Genesis 1:2-5 (a meditation)

Now the earth was formless and void, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.

- Genesis 1:2-5

SUGGESTED READINGS: Psalm 104, Isaiah 60:1-3, Mark 4:35-41, 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

“Let there be light.”

Let the voice of God, His Holy Breath, command darkness and chaos to retreat to their proper places. The uncreation state is not empty nothingness into which matter must be injected; it is a chaotic wasteland, from which order and abundance must be made. The chaos-taming, desert-farming, order-making God is the same One present with the disciples thousands of years into the earth’s future, sleeping serenely in the midst of the storm until they wake Him—and the תהו ובהו, the tohu va vohu, the formless void remembers His voice.

“Peace, be still.”

There is light before there are stars to produce it. There are days before there is a sun to dictate them. There is quietude before the storm should reasonably have been able to pass, because this world is under the authority of the King whose throne is on high, who “wraps Himself in light as with a garment”—not its own star-paths or weather patterns.

Elohim—the God-without-origin from Genesis 1:1—is also a God without fear. Chaos is no threat to Him. Darkness is no threat to Him. The best of Creation’s terrors and the worst of Uncreation’s desolation are just a breath away from being silenced and undone by His word; how much less can the evil deeds of a few rebellious men scare Him? How much less can the Enemy hope to prevail against Him?

Fearlessly He commands the darkness. Fearlessly He guides His people through the wilderness. Fearlessly He sleeps in the storm. Fearlessly He submits to His own execution.

He merely looks on the earth, and it trembles.

And it is good.

Genesis 1:1 (a meditation)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

- Genesis 1:1

SUGGESTED READINGS: Psalm 33, John 1:1-3, Colossians 1:16-17, Revelation 4:11

The story starts with One who is, for now, simply called “Elohim.”

It’s the plural of a very ordinary Hebrew noun for an ordinary god, a divine ruler or judge. But the writer makes an extraordinary statement about this “ordinary” supernatural being: In the beginning, Elohim created the skies and the land.

Of course, such a claim would be far less extraordinary to its contemporaries than it is to us. Every ancient culture had an explanation for the origins of the world they inhabited, and all of them were linked to the activities of the supernatural. But unlike the stories told by the ancient Egyptians, Elohim didn’t Himself evolve from the preexisting chaos state of the uncreated space, nor did He achieve creation by reproducing Himself into an order of multiple other gods. And in contrast with the cosmology of the ancient Babylonians, who believed the world had come into form as the byproduct of cosmic wars between supernatural rivals, the Biblical creation narrative begins simple, peaceful, and authoritative.

There is no rival to Elohim.

There is no origin of Elohim.

From the first words of the Scriptures, He is set apart and supreme, eternal and ever-present. And He creates.

Heavens, or skies: The space belonging to the divine.

Earth, or land: The space governed by His human representatives, the ones He makes in His likeness.

In the beginning of human history, Elohim formed divine space and human space, and married them into one indivisible unit of sky and land, atmosphere and earth. From the outset of time, He intended to dwell within His creation and among His creatures, sharing all His goodness, His glory, and, yes, even His power with His image-bearers.

The God who has neither origin nor rival has no cause to be stingy with His abundance.

the God of Genesis

I’ve been reading through the Bible in 180 days almost every year since I got married 10 years ago. It’s been so good—flying high over the surface of God’s Word from January to the end of June, sometimes with a large group of fellow readers and sometimes with a small one. Some years it’s been lots of audio Bible; some years it’s been pages of personal notetaking; some years it’s been writing out insights daily or weekly for those reading along with me. I’ve learned so much about the structure of the Bible, the character of God, and the story of Jesus as the Savior of Creation.

With that big-picture foundation in place, I knew it was finally time to dive deep again. And what better place to start than the prologue of the story?

Every day in January, I read through Genesis 1-11, discovering questions and curiosities, noticing truths about who God is, learning new things about who God made me to be, and realizing what a different world we could all live in if we knew the God of Genesis.

He’s a God of order.

The Creation story doesn’t tell us how He made a material universe out of a blank void, but rather how His Spirit formed an orderly world out of a chaotic wasteland. He carefully separated out the different components of the world—light from darkness, sky from waters, land from seas, day from night—and grouped together the different life forms into their kinds: vegetation, sea creatures, birds, and animals. The pinnacle of it all, human beings who were made in His likeness, He created as one and yet also in two: male and female.

He wants to collaborate with humans.

Instead of creating the earth to be a space for Him to practice dictatorial tyranny, He commissioned His image bearers to rule over it together and to participate in the ongoing activities of life-making and ground-working.

He is a gentle parent.

When His image bearers were deceived and betrayed Him, He didn’t get angry. He didn’t make harsh threats. He didn’t leave them alone to think about what they’d done, He didn’t strike them dead on the spot, He didn’t shame them for their stupidity or their nakedness. Instead, God sought them out, heard them, cared for them, and covered their shame.

He models both grace and boundaries.

There were clear consequences for Adam and Eve’s sin, and they were upheld graciously as protective boundaries, not punitively as wrathful punishment. The same gracious boundaries led to the catastrophic Flood—not because God hated or wanted to destroy what He had made, but because the earth was so corrupted that it must be cleansed.

He is clear and direct.

We don’t have to guess or infer or hope to figure out what He wants. When He called humankind to rule over Creation, He said it directly and repeated it several times. When He received Cain’s subpar offering, He clearly communicated how Cain could do what was right. When He made a covenant with Noah, He spelled out the exact terms.

There is so much more, an endless wealth of truth to be mined from these first eleven chapters of the Bible. This month, I’m zeroing in on Genesis 1, and already overwhelmed by the beauty of how God created our world and how the Spirit inspired the Biblical authors to record it.

If you want to join me in any of this, here’s the plan I made (and here’s the notetaking journal I’m using):

• January: Read Genesis 1-11 daily

• February: Read Genesis 1 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• March: Read Genesis 2 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• April: Read Genesis 3 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• May: Read Genesis 4 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• June: Read Genesis 5 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• July: Read Genesis 6 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• August: Read Genesis 7 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• September: Read Genesis 8 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• October: Read Genesis 9 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• November: Read Genesis 10 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly

• December: Read Genesis 11 daily, and Genesis 1-11 weekly