Creation to Christ Part 1

This week for MERCYhouse Nights we are beginning the semester sermon series titled From Creation to Christ. We will be walking through the entire Bible. Here is the first sermon, on Genesis 1. Hope you like it.

This week we begin our new sermon series, “From Creation to Christ”. We will be walking through the entire Bible, (high points anyway) in the remaining 12 weeks of the semester. This week we are going to be dealing with Genesis 1, the account of creation. Before we jump into the ancient Hebrew text, I want to first give a taste of the creation stories around the Mediterranean about this time.

The Babylonian creation myth goes as follows:

There are two ancient gods, Tiamat and Apsu. Apsu is a male, and is fresh water, Tiamat female and salt water. Many other gods are created and they live in Tiamat’s body, one of these is Ea. Like any children, these new gods make a lot of noise, and it is upsetting Apsu, who sets about to kill them all. Ea finds out about this plan and uses magic to make Apsu go into a comma, at which point he kills him. Ea becomes the new head god, takes a woman, Damkina, and they have a son, Marduk. Marduk is more of a punk than his family, and is even keeping Tiamat up at night as he plays with wind inside her body, where everyone still lives.

The other gods have had enough with Marduk, and convince Tiamat to take revenge for Apsu’s death. She recruits gods to her side, creates 11 monsters to help her, and remarries, declaring her new hubby, Kingu as having supreme dominion. The other gods chose Marduk as their champion, and his power grows. He then super inflates Tiamat with the wind he got as a child, and eventually she can’t move because she was too bloated. He then shoots an arrow into her heart, killing her, and takes the gods and monsters on her side captive. He smashed Tiamat’s head with a club, and then rips her body in twain. He uses half of her body for the earth, and the other half for the sky. He then sets about o create the natural order of things, using Tiamats spit for rain, and setting us seasons. Her nose formed rivers and her breasts mountains. And the story goes on.

This story isn’t unique either. The god’s of the ancient Mediterranean were second generation gods, being created first and then usurping and killing the others. We see this with Greek myth too. Zeus kills Chronos to become chief god. Zeus lived on Create well before “creation” happened, that is where he grew up and planned to overthrow Chronos. With the help of his mother, Zeus was able to rescue his brothers and sisters, whom Chronos, had eaten by inducing him to vomit them up, and then they wage war against him. The children won the battle and banished Chronos and his allies forever.

Egypt and other places are not much different. There are a pantheon of gods and goddesses, chaos is the ruler, infighting between the gods the law. And amidst it all, there is a little backwater hole in the wale called Palestine that had something very different. What we are going to see as we explore this text is a creation story that is different from any other. There is a God of order who has a plan. In many of the stories I just read, and others around the world, humans are an afterthought. In some stories, the gods seed accidentally falls on the ground, and we sprout up, in others it is their blood. What we are going to see today though, is a God who creates everything with a purpose. There is no accident. Order is the rule, rather than disorder. So without further ado, lets jump into the text.

We read in Genesis 1:

1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Before we get to the big themes of Genesis 1, and we will, I want to stop and discuss some minor, yet very important details. This text is probably the most well known, and little studied by those of us here today. We all know the creation story, and so we never read it. When we read it, we only read it, think it very nice, and go no deeper. The problem with this though, is that this story is so dense I could give an entire sermon series on it alone. We are going to try to hit a few of the major points as we go. Let’s dive in, shall we.

The first word in Hebrew of the Bible is the word Bereishit (pronounced berrasheet). The first three words are “Bereishit bara Elohim”. Many of the Bibles we have seen in our life, including the translation I just read translate this, “In the Beginning…” We all know this, right. The first sentence of the Bible is sort of iconic, isn’t it? In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. However, this is a mistranslation. Some modern translations do have the correct interpretation of the words, the Anchor Bible, being one of them. What this sentence should read is “When God began to create the Heavens and the Earth.” This might not seem like a big deal, it may seem this is only semantics, but I think it is a huge deal.

Entire theologies have been built around semantics, as well as scientific proof that the Bible is false. And some of the strongest objections to the Bible’s validity are found right here because of a mistranslation. If we read the text “In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” we have stated that the Earth was there from day one. We have a much more literal depiction of creation. This leads to the doctrine of a 6000 year old Earth, and Creationism. Let me pause here and say that this isn’t necessarily a wrong view. The text is certainly open to that interpretation. It is not, however the only interpretation of the text. Very often when I talk to people, they have made up their mind, and try to force me to take their perspective. This s true of everyone by the way, including myself. So Creationists on one side tell me that I have to interpret the text their way and build and entire theology around it, and scientist tells me that because Creationist interpret the text that way, they have disproved the Bible. What I am telling us today, is that the text may not be as open and shut as we have been lead to believe.

If we take the translation, “When God began to create…”, a whole new world is open to us. We don’t have to take the text literally, but possibly we can interpret it symbolically. We can see it not as setting up a Creationist Theology, but as standing in stark contrast to the other creation myths of the world. The text implies a plan from the very first sentence. When God began to create. Humans are not an afterthought. Creation is not just some dead gods corpse. There was a creative action that occurred. I am no saying that the story isn’t literal as well, I am just saying there is more here than others would have us believe.

I could spend all day in these verses alone, but I need to move on. The next thing we see is that the Spirit of God was upon the waters. This is the first reference to the Trinity in the Bible, and it happens on page one. We are going to see references to the Trinity throughout the Bible, including many in Genesis alone.

And finally we get to the act of creation itself. God says, “Let there be light.” And there is light. What we have, is again a God with a plan. Creation is not some accident. God speaks it into creation. In the ancient Mediterranean world, speech had much more power that it does today. Language was sacred, especially to the Hebrews. It was often believed if one could know the name of a god and speak it out loud, one could have power over them. If an oath was sworn, it was binding unto death. Language was held in the highest regard. It says something then, that God would create by speaking. Speech is a very rational and premeditated thing. It is the highest of human capabilities. Unlike creation coming from more primal behaviors- murder, or sex, or blood- in the Bible, it comes from the highest. It is the product of thought and direct action. Again, this is standing in contrast to all other myths.

The creation story goes on. To get a full appreciation of what is going on, I am going to read it once through. As I do this, listen. I mean really listen. Actually, before we read it, I should tell us all something else. There is a lot of controversy, not only in the first sentence of this story, but with the entire thing. Part of the reason for this controversy, is that we don’t really know how to read this story. There are parts of the Bible that are literal histories. When we get to Kings and Chronicles, we will see that they are written like history. We are told of real people doing real things. There is no poetry and little metaphor. As we read these texts, including the last half of Genesis, we get the impression that we are supposed to take them literally. There are also sections of the Bible that read much more like prose. If we look at the Psalms or Song of Solomon, no one would think we should read them literally. That are full of simile and metaphor. When Solomon says his lovers teeth are like goats, we don’t think that they are hairy, or her breast like rolling pastures, we don’t think of grass. We understand that this is poetry. Sometimes in the Gospels we are told where Jesus went, and we think, “this is a literal story”, and other times he tells us the kingdom of God is like a (fill in the blank) and we think, ”Jesus is creating an analogy.” This is something most of us do naturally all the time.

We are able to read poetry and know it is poetry and read first hand accounts and know they are to be taken literally. There is nothing controversial in this statement. Here is where the controversy is though. There is nothing like Genesis 1, not in the Bible, not anywhere else. As far as ancient literary techniques go, it is unique. So we don’t really know if it is supposed to be read as a history or as poetry. I think it is both, and I will explain why in a minute. First, most of us have heard this text before, but I want us to hear it as poetry.

6And God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. 12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." 21So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

If we read this as an ancient Hebrew poem, something very interesting happens. Here is how creation looks.

Day 1 God creates light, the Day and Night. Day 4 God creates the sun and moon, things that were to govern Day and Night and found there home in them.

Day 2 God creates the oceans and the sky. Day 5 God creates all the creatures of the sea and birds and flying things. He creates first the home for his creation, an then the things that will be there.

Day 3 God creates dry land and then plants to live on it. Day 6 God creates things that live on land, creeping things, beasts and livestock. He again, created the home for the creation, and then the things to live there. And after all of this he creates Man.

Notice too that everything God created was good. This is an aside now, but will be more important next week.

The way the text is set up, we clearly see a God of Order. He has forethought and plan. He is systematic in his creation, everything building upon the previous creation. We also get the idea that the text is rushing us toward the creation of Man. There is almost as much text about the creation of this one thing, as about every other day. There is a push. It is almost rushed, isn’t it. It seems to me like the author doesn’t really care about the other stuff too much, but cares about the way they were created and the reason. It is like a kid trying to tell you what happened to him, but first he needs to tell some set up that isn’t important. So God created the Heaven and Earth, and the sun, and the land, and all that stuff, then plants and birds, oh yeah, and fish, and see the order of things, and then he created animals, and then he paused for a second, and this is what happened. And the Author takes a breath.

What we see is an entire scene painted for this moment. The Human creation is special. It is different. Something happens that didn’t happen in all the other creative acts God just completed. God begins to speak differently than he did in the rest of the tale. He says “Let us make man in our image.” Now this statement, again, is an entire sermon. What we have is a singular God talking to himself, it would seem. There is nothing else created. This is the second reference to the Trinity.

But more than this, it says that humans are special. We are not just another animal created for the land. God stopped. It is as if he has finished the background to his painting, and now is time for the portrait. He steps back and looks. “Everything is good, lets move on to what we really wanted to do.” And he makes man in His image. There are many things I could talk about with this. Here are some of them. God is three persons in one, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and we kind of are too. We are Mind, Body, and Soul. God is a God who creates, and we too create. God is a rational God of order, and humans also possess these qualities. One of the reasons language was held so high in Hebrew culture is because we were created in God’s image, and he created with Language. It was believed that we too, create with language.

There are a few other things that we will get to next week as well. What is important for us here, is that we are special. We were set apart. There is a divine spark in us that the rest of creation doesn’t have. And more than this, the text goes on. Not only does God talk about this last creation, and then make it in His image, he then speaks to it. He tells man to fill the earth and subdue it. That he has dominion over it. These verses have also been misread by many people. They have been read to prove that we can destroy forests and pollute as much as we want, and more recently they have been used to support an environmental agenda. Neither of these are true. The truth is something much better, much more special.

It is true that we have been given power of the Earth. God presented man with a home, and a gift. This doesn’t give us free reign to pollute though. We are not being appreciative of the gift if we squander it. On the other hand, environmentalism is a pagan value. Mother Earth as a living thing that we need to hold up and respect is not what we see in this text. We have the right to subdue it and have dominion over it. Humans are the pinnacle of creation, not Nature, and as such are given divine rights over it. That is not to say we shouldn’t recycle or reduce our waste or not pollute. But we need to have proper motivations for it. We are dong it as grateful children who want to keep their gift in as good a condition as possible, not as people who need to bow down to a mother goddess.

And after God speaks to man and gives him this divine mandate, the text takes an interesting turn. One of the poetic tools that was being used throughout Genesis 1 is the ending of a creation with it is good. On Day six, we see that it is good before God ends creating for the day. We see him reflect at only the creation of land animals, read it is good, and then we have the special account of the creation of people. And then God speaks to them, and gives them a gift, and then he steps back for a final time in the text. We read that God saw all that he had created and saw that it was very good. We the reader, the first time reading this as a poem, should expect that it was good. That has been the literary device used thus far. But we are unexpectedly told it was very good.

This may mnot be shocking to us today because we have heard this story so many times, but literarily it is. It changes the entire mood of the text. We see a dramatic turn. What we see is a completion of work, and a God to is not only pleased with what he has done, but ecstatic. And then he rests. This reminds me of my art. God is an artist. Many of you have seen my art work up at MERCYhouse. I am always proud of what I create. I look back and think it is good. I have a plan in my mind before I set about to draw, start at a point and work out. There is order and rationality involved. If you have ever painted, you know that the easiest thing to do is to start the background first. You paint it in, wait for it to dry, and then move to the next closer object. This is akin to the creation we read here. But the analogy isn’t done. Some of my painting series are even more telling. The paintings up on the walls right now took about a week to do. I painted many at a time, working on background of one, while I did foregrounds of others. I also had all of them sketched out before I began. I was asked to have art done for Easter Sunday a few years ago, and these are what I came up with. They are abstract stations of the cross. As I finished each painting, I would frame it, take a picture, and send the picture to my wife. I would step back and see that they were good. I was proud of each piece. And then I finished all of them, and hung them on the walls. And I thought it was very good. I saw, not only each individual creation, but the series as a whole. And I was proud. This is the picture that we are to have of God as well. Each thing was good, but he finishes his piece de résistance, Man, sees the whole thing finished, and is super pleased. It was very good.

And then he rests. After I finished these 10 paintings, I took a deep breath, stepped back, saw what I had done, and stopped. I stopped creating, stopped thinking, rejuvenated. I sat down and looked upon my work. And I do this with every piece. After I show them to people, take pictures, etc. I very often like to sit and look at them. There is a picture I created of a man in my living room, many of you have seen it. It is hanging over my TV. I did it over half a year ago, and still I enjoy coming home and staring at it. Resting. Knowing that it is very good. What we see in these last few verses of Genesis 1 is a God who is proud of what he has done. Again, this is in stark contrast to other creation mythologies who have gods arguing about what to do with pesky humans, trying to kill them, and finding them extremely annoying. This is not the God of the Bible. He is the proud parent, creator, artist.

Now I said that this was both poetry and history. I want to wrap up here. Many people will have you believe that you need to take this story literally. That God only took 6 days to create. That the order laid out in the Bible is a science. I am not saying you can’t believe this. I know people who do. I am friends with them. It is a valid interpretation. Scientists will tell you that they can prove the earth was not created in 6 days, and so all the Bible is therefore false.

On the other side, there are people who will tell you that most of Genesis is closer to myth. C.S. Lewis, who I agree with on most things, calls these stories true myth. They will say you shouldn’t take any of these stories literally, but pull the principles out of it.

One camp wants to read only poetry, the other only history. I disagree with both. They are both right and wrong. The truth is something so much richer, so much fuller, so much more true. The truth is that these stories should be read as both poetry and history. The creation story tells us in a poetic way how God created everything. It shows us a plan, forethought, and a means. He speaks everything into creation. If we only read this as poetry, we loose something. We loose the fact that we are special. That God created everything with his thoughts and words. That he gave us the Earth as a gift. That we are special, created in his image. If we read it only as history we loose just as much. We miss the subtly to the creation. We miss that the days correspond to each other. We miss some of the mystery and nuance, some of the subtly and mystique.

As we leave here tonight, what is important isn’t whether the Earth is 6000 or 4 billion years old, whether God used evolution to create or not, whether the Earth was there on day 1 or day 4. What is important is that creation was planned, logical, and ordered. And what is more important than this, is that we are its pinnacle. We are special. We are created in God’s image. We are not some byproduct of probabilities and mutations, we are the reason for everything else. Creation was given as gift to us. God stopped both before and after we were created, and said that is was very good.

If you are here today and you feel unimportant, miniscule, insecure, I want to tell you that that those thought are all lies. We are very important. We are not just another animal. We are created in God’s image. Often when I think about the size of the universe or the smallness of atoms, I wonder how God could take notice of me. I think we may all feel that way at times. With over 6 billion people, a world so large, and a solar system so gigantic, I wonder how could God care. I wonder why he would care about my problems, about my sorrows, about my joy. With a galaxy so large, a universe so large I wonder why God created us. I count up the numbers of cells in my body, on this planet, the number of atoms in creation, and I wonder how God even thinks twice about humans.

But the truth of this text is that he not only cares, but all the other things are for us. It is not that he is busy dealing with the rest of creation, and we are a happy afterthought- the rest of creation was for us. We are the pinnacle of creation, and the reason for it all. He set about on day one to create something marvelous and beautiful and wonderful for us. We are not unimportant or small, we are loved and cared for. We are the part of creation that God though about, conversed with, gave gifts too. We are not just another naked ape, we are God’s beloved, made in his image, valued by him. This is the truth we need to take away today. We are infinitely valuable to God. We are his Magnus Opus. We are important to him.

If you’re here today and you don’t feel this way, I encourage you to cry out to him. He will listen. He is not a distant creator. He is intimate and personal. He didn’t create at first from far away, and he is not far away now. His Spirit is still hovering. He is still doting over his creation, looking at it, and smiling. Ask him to come closer to him, and move closer to him. He is faithful. He will listen.

Let us Pray.