Genesis 1 - Mark Ralf

Genesis 1- God’s purpose in Creation

PRAYER Almighty God, you have given us your Bible for our learning, we pray that as we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it, our minds will be renewed and our hearts set on fire for you. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

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At the beginning of a new year the beginning of the Bible is a great place to start. A new year, a fresh start.

Did you make any New Year resolutions? I did. How long do we expect them to stick for? Sometimes forever, sometimes hardly a day. I gave up sugar in coffee and tea a long time ago and milk in coffee. Today I have a hard time drinking them with it in. Other times I have said I won’t eat chocolate or will get up earlier to read my Bible only to break my own promise within a short time.

Not all our promises count for much do they? Sometimes it’s because we are weak and don’t act with enough resolve. Other times we set ourselves impossible goals almost knowing we will break them.

So is starting the New Year with Genesis a good idea? Well not necessarily.

The book of Genesis is contentious. Lots of people have argued over it for years. Genesis can be confusing. We want it to tell us everything about the beginning of the world. So we ask questions like: “where are the dinosaurs? Is it really saying they didn’t exist? Or: “Who did Adam and Eve’s children marry?” And we become worried about what Genesis doesn’t include.

Crazy really. Think of a spotlight on a stage: the only part lit up is the area directly under the spotlight. The rest of the stage is in total darkness and we don’t know what’s there. That is what Genesis is like: it’s like a spotlight on the beginning of the world. We can’t know everything – and the way Genesis us written shows that God thinks we don’t need to know everything (about dinosaurs etc). That’s not the important part – certainly not as important as the meaning of life.

Genesis will teach us a lot though. It’s like when we point at someone else, there are always three fingers pointing back at us. We may start asking a lot of questions about Genesis, but we actually find that as well as giving us answers, it starts asking us questions. About God, about ourselves, and about our relationship with God. Then we start to discover the purpose God had in mind when he chose to create the world.

The pattern of the Kingdom

In the Garden of Eden we see the world as God designed it to be. God’s people, Adam and Eve, live in God’s place, the garden, under his rule as they submit to his word. And to be under God’s rule in the Bible is always to enjoy his blessing: it is the best way to live. God’s original creation shows us a model of his kingdom as it was meant to be.

God’s people are found in God’s place under God’s rule.

So we’re going to take a helicopter view of the start of Genesis – What the beginning of Genesis is all about and what it implies for the rest of the Bible.

I assume you are persuaded that the Bible is God’s book and is relevant for your life today. I will not be dealing with authorship, dating or historicity – I will happily talk to you about that at another time.

We’re going to fly over Genesis 1 & 2 and pick out the important features, markers on the landscape across the Bible terrain.

The bible is a big book. Is takes a long time to read. Is it a good idea to start at the beginning of the Bible? It may be a good place. But is it a wise one?

As soon as you open your Bible you are confronted with Genesis 1 - one of the most contentious passages in the entire Bible.

I believe it has been one of the strategies of Satan in the last 100 years or so to attempt to discredit 2 parts of the Bible in particular. The very beginning of the Bible, the opening chapters of Genesis and the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, he has attempted to look ridiculous.

I’m going to look at the first 2 chapters of genesis over two weeks – one chapter a week and then Declan will preach on Chapter 3. But in doing so I will also look at some of Revelation too – so you will need to have a whole Bible in front of you so you can test what I am saying.

So let’s turn to Genesis chapter 1.

I know there are lots of questions about what kind of literature Genesis is, or what does it mean for the timetable of the world, what can we make of those who believe the world was created in 4004BC, etc etc. I am not going to comment on any of that.

There are lots of interesting questions about the structure of the passage – why there are 6 days and then a 7^th. There are many people who suggest ways of approaching these things who want to take the Bible seriously.

Instead we are going to look at the message of these chapters – to discover what God’s purpose is in starting the Bible this way.

If you came into our kitchen at home and Claire was there, and the kettle was boiling. You might say to Claire “Why is the kettle boiling?” – hoping that she was going to make you some coffee or tea.

She replies, remembering her ‘O’ level physics that the electricity supply is working and the heating element is working so that the vapour pressure of the liquid is being raised to atmospheric pressure! (with a smile on her face – you would be very impressed - and so would she!).

The scientist examining my kettle in my kitchen can explain the process of how the kettle is boiling in terms of his physics but he is unable to tell us for what purpose or why - is it to make tea or coffee, kill the ants in the garden or to make some jelly?

The book of Genesis is addressing the big questions of why. Why is the world as it is? The answers it gives are answers that the scientist is not able to comprehend by means of his science.

We are going to concentrate on the purpose questions. Why is it God has made the world this way – what is it that this chapter is getting at?

Verse 1

In the beginning God created the whole thing – that’s basically what it’s saying isn’t it? He made the heavens and the earth. There isn’t anything left out. If he made all that is there and all that is here, he made the whole thing.

This is God’s world and what chapter 1 does is to spell out implications of that. God’s world – he thought it up, made it and created it by a WORD. He speaks and it happens – I wish that was what happened at home, in my family and at work! Don’t you?

So what did it take for God to create everything? It’s scale, sophistication and beauty? What did it cost God to make the world? It cost God just a word.

See Chapter 1 v3, v6, v9, v11, v14, v20 the same three words “AND GOD SAID”.

LET THERE BE…. And what he thinks happens.

Let there be LIGHT – and there is.

An expanse between the waters.

There is dry land

There is sky

There is vegetation

There is animal life

There are the lights in the sky, the sun the moon and the stars

There are living creatures

God said and it was so.

God not only made things in the world but he also differentiates things within the world. He makes things that are different and he points out the differences.

v4 & 5 He separates the light from the darkness

He separates wet from dry

He separates good from evil (later on)

He makes man and woman

He makes vegetation and living creatures

As he goes through he makes it clear that all that he has made is very good.

At the end of each day, God stands back and looks at what he has made and he states his opinion:

V10 he saw that it was good.

V12 he saw that it was good.

V18 he saw that it was good.

V21 he saw that it was good.

V25 he saw that it was good.

Notice that God is NOT the world. God is separate from the world. He has made the world but he is not identified with it. He is not the world. Neither is he in the world. We won’t find him living on Mars or Venus or Alpha Centurii or the Sahara Desert or anywhere else. He isn’t in the world, he has made the world – but the world isn’t God and God isn’t the world. We won’t find him in anything that is in the world – so there’s no point in looking for him in the world – in the trees, in the birds or in our hearts. He is not there – if we journey inside ourselves we will not find God. If we journey into nature we will not find God. God has made everything but he is not everything – he is distinct from everything that has been made.

Later in the Bible, it says that we can tell there is a God by the world that he has made. It’s as if he has left his fingerprints or DNA on the thing he has made. But God is not the creation – we are not to bow down to the creation, to anything that is made, whether it is a living creature, a person or an object – and this is why idolatry is taken so seriously by God throughout the Bible.

Nothing in this world is God. He is not made of “stuff”

We are made of stuff. This table is made of stuff. The universe is made of stuff. When we say we have made something, we haven’t really made it. Like this table: Whoever made it has not really made it, though they have made a nice job of it. They have taken wood, which they have got from a tree, which was probably turned into a nice plank by someone else, they have cut it, shaped it and jointed it and fitted it together to make a useful piece of furniture which we can use and enjoy.

They have not made it in the same way as God made the world. They started with stuff and reorganised the materials. That’s all we can do. Even a superb artist is just reorganising the materials. This doesn’t detract from their talent whether it’s woodwork, painting, photography or technology – but no one started with nothing and created something out of nothing.

God starts with nothing and makes something out of nothing. Out of nothing comes stuff – the complexity, the beauty and the magnificence of everything that we can detect in heaven and on earth. It is God’s world, he made it and within it he made living creatures. And within those living creatures he made people.

So, v27: God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Man used in the sense of mankind. Male and female – together bearing the image of God.

V26 is very interesting. God says: Let US make man in our own image. Although God is ONE he is not ALONE. Later the Bible develops this and we understand that our creator God is 3 persons and one Godhead – The Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) says Let us make man in our own image – in our likeness.

The consequence of this is that mankind would share God’s rule over God’s world. We remind the world of who God is. We were made in the image of God to share his rule over the world.

Genesis 1 ends with God looking back at the end of the 6^th day and saying it is very good v31.

Next week we’re going to look at Chapter 2 when the 7^th day dawns.

By the 7^th day God has finished the work that he has been doing.

At the end of the 1^st 6 days there has been a little phrase.

Look at v31. “And there was evening and morning – the sixth day”

Each day ends except the 7^th.

There is no end to the 7^th day – for the 7^th day is the day of rest.

And rest is the goal of God’s creation.

He works in order to rest – he makes things in order to enjoy them

God is a God of fun. A God who enjoys holidays – who enjoys rest.

The goal of creation is rest that we might enjoy God forever.

Within God’s creation, God creates people, Adam and Eve.

Chapter 2 brings the focus onto them.

They are to be God’s people – made in his image.

They are set in God’s perfect place – the garden made for them, perfectly adapted to their needs.

In that garden they are to live under God’s rule.

God’s people are found in God’s place under God’s rule.

People – Place – Rule.