Genesis Series: "In the beginning" (Gen 1:1)

THE GENERATIONS OF GENESIS: "In the Beginning" (Gen 1:1)

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2002

One of the teenagers in my previous congregation requested that I preach on the creation narrative to resolve a question she had. I assumed she was interested in how the theory of evolution relates to the biblical account. It is a difficult and complex issue, one that does not lend itself readily to treatment in a sermon, so I was relieved when she said that her question was different. I thought, "Ah, something easier." "What I want to know," she continued, "is 'Where does God come from?" I knew then that I had moved from the frying pan to the fire.

Since I could not determine which question was worse, I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt to answer both.

• Where did God come from?
• Where did we come from?

For our next few sessions together, we will look at the book of Genesis starting, appropriately, with these questions of origins, what happened "In the beginning."

Moses, the traditional author of Genesis, lived centuries after the events he records. So, how did he know what to write? How did he know what happened? Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,¹ Moses used oral and written sources to trace the unfolding of God's plan. Among his main sources were genealogies, those dry lists that say "Person A begat person B, who in turn begat person C." As if to draw attention to these lists, one of the key phrases Moses repeats to mark off various sections in the book² means "These are the generations/origins/history of...." This series of messages will use these markers to focus our attention on various individuals who play prominent roles in the first biblical book. The first of these phrases, in Gen 2:4, stands between two accounts of creation.

"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth."

We will consider the more general of these accounts this morning, as we try to answer...

I. The First Question: Where did God come from?

The introductory statement to the section, Gen 1:1, is a likely place to look as we start with...

A. What Moses says (Gen 1:1; Ps 90:2)

The Bible's opening sentence is so familiar to us that we could probably quote it together.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

"In the beginning": In the beginning of what? Moses starts with the coming into existence of our universe, the place in which man, who arrives later, will live. This is also the start of time as we know it, that moment in the past to which we ascribe the initiation of all events. Whatever people's view of origins—creation, evolution, or something in between—most everyone agrees that the universe's clock began ticking at some point. For Israel and for us, it was when God created the universe.

From this verse, we learn that God was on the scene before any of what we see around us. "But Moses, couldn't you have started the story a little earlier. We'd like to know what happened before God created the universe, maybe even what happened before God." What Moses does not explain, in this verse or in those that follow, is how God got here. In fact, none of the biblical authors explains how He got here. They simply assume the existence of God, as if He has always been around. Whenever they do address this issue, their consistent testimony is that God did always exist. He has no beginning or end.³ In Ps 90, Moses says,

Ps 90:2 Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

We see this same testimony in...

B. What others say (Isa 40:28; 1 Tim 6:16)

Isaiah addresses Israelites in exile, some of whom may wonder if their God—who seems to have abandoned them—still exists. To them the prophet asks,

Isa 40:28a-b Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Paul states that...

1 Tim 6:16a [God] alone is immortal....

Apparently, there was nothing before God.

Moses and the other authors of scripture do not have first-hand knowledge of what existed back that far. To be sure, we must check with the one person who would know. We must consider...

C. What God says (Isa 48:12b-13a)

Through Isaiah, God refers to Himself in ways that make clear: Nothing came before Him.⁴

Isa 48:12b I am the first and I am the last. 13a My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens....

To put it in terms of an answer to the first question—Where did God come from?—He did not come from anywhere...

The Answer: God always existed.

This is a difficult concept for us to grasp because we can ascribe a starting point to everything else.

• The car you drive originated in a particular factory.
• The banana you had for breakfast grew on some plantation.
• The great idea you had this morning came to you in the shower.

Everything begins somewhere, sometime...everything except God. He alone possesses the attribute of being eternal, of having no starting point. He is, therefore, the exception to the rule,⁵ which is hard to fathom precisely because it is different from what we know about other things. Nevertheless, the biblical writers are in complete agreement on this matter, and they probably did not understand it any better than we do. God did not come from anywhere; He always existed. It is not surprising, then, that He is the first individual we meet in this book and the one who has the preeminent role throughout.

The eternality of God is not merely a philosophical issue. It has practical implications. The constancy of His existence, that He has always been here, is part of the immutability, the unchanging nature of the one we serve. This attribute also manifests itself in the dependability of His character and in the reliability of His word. When God commits Himself to our welfare, we can count on Him to keep His promise. For example, because God's power does not diminish with time, His people can depend on His unfailing support.⁶ As He says through Isaiah,

Isa 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary.... 29 [Quite the opposite,] He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

You may have had a difficult week and doubt the next few days will be much easier, or you may feel the concerns of other matters bearing down upon you and wonder how you will cope with what lies ahead. All this may take a toll on your energy, but it does not tax the eternal God, and while you may face an uncertain future, He has promised His unfailing support.

Having answered the first question as best we can, what of...

II. The Second Question: Where did we come from?

Again, we start with...

A. What Moses says (Gen 1:27; 2:7)

After stating in the first verse of Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth, Moses goes on to describe the subsequent formation of other things over several days.⁷: For day six, we read...

Gen 1:27 God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The word Moses uses three times here, which most translations render "create," is the same word he used in the first verse, where "God created the heavens and the earth." The term signifies "the initiation of the object," and this form is used "only of God's activity" (McComiskey 1980 1:127). In other words, God initiated man's existence, even generating the raw material, then made adjustments to that creation. When Moses returns to this subject in the second creation account (in chapter 2), God's initiation is again evident, especially as He infuses man with life. We read in..⁸

Gen 2:7 [T]he LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of fife, and the man became a living being.

As with the eternity of God, the Bible is consistent in its testimony on this issue. We see that in...

B. What others say (Ps 100:3; Mal 2:10b)

One biblical writer,⁹ the author of Ps 100, admonishes his readers...

Ps 100:3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us....

Likewise, the prophet Malachi poses the rhetorical question to Israel...

Mal 2:10b Did not one God create us?

As with the previous issue, Moses and the other authors of scripture do not have first-hand knowledge of what happened back that far. Here, too, we must check with the one person who would know. We must consider...

C. What God says (Isa 45:12a)

Not surprisingly, we get the same story. Through Isaiah, God Himself claims responsibility for man's existence, again using the word that indicates the initiation of what previously was not.¹⁰

Isa 45:12a  It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it.

This second issue is easier to comprehend than the first. Unlike God, man did not always exist, and we can trace his beginning to a particular time and place. We may not be able to assign that event a specific date or plot its location on a map, but we can answer the second question—Where did we come from?

The Answer: We came from God.

He created us.¹¹

But wait! Does science not have a different version of origins? We were not created by God; we evolved from lower life forms. Do scripture and science conflict? For many of us, the first time we confront such questions is in high school biology, at an age when our analytical skills are yet unformed. If a teacher does not distinguish carefully and clearly between what is fact and what is conjecture, students will generally assume that all the information they receive is equally reliable.¹² That is not necessarily the case.¹³

Evolution is about change, how differences develop on two main levels (Special Theory and General Theory), only one of which has strong support (Thurmon 1978:41).

• The first level of change is called microevolution (small change).

• This is the "variation among different populations of the same species," such as racial differences, animal breeds, and varieties of plants.

• There is abundant, observable evidence for this kind of change and no conflict with scripture.

• The second level of change is called macroevolution (large change).

• This is the "divergence of populations [to] form different species," such as reptiles becoming mammals.

• There is very little evidence for this kind of change, most of which is indirect, and it is this point which conflicts with scripture.¹⁴

The difference in evidence means that we can speak of microevolution as fact but must refer to macroevolution as theory (perhaps even only hypothesis).¹⁵ This is an important distinction, because it means that scripture and science—the facts of science—do not conflict. It is only in the realm of speculation where there is a real difference of opinion. Questions of origins are actually nonscientific¹⁶ because they are not subject to repeatable observation and experimental verification (testing). The best science can predict is how things may have happened.

Part of the problem is that we have unrealistic expectations of science. Its many advances have led people to assume that science offers definitive and reliable answers to everything. Witness the number of white lab coats you see in commercials and how often you hear the phrase, "Doctors recommend..." or "Research has proven...." (Some of their claims may be true, but which ones and to what extent?) Ad agencies operate on the principle that if people hear something often enough, they will begin to believe it.¹⁷

A custodian cleaning up after a political rally discovered the main speaker's manuscript on the podium. In the margins were various instructions such as "Pause and scan the audience for effect." "Wipe brow here." "Gaze upward." Shake fist." Near the end was a long paragraph of text, next to which the politician had scribbled in large letters: "Argument weak here, so fix eyes on crowd and yell." (Adapted from Wright 1985:106107)

Some people think the secret of success is sincerity, and once you can fake that you have it made (ibid., p. 189). Repeating something often enough or loudly enough and with great conviction may persuade people it is true but does not actually make it so. This caution applies also to the dogmatism that often attends a presentation of evolution.

Most who believe in macroevolution exclude God from the process. They hold that chance and time, not divine involvement, are behind all significant change. Herein lies the true conflict: How do we view the universe—with God or without God. For the scientist, that decision is as much a matter of faith as it is for the theologian.¹⁸

The question of origins is, of course, more complex than I have presented here.¹⁹ These are difficult issues, but we should not shy away from them for that reason. We read that "God made man in his own image, and one of the noblest features of the divine likeness in man is his capacity to think" (Stott 1972:14). Biblical faith does not thrive in ignorance, nor does it fear enlightenment. God has given us a mind, and He expects us to use it.

We have attempted to address two questions this morning and have found answers to both.

• Where did God come from? God always existed.
• Where did we come from? We came from God.

Can we prove either of these? No, we cannot. They are ultimately matters of faith.

Nevertheless, we have it on good authority—the consistent testimony of revelation that takes us back to the earliest period of history, "In the beginning."

For the Bibliography and Endnotes, see the pdf here.