the darkness the darkness could not comprehend it it couldn't overcome it so again John is saying yeah you you remember Genesis 1 yeah that's what Jesus is doing and the Darkness
can't conquer him that he is going to Prevail over the darkness all of this is anticipating the gospel so God separates the darkness from the light and then something really weird happens in in verse 5 here at the end of verse 5 it says and there was evening and there was morning the first day now if I asked you tell me about your day yesterday Chronicle your day go I would start with waking up yep and I brushed my teeth and then I moved on had breakfast you know got everything ready to go and then
but I started the morning yeah you always start at the morning like if you ask me hey how what' you do yesterday it's wake up blah blah blah blah blah went about my day came home watched a little TV played with the kids went to bed and that's the way I Chronicle my day what is God doing here there was evening first and then there was morning the first day why would God do that what is he what is he teaching us he's teaching the same thing that this is chronicling that we begin in the
darkness yes and we rise in the light you lay down a picture of death you you lay down you close your eyes you become immobile you take on the traits of death when you sleep and then what does God do he raises you up he brings about the light to triumph over the darkness and so in God's economy the night the darkness the lying down comes before the morning the sunrise the rising up what does that tell you about our God he is a god of Resurrection resurrection and New Beginnings why would he why would
he start the story like this it's because he's a God who has one Mission and one purpose he's writing one story and out of the gates it's like just screaming the gospel I'm a God that brings light to the darkness I'm the god that brings order to the chaos I'm the God who fills the void I'm the god that does all of these things and you can take comfort that if you're walking through the dark night that morning's coming that's his character and so when God lays this out I think he is far more concerned
that we see his character than we go okay so hold on a minute this work out yeah and and trying to figure out what it is and how it is no okay so that's day one creation of light in the Bible just so we establish this what does Darkness symbolize death evil all bad yeah it's always darkness is not a good thing in the Bible it's almost always evil it's almost always death it's almost always the terrible thing that's day one he hand handles that day two and three are really interesting we're going to read
through them and then we'll kind of explain what's going on here verse 6 it says and God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters and God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse what in the world is going on here like why let's just simplify this sky and sea okay the the water vapor the clouds everything in the the the heavens the water above and the water below like that's
the sky and the sea that he's talking about and it was so and God called the expanse the heavens and there was evening and there was morning the second day okay so now we're coming to day three and evening and morning was a mistake the first day we'll see that repeated it's obviously very purposeful it's not just like oh scribal error no it's like no this is this is what we're trying to see yep he's still the god of Resurrection every day so then we get to day three ver9 and it says says let the
waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear and it was so and God called the dry land Earth and the waters that were gathered together he called seas and God saw that it was good and then God said so we're still on day three let the Earth Sprout vegetation plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit and witches their seed each according to its kind on the earth and it was so the Earth brought forth vegetation plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit
in which is their seed each according to its kind and God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning there it is again the third day all right so now this is something that is this is a Sam original all right but I think it's it's spoton we've talked about this in other episodes that whenever you come across deep Waters what do they almost always represent Judgment of some kind Judgment of so you walk through it and it's at the beginning of creation the spirit is hovering over the waters that
are suffocating the Earth no no life can emerge so God has to go to work overcoming the waters so that land can emerge and the plants grow you you fast forward to Noah what do the waters bring judgment death and judgment to the world and Noah survives through that you get to the Red Sea what do the waters do judgement Jud upon pharaoh and his army and God's people go through Jonah is thrown down into the sea and he says oh it's this is the grave to me I need to be delivered from it all
these things Isaiah talks about how when the Seas come against you they shall not overtake you David is in the Psalms is constantly saying you know I'm sinking in the deep sea reach down your hand and save me when Jesus walks on top of the water what do you see there he Treads at top death and judgment so it's simp and the Ancients understood that that the waters were a picture of judgment in fact in hamur robi's code and other things it was literally a judgment where if you did something wrong you were thrown into
Raging Waters and that was your judgment it was seen as the grave right even now the ocean's terrifying yeah totally like if you like will is there one place you do not want to be alone it's in the middle of the ocean at night yeah like terrifying Ryan our worship Pastor goes diving at night or used to and Pitch Black and I'm like not a chance that's terrifying yeah shining the light around like I just wouldn't want to know what's there you get me out of here of my eyes closed but but still to this
day like what do we say I'm in deep trouble what does that mean I'm in over my head what does that mean like so we all understand like there comes a point where if you can't breathe and you're underwater it's the grave you're done you're dead like life is not conducive to deep Waters unless you have a SCUBA tank which you know they didn't have so let's take those emblems so you've got in the first three days what does God do he overcomes the darkness by creating light then days two and three what does he
do you got to think about this the first second day right he separates the waters to where it's sky and sea okay then he separates horizontally to where there's seas and land emerges okay now if waters are the emblem of death and judgment hear this in three days God triumphs over Darkness brings light and days 2 and three he's wrestling against the emblem of death and judgment and on the third day which by the way the end of the third day is morning remember because it's evening then morning at the end of the third day
what happens life emerges from the ground yes so here you have a god who's giving us a creation story that says I'm overcoming the emblems of evil Darkness sin death judgment and on the third day life emerges from the ground does that sound familiar yeah what do you do with that you think that's intentional uh yeah it makes sense I mean I think it's totally intentional I think God from the beginning is preaching a gospel where he's saying hey those things I I can conquer them what you fear evil Darkness death judgment God triumphs over
them and brings about life and by the way on that third day he creates the sanctuary in which we live like that's the idea like he's gone to work in three days overcoming these things so that man can dwell on the land with provision he's created a sanctuary for us what did Jesus do in three days he defeats sin he defeats death and judgment to give us a sanctuary so that we can be citizens of a kingdom and made safe so that's day three and there's a lot faster way to do this like we start
out with right like all of Genesis one could to be like God created everything you see good luck with that like he's preaching a message here 100% it would make no sense for God to be able to speak all things into motion he could have just made it perfect from the start he chose not to why he is preaching about who he is he is a god of the Gospel he is a god of Resurrection he's a God that brings good to triumph over evil always and that's a comfort so then we get into day
four it's says and God said let there be lights in the expanse of the Heavens to separate the day from the night so this is sun moon and stars right let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the Heavens to give light upon the Earth so if the sun moon and stars didn't exist when light burst forth where's that light coming from on day one it's God God himself it's the glory of God the sun is is the Afterparty like it comes
later and then becomes the routine forms of light and reflection for the moon so so now you have the lights and the Ancients like in the ancient church this is when they believed that the the an angels and demons were created because they're considered luminaries that give off light and so this is where they this little side note um but that's what they believed she says and it was so and God made the two great lights the greater light to Rule the Day the sun and the Lesser light to rule the night and the star
and God set them in the expanse of the Heavens to give light on the earth to rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning the fourth day so what I want you to notice is there's a pattern it's a three-day pattern on day one what's what's created light what's created on day four the light things the things that give light right so sun moon stars they're all affiliated with light so now we jump
into day five and that same pattern is going to continue so watch this what's created on day two do you remember the expanse of the waters the sky and the Seas so spoiler alert what lives in the skies and the Seas birds and fish so what do you think day five is going to be hopefully birds and fish to make this work if not we're out of yeah yeah so verse 20 and God said let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly above the Earth across the expanse of the
heavens so fish and yeah fish and birds so God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds every Winged Bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good and God blessed them saying be fruitful and fill the waters and the Seas let the birds multiply on the earth and there was evening and there was morning the fifth day so what's day three creation of land land what lives on land animals animals and man so Tada here we come day six and
God said let the Earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds livestock and creeping things and beasts of the Earth according to their kinds and it was so and God made the beasts of the Earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind notice the repetition of that phrase again and again and again that'll be important in a minute and God saw that it was good so now we have all the other aspects of creation that are ready to go everything's
in existence what's Yet to Come Humanity Humanity so in this pattern I want you to notice how many times there's two things that are repeated 10 times in Genesis 1 God said that happens 10 times in Genesis 1 which is no accident like this is this is creation it's the 10 words that come forth that are powerful but this expression according to their kinds according to its kind 10 times and so back then when you hear it it's orally most people would hear the scriptures they weren't reading because it was super expensive and it wasn't
common so they're hearing oral tradition and so if you read this out loud it's like according to a kind according to the kind according to the kind it beats into your brain and so now when man is going to be created what are you expecting God to say according to its kind yeah he created man according to its kind and he mixes it up and it's really beautiful as to why he does this ready verse 26 then God said let us make man in our image which is like he's saying what let us make man
according to my kind Our Kind my kind yeah well what does that mean if if you make the animals and the livestock and the creeping things and the birds and all that stuff according to their kinds what's that what's that mean for them that means that they stay inside their kind and they made up and they reproduce they find their mates according to their kinds and so when it comes to humanity what is God saying here I'm setting them apart to be in relationship with me because he's going to make Adam and Eve and they're
going to be the first marriage but the rest of the Bible will tell you that that marriage was only intended as a mystery to point to the union between the people of God and Christ that's the greater marriage and in this it's like God is screaming relationship and Redemption all through this chapter and when you get to this point after all that repetition and God says I'm GNA make man according to my kind after my image after our likeness and you know just like we created all things I gave man the starter kit and I
want him to come in and I want him to join in my work and so I've given them the Earth I've made it all but I want to let them have dominion over the sea I want them to experience in some sense some kind of a lordship over the earth I want them to have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds in the heavens and over the livestock and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth that's important because something is going to come creeping yeah
that they should have had dominion over that they failed to have dominion over in chapter 3 and so it says God created man in his own image in the image of God he cre created him male and female he created them so man and woman all made in the image of God which comes with so much what is in the image of God why is that so significant what qualities do you have that are because you're made in the image of God I mean all the good ones like if I'm split myself in half like
there's one side that comes from God there's one side that does not yeah but I mean you think about this we're created cretive beings who's God he's a Creator he makes things beautiful there's something in us that has a creative drive that we want to make things we want to build things we want to produce things we you know we want to bring forth life we live in relationship the Trinity before he creates anything this is something that's wild every other God you know they're either gods that are at war in the polytheistic things or
or you go to like Islam where it's Allah who is one God monoe istic and there's no inner relationship with Allah until he creates subjects to govern over before God ever made man before he brought forth the universe you have the Trinity that's doing what it is one God in this Trinity that's in constant relationship before man ever came about yeah so God is a relational God the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all in this perfect union of relationship and so when he makes us guess what we are we're relational creatures we're
creative creatures we we have a desire for Glory that's naturally in us we we're we're moral creatures we have consciences where there's a there's a moral law that we recognize in our hearts like so in all of these ways that we're made into the image of God with these Everlasting Souls that have incredible weight and gravity and dignity God says you're going to be in my Camp different than all the creatures you're going to be like me in some finite never infinite like me but always growing more into the image of me so we're pretty
radically different than the rest of creation that's a good point that God didn't create us out of need like if a relation with God he needs relationships so you could say Okay God's really is relational and he had to create us but the Trinity comes and says no he had everything MH already that's right he creates out of a desire to be with us that's right it's wild I've heard it I've heard it expressed as like God is this infinite well spring of love and selflessness and humility and and just everything wonderful and it's the
Overflow of his goodness where he's like I want to share this yeah I'm going to create a Humanity that I'm going to pour myself into that I'm going to give everything that I am to come in and enjoy the same sort of intimacy that we enjoy as the Trinity and I'm going to I'm going to give them my glory I'm going to I'm going to shower them with blessings I'm going to clothe them ultimately with my righteousness and I've got an eternal story where we'll dwell together just as the Trinity had been for eternity past
now God's chosen people are welcomed into that story for eternity future and it's all from the abundance of God's goodness now when you look at other faiths like Allah by nature is not relational he's existed before he created humanity and and Islamic ideology he's not relational so when he creates it's it's it's a master servant relationship there's nothing that goes beyond that because he's always been entirely self- sustained and without relationship there's no Trinity there so it's fascinating to think of the Trinity always having been relational that God has always been relational and so God
blessed them and he said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it I am making you to be part of this mission to make everything according to the pattern that I'm laying out that you're in the garden take the garden to the end of the Earth have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and every living thing that moves on the earth and God said behold I've given you every plant yielding seed that's on the face of all the Earth every tree with seed
and its fruit you shall have them for food just abundance like just entirely generous and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth everything that has the Breath of Life I have given every green plant for food and it was so like God is like here take this and this and this and it's all yours and it's all going to cooperate with you and I've made everything for you so that you can join in this Mission with me and God saw everything that
he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day and so that's where chapter one comes to an end and how would you how would you describe this if you were summing summing up chapter one and what God wants you to know about him I think it's hopeful because we come we see God that okay if my life's chaotic and messy right now that's okay because there's a God who can overcome that and make the chaos into order like we see him right from the beginning
and then we come to a god that his word creates it's powerful so I can pray to a god not in vanity saying oh I'm coming to a God but I can come to a God who actually can do something mhm that when I bring it he has power over creation I come to a God who blatantly is saying I'm a God of Resurrection so look at your life there was evening there was morning right right now there's something dead in your life I don't know what it is a relationship whatever a a sickness some
something that's going on where you're like okay I can't overcome this no matter how I try to manipulate this Earth it's just not working well thank heavens there's a God who says right from the very beginning I have power over that I have power over death I have power over your sin and I just love how it's all good that's it's really remarkable and so in a fallen world on this side because two chapters later we're going to rebel and it's hard this conversation you everything gets turned on its head and yet we still have
access to that which shows us that we have a God who brings light to the darkness order to the chaos meaning to the void and if God can redeem all of that by the power of His word where should we go directly there yeah we've got the word of God that he gives to us in the Bible it holds the power to make all things new it holds the power to redeem all Darkness it holds that power and God gives us his word as a gift saying if you want New Beginnings if you want a
new creation start with the word imprint the word made flesh that came into this world that died on a cross the light of the world was subjected to Darkness so that Dark Souls can find light like he did all of that for us and I love this as well that when you go to those very first verses of scripture consider the way that it's laid out everything starts in darkness everything starts with the void everything starts like it's just it just feels yuck yeah and what happens the spirit moves then the word of God is
spoken and light emerges in darkness now if I walked you through the story of my salvation when I decided to give my life to Christ I can say with absolute certainty that that very same pattern that brought about the universe is what God did with me dark empty hopeless void sad a mess and what happened it wasn't me that saved myself the spirit moved the spirit moved the word the gospel was spoken to me and my heart was transformed from Darkness to light that is the story of salvation for every person who's ever come to
Christ it is this story that God lays out in the very first verses of Genesis that he does with the whole creation and the rest of the story is saying and God can do it for you she the spirit can move in you the word being spoken and received like can emerge Into Darkness and you can then become an ambassador to bring his Beauty which is where the rest of this chapter goes now you become an ambassador to take dominion and to bring all things into alignment with his will and his purpose to make the
world a more beautiful place he's calling us to be in some sense co-creators with him to redeem a world that's lost to all those yucky things that we find at the beginning of this book because let's be honest the spiritual condition of humanity right now is all those things y empty void dark yuck but what happens when the spirit moves in the word is spoken light comes and so what's our job we can't be the spirit but we can preach the word yeah we can point to it we can preach the word and for people
that will embrace it light comes purpose comes Mission comes an Eternal meaning comes and all the third day resurrection of the one who came to overcome death and judgment and sin and everything else to give life on the third day I mean God's just singing singing our redemption in this chapter and even down to the image of God and we're probably getting ahead of ourselves a little bit here but when we fell we didn't lose the image of God yeah every person you meet is valuable because they bear the image of God right but it's
like we fell into the fires and we got scorched and we disfigured and we we didn't lose the image of God but we messed it up quite a bit it's hard to see sometimes yeah and what Jesus does if if we've messed up the image of God that's why Colossians 1 when it says that Jesus came into this world as the image of the invisible God that you could see this is God in human flesh and he goes to a cross for what purpose to take your defilement and all your scars and all your guilt
and all your shame and to take them to himself but what else does he do on the cross he takes his Perfection the perfect image of a holy God and righteous God and he clothes you with it that's why the New Testament is constantly saying things like being conformed into the image of Christ or to put on the new self or you've been clothed in the righteousness of Christ what does all that mean it means that though your image was marred Christ came into this world to be marred and to clothe You In His Image
so that when God looks at you you are restored to the absolute perfect image of God that he clothed Adam and Eve with at the beginning and even more so because Adam and Eve could lose their perfection you can't you're covered forever you bear that image that perfect righteousness that security of a God who is a god of Salvation from the beginning you're secure in that you have an eternal fate with him it's pretty awesome yeah that's the Hope in the darkness amen and that's Genesis 1 so far more important than the how hopefully we've
established the why is so much more important and God gives us lots of answers to the why question in Genesis 1 when we read through it it's beautiful so anyway I want to thank you for joining us today on this episode going through Genesis 1 join us next time as we go into the Garden of Eden and continue in our series on Genesis God bless [Music]
