Genesis 1:1-25
Key Verse 1
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
1. Read verse 1. How does this address the origin and purpose of all things? Notice the subject, verb and objects of this sentence. Who is the main actor? How can we know what happened in the beginning? (Job 38:4; Heb 11:3)
2. What was the state of things before God spoke? (2) Who is the Spirit of God and how was he involved in the creation? (Ps 104:30)
3. What were God’s first spoken words? (3) What is the function of light? (Ps 119:105; Jn 8:12) What does the repeated phrase “God said,” tell us about God? (Jn 1:1,14)
4. How many times is “and it was so” repeated? What is implied by the repetition? How does the repeated phrase “it was good” establish an absolute standard of good? How does it imply a purpose to creation? (Ro 11:36)
5. What is the relationship between days 1-3 and days 4-6 (draw a diagram if you like)? What can you learn from this about God the Creator, environment maker, and the One who fills in his creation?
6. How did God create life? (11, 20-26) What does “according to their kinds” mean? Why is the creation of life a miracle?
7. How does the creation reveal the glory of God? (Ps 19:1-4; Ro 1:20) What amazes you about God and his creation?
Creator God
Genesis 1:1-25
Key verse 1:1
Good morning. Happy Sunday. Thank God for finishing the book of Matthew last week. Did you enjoy learning Jesus through Matthew’s gospel? As you know, the main theme of Matthew’s gospel was that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, and King. He was born as king, died as king, and rose from the dead as king. He healed the sick, drove out demons, and preached many parables for one purpose: introduce the kingdom of God. He used every opportunity to let people know about God and his kingdom. Lastly, last Sunday, he commanded his disciples to go into the world to share the good news. During this summer, we are going to study the nine steps. Mainly about Genesis 1-3, John 2-5. The purpose is to learn about God and Jesus once again. Also, each brother will be trained to meditate and deliver God’s words with heart and passion. Please pray for them.
Today, as step 1, we are going to study Genesis 1. Genesis means “beginning”. It is the first book of the Bible (66 books – 39 and 27). Verse 1 says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. God could say many other things such as God is light, or God is love or something else. But he declared his creation. Why? Honestly, how many people are really interested in the origin of the universe? Very few, maybe scientists who receive funding for the research. These days, life is just so busy. We try to survive daily. We have so many concerns; careers, school study, family, money, and so on. Yet, today’s passage is to teach us about God’s creation. I believe God has some messages for each of us. Through this message, may the creator God speak to us, and we also listen to carefully what he speaks to us.
1. God’s creation
Look at verse 1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” ‘In the beginning’ means there was nothing; no time, no place, no people, no the universes, and no the earth. There was only eternity, eternal God. In that time, what did God do? He created the heavens and the earth. God is in Hebrews called “Elohim”, meaning the Almighty one. The almighty God created the whole universe and the earth. Thus, today we see the heavens and live on the earth. Here ‘created’ is in Hebrews, “bara”, meaning to make something out of nothing. Can you make something from nothing? No. We can make something only out of existing resources. But the Almighty powerful God made the heavens and the earth from nothing. Isaiah 44:24 supports this. It says “I am the LORD, the maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself”. [Map 1]
What was the earth’s status? Look at verse 2. It says, “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.” When God created the earth, it was just a heavy mess: formless, empty, and completely dark. There was no form, no life, and no light. If we see verse 9, when God commanded the water gathered to one place, dry ground appeared. According to verse 9, in verse 2, the waters seemed to cover the whole earth.
What was the Spirit of God doing? The Spirit of God was hovering over the surfaces. ‘Hovering’ means “to stay in the air because you are waiting to do something”. It is like a drone circulating over the waters. The Spirit was hovering and designing what to create, how to create, and when to create things. It is like before constructing a house, a builder sits down and spends lots of time to make a blueprint for the house. Psalm 104:30 mentions the activity of the Spirit. It says, “When you send your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.” Also in John’s gospel, there was the Word, Jesus in the beginning too. John’s gospel says, “through him, all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” The trinity God, God, the Spirit, the Son worked together as one team to create things in the world.
Now let us learn how God created each creation. Verse 3 says God said, let there be light and there was light. When God commanded ‘let there be light’, all of sudden, bright and dazzling light came into being. The light might say ‘God, here I am’. Light is the source of life. Without light, nothing can survive. But the light in verse 3 seems to be different from sunlight or moonlight because the sun and the moon were created on the 4th day. In fact, Revelation 21:23 says “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” Also 2 Corinthians 4:6 says “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” Jesus himself said “I am the light of the world”. When God saw the light, what was his comment? Verse 4 says “God saw that the light was good”. God was pleased with the light. And then, he separated the light from the darkness like oil and water. In verse 5, he called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night”. Today, we call ‘day time’ and ‘night time’. That came from this verse. Back to verse 5, the first time in history, there was evening and there was morning- the first day. Here day is in Hebrew ‘Yom’ a full 24 hours. From this moment, the concept of hours and days appeared.
Let’s look at God’s creation on the second day. In verse 6, God said “let there be a vault between waters to separate water from water”. Then, the vault was made. The water was separated under the vault and above it. It is kind of hard to understand what the vault is exactly. [Map 2]. The water is so heavy. How can the water not fall down, but stay in the vault? It is beyond our human understanding. But this shows again how God is the Almighty powerful one. In verse 8, God called the vault “sky”. And there was evening, there was morning – the second day. Since the first day started, 24 hours later, another day came: the second day. So far, God created only one thing per day. On the first day, only light. On the second day, only the vault (the sky).
How about the third day? In verse 9, God said “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” Then, what happened? The water obeyed God and was gathered to one place. Thus, dry ground appeared. God called the dry ground “land” and the gathered waters “seas”. This is what we call today, seas and land. When God saw them, what did he say? Verse 10 says “God saw that it was good”. It was good. In DE, we have several beautiful beaches: Rehoboth, Bethany, and so on. We enjoy swimming and surfing on the beaches. Praise God who made seas and dry land. [Map 3] So far, we see God laid foundation first, I mean, light, sky, and seas, and dry ground. Then, he began to create things on the foundations.
In verses 11-13, God commanded the land to produce vegetation: seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. Then, from the land, so many plants such as lettuce, pepper, asparagus, onions were produced in the best healthy organic forms. Flowers like roses, tulips, and other beautiful flowers appeared. Also, so many trees, according to their kinds, apples, banana, peach, grape, and so on appeared. Suddenly, the wasteland like dry ground became paradise. They were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In verse 12, when God saw that, it was good again. He was satisfied with his work. And that was the third day.
Let’s look at what God created on the fourth day. In verse 14 – 19, God created lights in the vault of the sky. The lights could be stars and galaxies. Why did he create them? To separate the day from the night, let them serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years. They existed with a clear purpose. In ancient days, people did not have maps or compasses. How did they find where the North is? By looking up the north star which God put in the sky. In verse 16, God created two great lights – the greater light – the Sun to govern the day and the lesser light – the Moon, to govern the night. Currently, the sun sends its energy equivalent to 4 Hiroshima bombs per second. It weight is 2 x10^27 tons, 333,000 times heavier than the Earth. Can you imagine such a heavy planet in the air? Not falling down but correctly circulating in the universe? Psalm 19:1,2 says “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
Let’s move to the fifth day. In verse 20 – 23, God said “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky”. Then, every kind of fish and bird appeared. Scientists have found about 21,700 species of fish and about 8,600 species of birds. A bird tweeter chirps up “God, thank you for creating me. praise God!”. In the seas, so many fish were happily swimming. They are good for sushi. What did God bless them? In verse 22, he blessed them “be fruitful and increase in number and fil the water in the seas, and le the birds increase on the earth”. It is interesting that God did not bless plants or the trees. Later, on the sixth day, when he created the animals, he did not say any blessing to them either. But here, he blessed fish and birds to be fruitful and increase in number. In fact, according to one science web site, a fish can lay hundreds, thousands of eggs each time. A bird, Butterflies can lay 100 – 300 eggs each time.
Lastly, let’s look at the sixth day. In verse 24, God said “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the insects, and the wild animals.” Then, the land produced dogs, blue hens, sheep, monkeys, spiders, lions, tigers, and others. In verse 11, on the third day, the land had produced the plants and the trees. But when God commanded the land, the same land produced the living creatures. So far, crawling creatures have been found in about 6,000 species, the wild animals (4,000 species), and the livestock (38 species). Livestock provides labor and produces many products such as meat, eggs, milk, leather, and wool.
Now the earth was not formless, empty, and deeply dark anymore. The formless turned into order. There was sky, seas, and land. The emptiness turned into fullness. Birds in the sky, fishes in the seas, plants and trees on dry ground, all kinds of animals on land. The deep darkness was gone. The light shines its light on the earth. Praise our Creator God.
2. What can we learn from God’s creation?
From today’s passage, what can we learn? First, having creation faith is important. In part 1, we have learned how God created his creation each day. In the beginning, no one was there. How could anyone know what happened? Thankfully, God revealed himself to Moses around B.C. 1400 years. God told him how and when he created the heavens and the earth. Moses believed it and wrote down God’s creation in the book of Genesis. As you know, he was a prince of Egypt. But he became a fugitive, foreigner and stranger in the wilderness. He had no hope. His life was formless, empty, and deeply dark. But when he met the creator God, his life was dramatically changed. He found the meaning of his life. He lived a purpose driven life. In the end, he lead Israel from the slavery life in Egypt.
In the same way, as God spoke to Moses directly, now, through Genesis, God wants to reveal himself to us and speaks to us about his creation. In the beginning, God created Joshua Kim. Even though we did not see his creation with our own eyes, but God wants us to believe that what he said is true. 2 Timothy 3:16 says “All Scripture is inspired by God”. Hebrews 11:3 says, “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.”
I grew up in an atheist family. I was told that evolution is a science and creation is a religion. So I said in my heart, “There is no God.” But my life with God was formless, empty, and dark. Especially, I was very sensitive to what others would think of me. Whenever I overheard my name, I paid attention to hearing what they were saying about me. I lived a life of pleasing people. But later, when I studied verse 1, I realized in the beginning, God created me. I stand not before people, but before my creator God. That set me free too. Since then, I was not confused or chaotic in my life. I began to life a life of glorifying my creator God.
Second, knowing God’s creation is not enough. We must experience the power of God’s words. In today’s passage, the phrase “And God said and it was so.” is repeated many times. God spoke. He commanded. Then, things were created. He did not use any tools or resources. He just said then, it was so. When he said, let there be light, the light existed. When he said, sky, seas, lands, stars, the sun, the moon, fish, birds, and all animals came out of nothing. But knowing God’s creation is not enough. We should experience the power of God’s words in our life. The good news is God who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning does still the same creation work in people’s life. In Exodus, when Israel was stuck between the Red Sea and the Egyptian armies, God said to Moses “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will accomplish for you today” (Exodus 14). Then, as he spoke, he opened the Red Sea like dry land that Israel crossed the Red Sea safely. Then, they experienced the power of God’s words.
Isaiah 43:19 says See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. In Isaiah’s time, Israel was attacked by Assyria, a superpower nation like today Russia invaded Ukraine. The land became the wilderness. It became a wasteland. But God spoke to Israel. Now look at Israel. God made a new creation thing: a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
In the NT, Jesus said in Matthew 6 “do not worry about what to eat, what to wear, what to drink, but seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, all these things will be given to you as well”. When I came to DE, I was worried a lot about money since I got a low paying job. But as I have tried to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, even though we have only one income, God has provided my family all we need. We do not have stocks, cryptocurrency, yet, even if we are not rich, but not anxious about money and believing God’s provision, so that we can focus on building up the body of Jesus Christ at the UD campus.
Last Tuesday, during our group bible study, I asked brothers, did they ever experience the power of God’s words in the Bible? One brother said he has not experienced the power of God’s words yet, another brother said he has experienced how God’s words refreshes his faith and his hope each day.
Hebrews 4:12 says “the word of God is alive and active.” If God’s words are still alive and active, he can do his creation work in us through his powerful words. He wants us not just to have the Bible knowledge but taste his creation power in our own life. This summer, you have a very good opportunity to mediate and deliver God’s words. I earnestly pray for you and me to let God speak his words to us personally that we can encounter our creator God once again.
In conclusion, in this passage, God revealed himself as the creator God. verse 1 says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. As I said earlier, these days people are too busy; busy with work, family, children, watching phones, and so on. But Ecclesiastes 12:1 says, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth”. Let us remember our creator God. Let us have creation faith in God. Let us earnestly pray that we may experience how God does his creation work in our life through his words this summer and this fall.