In the Beginning God

Section One

In the Beginning God

The Bible does not begin by trying to prove that God exists. It simply declares Him, the opening words place God before everything else. Creation does not introduce God, God introduces creation.

Genesis is opening the door to creation, time, order, and everything God is about to bring forth.

The Hebrew phrase translated “in the beginning” is Bereshith, from the word reshith, meaning the first point, the starting place, or the commencement of something.

And this is important. Genesis is not describing creation as eternal. It is describing creation as something that began.

The next word we encounter is “God.” The Hebrew word used is Elohim, and it is not the covenant name. It is the general word for God, and Scripture uses it of the true God and elsewhere of others called gods. So Supreme, Almighty and Sovereign is not the dictionary sitting behind the word. That is who this God turns out to be as Genesis goes on, and I am reading it back into verse 1 because I have read the rest. Moses is introducing us to God as Creator, not explaining all that would later be revealed about Him.

When we encounter this opening declaration, we are immediately confronted with the reality that God stands alone. Before there was anything made, there was God, and nothing beside Him that He had not made. And when I say alone I do not mean a solitary one, because John will tell us the Word was there in that same beginning, with God, and was God. What I mean is that there was nothing outside of God, and nobody with Him who was not God.

I often feel that Moses could stop right there and roll the drum for what is about to come. The statement itself lays the foundation for everything that follows.

The way this declaration is made often takes my mind back to Deuteronomy 6:4:

Both statements carry the same effect, they stand as foundational declarations that prepare the reader for what follows. Before anything else is said, God is set before us.

From Genesis to Deuteronomy, Scripture consistently presents one sovereign God. The God who stood at the beginning is the same God who revealed Himself to Israel. There is no rival throne, no competing authority, and no equal to Him.

And here is how I hold it, and I will name it as mine. No one gave Him His authority. There is no higher court to which He must answer, and no democracy in His kingdom. He rules because He is God.

Many people come to Genesis asking questions Moses never attempts to answer, where did God come from? Who gave Him authority? How did He become God? Instead, Moses simply writes:

In the beginning God...

At this point, I am reminded of:

There are things God has chosen to reveal, and there are things He has chosen not to reveal. Human curiosity often wants answers to questions that Scripture is not attempting to answer. Instead, Moses gives us what God chose to reveal.

This truth is reflected in Isaiah 40:13:

The answer is obvious, no one instructs God because He is the source of all wisdom and understanding. The New Testament brings additional light to this truth.

John takes us back to the same beginning mentioned in Genesis. He reveals that the Word was already there.

The New Testament reveals that the Word was present in creation and active in the work of creation. And John names Him a few verses later, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

The more I meditate upon Genesis 1:1, the more I return to this one truth: Everything else in Scripture is built upon that foundation.

In the beginning God.

Section Two

Created the Heaven and the Earth

Having introduced us to God, the verse now reveals His action. God is not presented as a passive observer but as the One who brings all things into existence.

The Hebrew word translated “created” is bara. Now I have heard it said that this Hebrew root is only ever used of God, and I looked, and that is not quite right. Joshua 17 uses the same root of men cutting down or clearing woodland, although there it is in a different Hebrew form and carries a different meaning. What I can say is that in the form used here for creating, God is the one doing it, and that is how it stands in Genesis 1:1. It emphasizes God’s unique work in bringing about what He purposes according to His will and power.

The phrase “the heaven and the earth” is Moses taking in everything at once, the whole of what was made, above and below. Whether that includes the invisible things as well is my reading and not something verse 1 spells out. And here is the verse I am leaning on for it.

Visible and invisible. Paul says it of Christ, and Moses does not say it in verse 1, so the carrying over is mine. Nehemiah 9:6 declares:

Scripture consistently points to God as the source of all creation. Nothing came into being apart from His creative power. And further down I am going to show you why I also say nothing continues independently of Him. Psalm 33:6 says:

And here is what I take from that. Creation testifies to God’s wisdom, power, and authority. I do not read this universe as the product of chance or accident. Scripture gives me God willing it and bringing it into being.

Everything created, including man, declares the glory of God. And here I am reasoning rather than reading, so let me say so. Genesis 1:1 tells me there was a beginning and puts God there at the beginning. I read the rest of Scripture as showing me that He was before it. It does not stop and teach me that time itself was made, or that God stands outside His creation. Those are conclusions I have come to from the whole of Scripture, and I hold them, and I will not pretend verse 1 handed them to me. What the verse does give me is a beginning.

Genesis 1:1 therefore establishes a foundational truth: God is the Creator of all things. The heaven and the earth owe their existence to Him, and all creation ultimately belongs to Him.

And If It Began, What About the Word That Spoke It

And a thing that has a beginning can have an ending. Scripture says plainly that it does.

Both halves in one sentence, out of His own mouth. The heaven and the earth of this verse will go, and His words will not. And now I am joining two things, so let me say that I am the one joining them. Jesus says my words shall not pass away. He does not stop there and tell me those are the same words that made the heaven and the earth. It is the psalm that says the heavens were made by the word of the LORD. I put the two together and I read it as one word, and that reading is mine.

We know it will remain. The question is how.

And the How Is the Present Tense

Everybody preaches that God created, and everybody preaches that God will judge. Between those two we leave creation standing on its own legs. Scripture never does.

Upholding. Consist. Kept.

And Nehemiah had it long before any of them. Go back to the verse we read a moment ago and look at the clause I walked straight past.

Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, and thou preservest them all.

Thou preservest them all. One clause, sitting in the middle of a long verse about the making, and I read over it. Most of us do.

Four writers, and not one of them describing creation as something God made and then left to stand on its own. Upholding. Consist. Preservest. Kept in store. I am not going to stand here and tell you about Greek tenses I have not studied. What I can hear in plain English is that none of those four is describing something God did and left. Not made once and left standing. Held now, this second.

And now I want you to see the line before I cross it, because everything after this is mine and not theirs. And let me be exact about what those four say. Hebrews says upholding all things by the word of his power, and Peter says by the same word are kept in store, so those two put the word in it. Colossians says by him all things consist, and Nehemiah says thou preservest them all, and neither of those two mentions a word at all. So what all four establish together is that God is holding creation up now. Two of them tell me it is by His word. That is as far as they take me.

They do not stand there and say what would happen if He stopped. They do not say He is still speaking the sentence that made it. And not one of them gives me a container.

So here is what I see, and I hold every bit of it as mine. If He stopped, it would not be there.

So in the picture I am drawing, the word is not merely a thing He said. I hear it as a thing He is saying.

And that is the how. A made thing can stop. Speech that has not stopped cannot.

And this last part is a picture out of my own head, so take it as a picture. Everything is the container, and the word holds it. And the word is not in the container. It is what is holding the container up, so it cannot pass away with it.