In the Beginning

For the New Year, I wanted to do a study through Genesis. I’m not sure if I’ll go all the way through or not. It just seemed like a smart idea to begin my year with the beginning of the Bible.

So lets try this.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

Lets start with just the first phrase of the Bible. “In the beginning…” When is the beginning? People have asked this and debated on this for quite some time. For me, it seems obvious. The beginning is the beginning. There cannot be any measurement before the beginning, because then “the beginning” couldn’t truly be called the beginning. And so we have people who debate about whether this was when God was created or when the world was created or if there was a gap between the beginning and the creation of the world…

Let me put it this way: if this is the beginning, then it must be the beginning of time. Time would not have existed before this. Why? If time was in existence before this point, then it isn’t the beginning. So when questions like, “What did God do before this?” come up, we can assuredly answer with, “Making canes for people who would ask such pointless questions.” Before this there is no time. If God is outside of time, then He exists in a realm of timelessness.

Lets try this.

If God is timeless, then there is neither beginning or end. If there is neither beginning nor end, there is no creation. The creation must start with the creation of time. Otherwise, our universe would have no beginning nor end - it would be eternal. We know that this universe is not eternal, though it was taught for a few decades that it is. If this universe had a beginning, then the question becomes, “when and how?”

There are some who like to say that this beginning was billions of years ago. Others claim that this beginning was 4004 BCE. This beginning cannot be known. The very laws of physics make it impossible to know. As soon as someone says that we get cosmological evidence the universe might be billions of years old, the question can be raise about Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein stated that time and gravity are inversely related. This has been proven. The stronger the pull of gravity, the slower time moves. The weaker the pull of gravity (like vast outer space), the faster time moves. The problem with claiming any age of the universe is that light might travel for billions of years before it gets here, but that does not mean the earth is billions of years old. This is the issue with any scientists who want to claim from cosmology they discovered the age of the universe. You cannot prove scientifically any dating of the universe beyond guestimation from invalid sources.

So lets try this again. If we cannot truly know when, what about the how question? How did this earth come into existence? The first verse of the Bible says that God created it. I don’t want to explore science and “prove” that God must exist; I only wish to take this verse and exposit it. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

So at a time when people built temples for the gods to dwell in, this is written down. Do you see the implications? It is well known that the gods were carved by human hands. They were placed inside temples made by human hands and worshipped by those same humans. Men made their own idea of what or who or how god is. They also came up with their own idea of how many gods there might be. 

This God, however, made His own Temple and called it “the heavens and the earth.” This God made this universe for the sake of having His own place to dwell and reside - even creating people to dwell with Him forever and to tend and keep this Temple. 

Now if God created this world as a dwelling place for Himself, does it seem like it fits that God would then take this world and destroy it as quickly as most evangelicals claim He will do? I know that it says in Isaiah 65 and 66 that there will be a new heaven and new earth. I also know that the same language is referred to in Revelation 21. The old has passed away and the new has come. 1 Peter talks about the earth being melted by fervent heat. Revelation 20 talks about the end of the world being caused by fire from heaven. I know that Haggai 2:6 says that God will shake everything that can be shaken and all that will remain is the kingdom that cannot be shaken (reference Hebrews 12:25-28). I know that there are many, many references to the end of the world being consumed in fire and that the world will no loner exist and that is why God must create a new heavens and new earth.

This raises 2 questions. What would cause God to so go against His nature that He would destroy instead of create?

We see that God did this with the food. And so we need to wrestle with the question of whether God is judging the world or if He is creating.

The second question is one that I ask (many others don’t). Do these Scriptures indicate a God who is angry and going to destroy the world?

I don’t think so. Fire and heat and melting are all symbols used in the prophetic Scriptures as purification. In order to purify silver, you must melt it down. In order to purify diamonds, you must send them through the fire. These judgments are not to be thought of as an angry god in the sky who will destroy everything in order to let a select few into heaven. We are to think of these judgments as a God who is purifying and recreating through that purification a people who are able to endure heaven. When the flames of heaven come, will we be able to stand?

When God comes down onto this earth that final time, will we have worked into our souls and spirits a character of loving God that will be able to endure heaven?

Paul talks in 1 Corinthians about building with gold, silver, and precious stones. He says that the foundation of our lives as Believers is Jesus Christ. We cannot abandon that foundation. But we can build upon the foundation. Do we build with human hands - that is to say, with carnal things? Do we build with things of the flesh? Or do we build with the things of the spirit? It all comes down to what we put on our souls. If we continue to create hell here on earth for other people, then we will find ourselves entering into that time of purification with a lot needing to be burnt off of us. But if we live according to the Spirit, and we pursue the things that God pursues (taking care of the widow, freeing the oppressed, loving the orphan, providing for the foreigner, being faithful, etc), then we will find ourselves in that day to have the character necessary for heaven.

So when we look at the judgments of God, we’re not looking at some angry god who is sending everyone to Hell. We see God purifying everything, and if we’re not able to be made pure, then we’re going to spend our time in agony. The fire that Jesus talks about is a fire of purification. If we have nothing beyond corruption to offer, then we have no place in His Kingdom. If our foundation is not even Jesus Christ, then how can we build upon that foundation anything that will last?

This is what Haggai and Hebrews were talking about. When God shakes everything, the only thing that will stand is His Kingdom. If our lives are not constituted by that Kingdom, and we make our choices and our livelihood out of what the world says is to be done, then we will have no place to find rest in the age to come. 

If we can just look at the first verse of Genesis and start to wrestle with these deep probing questions of faith and reality, then what happens when we look at the rest of that passage I first quoted (Gen 1:1-5)?

Tune in next time.