Genesis 1

In the beginning… God. This had to be. Our present material universe could not have come to us from some supposed infinite regression of impersonal material causes. Something cannot come from nothing, and it will not do to suppose an infinite chain of somethings going back into eternity past. There must be an uncaused Cause; the Cause of all things, Himself being uncaused. This being is God, and we do not understand Him, but He has revealed Himself to us in what He has made, and especially in His Voice.

This God rules over everything, and in this first chapter of the five books of Moses, He is introduced to us. He is One, yet we read of the Spirit of God, and we have come to know the Voice of God, or Word of God, as a separate person within the one uncaused Cause. This God made everything out of nothing. He created and He ordered. Moses tells the Israelites about this great work of God as they prepare to go into the Promised Land.

This God is able to take what is “formless and void” and bring forth order and beauty. His work is described to us in three days of places followed by three days of peoples… three days of kingdoms and three days of kings… three days of realms and three days of rulers. In this way He prepares us for the announcement of a seventh day in Genesis 2:1-3, where this God rests and rules over all creation.

Day 1 goes with day 4, day 2 goes with day 5, and day 3 goes with day 6. These are the orderly pairings of realms and rulers. We begin with the kingdom of light and darkness, and we are told on the fourth day about the sun, moon, and stars that rule over these kingdoms as kings. We then hear of the kingdom of waters above and waters below, and we are told on the fifth day about fish and birds that fill these realms like invading armies establishing their dominion by force of numbers. We finally learn of the kingdom of the dry land, and then in day six we read about the animals that fill the earth, and then about man. Man will both rule and fill all of the realms of creation under the authority of God, the Lord of the Seventh Day. This is the order of creation according to the Scriptures given to Moses as the people of God were being sent into a new world by God’s command.

What would that gift of a new land be like? How would they bear up in their conquest when the people in that place had their own gods, and their own artistic images of their gods? Moses is assuring the Israelites that the God of creation, the God over all kingdoms, is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is their God. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He set up the days, the seasons, and the years. He brought forth the vast oceans that teem with living creatures, and filled even the expanse of the skies with winged life. He made such a great variety of useful vegetation and wonderful animals of all kinds, each with lessons to teach us in their behavior and appearance, and with great aid for us as human beings, so that we might fruitfully live as those who would rule for God and would worship and serve the Creator.

He determined what was good, because He is God, and there is no higher authority above Him. This highest of all rulers made man in His image, male and female. The further details of this important act of creation, the creation of mankind, are left to the second chapter, which provides a close-up of the sixth day of creation. Here we see that we are to be image-bearers of the Almighty; the only image, but only an image.

What can it mean for man to be an image-bearer of God? Just as He is a great ruler, we must rule. As He is wise, righteous, and holy, we are to imitate Him, shining with the glory of the Original, the Source, the uncaused Cause.

God made everything, and God made us, and God saw that it was all very good. This is where it all begins, with the complexity and wonder of God. He knows what He is doing. He knows that into this world of life, death will come through an enemy. The first man, the representative image-bearer will fail God's test, and much will be marred in this great creation. But God also knows that at just the right time, He will send a second Image-Bearer, the Voice of God. The Word through whom all things were made will become Man, and will accomplish what only He can do to the praise and glory of the God who rules over all.

No matter what we may face over the course of our years on this damaged planet, we know that there is a King who rules over every kingdom. His purposes will be accomplished. He has secured the most perfect world for us now through the blood of His Son, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The new chapter of life for the people of Israel entering the Promised Land was somewhere in the middle of the story. That story had a beginning, and it has an ending, but the God who wrote the story is from eternity past, with no beginning and no ending, and He has determined that we will be with Him forever and ever.