"In the Beginning"


This is a text version of a message I preached in church in July 2023

Today’s reading is Genesis chapter 1. It can seem like a slightly intimidating reading, but it really shouldn’t be. It describes God in His creative work – and when we use the word God with a capital letter, we mean the One who created everything, so that’s not controversial.

The problem is that as we know it’s at the centre of a lot of arguments among Christians. I’ll start by telling you my position in those arguments: I have a science background and I can’t go along with what’s called Young-Earth Creationism; consequently I  can’t take some features in this chapter entirely literally.

If you knew of my science background and thought I was going to offer ammunition for the young-earth position, I’m going to disappoint you. If anyone wants to talk about this afterwards I’ll be available. I’ve written an essay on the subject if anyone is interested; here. But I don’t want to argue; even if you prefer a literal interpretation of the chapter I hope you’ll still be blessed by what I say about it today.

What I want to say before we read is: that controversy isn’t the main point. It’s simply not what the chapter is meant to be about. If we dive straight into arguments about science we’ve completely missed what we’re supposed to see here. I hope today that we can all enjoy seeing important features in the Genesis account of God’s creative work.


Genesis 1:1 to 2:3:-
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.

And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.

And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. God called the dry ground ‘land’, and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the fourth day.

And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.’ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.’ And there was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day.

And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’

Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.


Almost all ancient peoples had a creation story. It was a well-known form of literature and in an ancient culture it fulfilled several purposes.
The creation account in Genesis has obvious similarities to other creation stories we know of, but also some striking differences. It shows “where everything came from” as such an account should, but it also shows things about God which were uniquely understood by the Jews.

It makes it clear that there is One God. Almost all other cultures described many gods, among which they might have a favourite one. These gods were very powerful, but they were seen as part of the creation, not transcendent (outside it). They were usually not omnipotent or omniscient; they were more like people with special powers, like modern superheroes (or even supervillains).

Genesis describes God existing before anything else, and creating everything there is out of nothing. He didn’t have to work in any way to do this, His power is to just say “Let there be…” and there is. Other creation myths describe their gods creating the world out of incongruous materials, or even body-parts of other gods. They always need raw materials to work on and their work is often imperfect.

For example, Norse myth starts with the dark and silent abyss Ginnungagap, between the fire Muspelheim, and the ice Niflheim. The fire melted the ice, and the drops formed Ymir, a destructive giant. As the frost continued to melt, a cow, Audhumla, emerged from it. She nourished Ymir with her milk and also licked the ice. She slowly uncovered Buri, the first of the gods. Later, Odin was his grandson. Odin and his brothers slew the giant Ymir and built the world from his corpse. Then they formed the first man and woman, Ask and Embla and built a fence around their dwelling-place, Midgard, to protect them from the giants.

The picture in Genesis, with one transcendent God creating everything out of nothing by His own power and wisdom is quite a contrast to stories like this!

In fact Genesis offers us the “teleological argument” for believing in God. Created things show us something of what the Creator is like. If the creation is good, so is the Creator. This is expanded elsewhere in both Old and New Testaments, for example Psalm 19 and Romans 1.
Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.
Romans 1:20

Well, why argue about this? I think the phrase “the heavens and the earth” can mislead us (and make us dive into that science controversy). We immediately think of the globe earth floating in space, as we’ve seen in photos, and we think “Oh, this is about astronomy and cosmology; it will have things to tell us about science”. That’s not what people at the time of the writing of Genesis would have thought of.

A better translation would be “the sky and the landscape” – what we see from our individual point of view. This chapter shows us where we fit in to what God has made. What our situation and role is. (v16 is a great temptation for me to start talking about astronomy and the enormity of stars and galaxies – but from the perspective of a created being, stars don’t look huge, they are distant and only seen at night, so they don’t get much of a mention here).

There’s some structure to the chapter which isn’t immediately obvious. Days 1-3 describe the environments; sky, sea and land. Days 4-6 fill those settings with the things that occupy them. This explains why there are three “days” which have “evening and morning”, before the sun is even made. This isn’t a scientific error, it’s simply because of the way the account has been organised. What we have isn’t a chronological account of what happened; it’s more like a word-picture showing the whole thing at once. Within this whole, each “evening and morning” is like a smaller picture frame. The overview is that we’re shown an organisation into three domains, and how they are filled with appropriate things and creatures.

Along the way, almost everything people can be tempted to worship in God’s place is listed as something God actually created: the sky; the sun and moon; great creatures; even ourselves. Any of those things can seem more accessible and easier to understand than God, but it’s a huge mistake to put any of them in His place.

Sea is an interesting image all through the Bible. In v2: “the waters” are unformed and chaotic. God has to subdue them and impose form on them. In v9 the seas are removed from the land, making our kind of life possible. In the Old Testament (for example Psalm 74) the sea is often threatening, containing great sea monsters. When Jesus calmed the storm He was reasserting God’s authority. Later in Revelation 4:6 we see a glassy, clear sea; completely subdued in the presence of God. In Revelation 13:1 a terrifying beast comes out of the sea, but in Revelation 21:1 there’s finally “no more sea”.

God’s emphasis in His creation is that things should “be fruitful and multiply”. There’s a right way for His creation to function. We disturb this and drive things into extinction at our peril.

God pronounces His creation “very good” Himself. We can agree. When we notice things that don’t seem good (diseases etc.) this is a reminder that the creation isn’t how it should be – it has been spoiled by sin. We’re promised, though, that it will be restored. If we sometimes now find God's creation awe-inspiring, we haven't seen anything yet!
The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
Romans 8:19-21

That phrase “children of God” brings us back to what I said before, that the account would show us not only what God has made, but also where we fit into it. The most striking thing said about human beings is that we’re made “in the image of God”. What does that mean?
Any sermon needs to pass the “So what?” test. We need to learn not only about God and what He does, but about ourselves and how we should live. What can we learn from this passage?
Essays index

Home