“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
“In spite of the universal prevalence of … pantheistic evolutionary cosmogonies among the nations of antiquity, the inspired account in Genesis does not attempt to refute them or to prove the existence of the true God. The reason for this strange silence is, most likely, the fact that the Genesis account was written before any of these other systems developed. The others were developed later for the very purpose of combating and replacing the true account in Genesis. The latter had been written originally, possibly by God Himself (‘the generations of the heavens and the earth’) soon after the Creation, setting forth in simple narrative form the actual events of Creation Week. At that point in time, there was no need to argue about the reality of God and the Creation, since no one doubted it!” THE GENESIS RECORD, Henry M. Morris, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976
Men and women much smarter, much more educated, much more focused than I have made their arguments for the literalness and accuracy of the creation account in the book of Genesis.
I do not intend to attempt to match them here or to help them or to develop my own convincing arguments to lay along side theirs.
Today I want to talk about this very first sentence of Scripture and why it is imperative that the sincere student and true believer avoid either in their own thinking or their discourse with others, taking away or attempting to add to the simple truth presented there and in these early chapters of the Bible.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
IT REFUTES ALL PAGAN BELIEFS
A minute ago I quoted Henry Morris who speculates that perhaps God Himself wrote the creation account. I am not clear on whether Morris means to say that God physically wrote it down and told Adam to safeguard it, or if in His frequent visits with the first couple (Gen 3:8) He told them the details and they recorded the information for future generations.
In any case, and whatever the method was, the details of the creation account could only have come from One who was present before anything else, and therefore could only be the One who accomplished the work.
Ancient tradition supported by some scripture evidence says that Moses is the author of the first five books of the Bible. Nevertheless, he would have to have received this information from sources long before him.
The Biblical record shows that Lamech, Noah’s father, lived for a time in tandem with Adam, and could quite possibly have gotten the information first hand from the first man, then passed it on to his son who carried it into the post flood world with him.
Since Moses’ parents were courageous and faithful people (Heb 11:23) he probably grew up hearing the carefully preserved and reiterated account of creation from them as they had from their parents.
Here’s what I’m getting at. All the pagan beliefs that have sprung up that deny the Genesis record have to have come up long after the original account was widely known and accepted because there was no reason to think otherwise.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
If this is accepted as true, then what follows must be accepted as true and straightforward. He did it in six literal days, He created a man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into that man who then became a living soul (notice He did not breathe life into any other creature) and then He made a mate for the man from the man himself.
Deny any of this, and you must deny the account of the original sin of man and therefore man’s need for salvation and therefore the cross. That is the guilt of every non-biblical philosophy and pagan belief of man, and it is the guilt of the so-called Theistic Evolutionist who wants to have it both ways. These folks choose to believe that God is the source of the ‘Big Bang’; that He set things to motion and evolution sort of took over. These folks choose to believe that the six days of creation are representative of eons of time wherein natural selection produced a flourishing and inhabited planet.
They and the Bible cannot both be right. We must choose to believe the Scriptures or something else, but it is ludicrous to try to blend belief systems that are diametrically opposed to one another and say they are compatible. They are not.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
This statement refutes atheism, which says there is no God, pantheism, which makes a deity of the creation – and by the way kids, when your schools celebrate ‘Earth Day’ they are engaging in pantheism, which is worship of the creature rather than the Creator. In Isaiah 66:1&2 God declares the earth to be His footstool and says “For My hand made all these things”, so please think about this when your teachers ask you to join with them in their weirdness – it refutes polytheism which says there is more than one god to worship; god of the wind, god of fire, god of war and so forth, it refutes dualism, which says there is a cosmic battle going on between two equal forces, one good and one evil, God and the devil, which cannot be the case since God was alone when He created and the devil was originally a created angel who rebelled and fell, and it certainly refutes evolutionism by the very nature of the statement; ‘in the beginning God created’.
Sin was introduced into the world through the first man and therefore all of mankind has been born with the sin nature, since all of mankind was in the first man’s loins when he sinned (Rom 5:12) therefore every philosophy and religious thought coming from man has arisen out of the pool of sin and is by nature diametrically opposed to God and truth. There can only be one truth. There cannot be your truth and my truth, there can only be truth in which you and I both place our trust, or one or both of us choose not to trust, but neither changes the truth by our denial or by our additions or subtractions. There is only one truth pertaining to God and the origins of the heavens and the earth and it is, by His own declaration, that He made them all.
IT ESTABLISHES THE TRUTH OF THE REST OF SCRIPTURE
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
Now my outline points are of necessity going to overlap one another. I’ve already touched on this but here take it farther. This first statement of the Bible underscores and under girds the truth of the rest of scripture.
The Scriptures continually declare themselves. By that I mean that the Bible, which we call the Word of God, over and over again declares the Word of God to be true and indispensable to life and living.
Psalm 33:6 says “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host”
Jesus answered Satan’s temptations with scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 which says “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”.
Paul wrote to Timothy words that are very familiar to us: 2 Timothy 3:16,17
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
If these things are true, then in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and if that is true then so is every word of Scripture, and Scripture is not vague, it is not double-speak, it is not myth and is not open to any one’s personal interpretation out of their imagination.
Men of old, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God, and thus we have the scriptures (2 Peter 1:20,21).
Those scriptures begin with these words, “In the beginning God…” and that is the foundation upon which we place our trust that the rest is absolutely true and unchanging and inerrant, all the way to “Amen, come quickly Lord Jesus”.
IT CONFIRMS THE EFFICACY OF THE CROSS
ef•fi•ca•cy \ˈe-fi-kə-sç\ noun
the power to produce an effect
Merriam-Webster, I. 1996, c1993. Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary. (10th ed.). Merriam-Webster: Springfield, Mass., U.S.A.
Here is another thing I alluded to earlier and expand on now.
If any part of the creation record given to us in Genesis is merely symbolic or incomplete, or the stuff of myth, then taken to a conclusion the cross of Christ is a sham and all our religion is a demonic waste of time and life.
Let’s follow this trail backward.
It is the clear and frequent claim of the Bible that God’s anointed One, His Messiah, would one day take His stand on the earth and that He would be the Redeemer of mankind. Job said this and it is recorded in Job 19:25.
The writers of the New Testament, from the Gospels through the writings of the Apostles, to the Revelation of John, confirm over and over again the deity of Jesus of Nazareth and His becoming Man so that He might suffer and die for our sake.
John began his Gospel with these words:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
Then in verse 14 of that chapter he says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Then Paul wrote this to the Colossian church (1:13-20)
“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
Now here I have to explain something to you about the language of our text of study.
When it says “In the beginning God…”, the Hebrew word is Elohim. It is the word that is used throughout the first chapter of Genesis in every instance you see the word God. The im ending of that word is plural in the Hebrew. In other words, Elohim can actually mean ‘gods’. It is however used in the singular in Genesis as the name of the Creator. So Elohim is a plural name with a singular meaning. It is a uni-plural noun, suggesting the uni-plurality of the God-head. God is One yet more than One. He is One in three Persons.
John was establishing this truth to the agnostics in the verses I read a minute ago, from the first chapter of his Gospel. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
So we have come back full circle to the words of our text. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. If this is not true then the man who hung on the cross of Calvary died in vain.
But it is true. Atheism is not true, Pantheism is not true, Dualism is not true, Evolution is not true, the Bible is true. Elohim spoke the universe into existence in a period of six literal days, the sixth of which He created mankind in His own image. That man succumbed to temptation through pride and introduced sin and death into Elohim’s new creation, and Elohim, in the fullness of time, sent Messiah into the darkness of this fallen world to bring light to the world, but men loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
In their evil they crucified the Lord of Glory who the Father then raised from the dead and now reckons all who hear His Word and believe in Him to be justified and sanctified and glorified. It all goes back to this… In the beginning Elohim”
IT CONFIRMS THE PROMISE OF ETERNITY
We overlap one final time and take a closer look at this doctrine of glorification and a home, eternal in the heavens promised to us.
There are some things Jesus said in His farewell discourse to His disciples and then in His High Priestly prayer to the Father, recorded in the Gospel of John, that derive their significance from the first sentence of the Bible.
Here is the first one:
14:1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
The next is this:
14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. 7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.
They had seen Him do the things that prior to His coming were attributed only to the power of Almighty God. They had seen Him create (Jn 9:4-7) they had seen Him resurrect the dead (Jn 11) they had witnessed the exercise of His authority over nature (Mk 4:39-41) and many other things.
Now, as the One who claimed equality with God and performed acts to demonstrate His deity, He was promising that there was an eternal home prepared for them and that He would return and gather them there.
He makes the same promise not only to His Apostles, but also to all who believe.
“ ‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” Rev 3:21
Then we go to John 17:3-5 and hear this same Jesus praying these words to the Father:
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Why must we believe the words of Genesis 1:1 to the absolute exclusion of any other assertion or imagination of man? Because if we fail to believe the literalness of Genesis 1, then none of these promises can be true for us. There is no salvation, there is no justification before a Holy God, there is no home for us beyond the tear-filled veil of this dreadful existence.
But if the claims of Christ are true, and the things written down about Him for our sake are true, then He is the one of whom it is written, “In the beginning God…”
And if it is true that in the beginning God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth, and this One written about is the Word who became flesh to dwell among us, then His words are also true when He inspires the Apostle to say,
“…in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” 2 Tim 4:8
Friends, we all want to believe that these promises are literally true for us. We want to believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins. We want to believe that He rose bodily from the tomb on the third day as He had said He would, and we want to believe that He ascended bodily into Heaven having promised to return and take us home to be with Him there forever.
It is well that we do believe those things because it is my firm and settled conviction that they are true.
But please do not think that you can play fast and loose with the things you don’t fully understand and try to fill in gaps in your understanding with the fabric of your own imagination or the pretentious conclusions of the ungodly.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
Only as you place your absolute unquestioning, undoubting faith in that, can you appropriate these words to yourself with confident hope:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. 7 “He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.” Rev 21:1-7
Ex 20:11, 31:17
