Chapter 1: What does Genesis 1 reveal about God as Creator?
We should never lose sight of the fact that everything God has created, He has created for His own glory. But His own glory is never adversative to His children's good. And He has done this also for our good.
There is so much to unpack when it comes to Genesis chapter 1, much more than the days of creation. God made all things for His glory, and as you'll hear today, He also made all things for our pleasure. This is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and it's great to have you with us.
Chapter 2: How does God's glory relate to our good in creation?
This has been such an enriching week for me as we've walked through these early messages from Dr. Ferguson's brand new series, Theology for All. I trust you have been helped as well, and I hope you've already requested access to all 36 messages. If you haven't, there's still time. Simply request access when you give a donation before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org.
But be quick, as only hours remain. Well, let's go now to Genesis chapter 1 to consider God the Creator.
We are continuing these introductory studies to Christian doctrine with a reflection today on God the Lord as Creator. We looked previously at this title that God gives to himself in Exodus chapter 3 when he speaks to Moses and says, when the people ask you what my name is, tell them I am has sent you.
And we might think for a moment that it's strange for us, first of all, to think about God as Lord revealing himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus chapter three, and then go back to speak to God the Lord as creator. That might seem at first sight to be the wrong way around.
Don't we speak first of all about God as Creator, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and then move on to Exodus 3 to speak about Him as the Lord? But there's more than one reason why this is a legitimate way for us to think. The first is that God did not become the Lord. at the burning bush. He already was the Lord, and He was that same Lord at creation, because He was that same Lord eternally.
So, I AM precedes creation. And not only that, but there's a very interesting thing that we find when we read through the Scriptures from the beginning, and perhaps a puzzle when we come to Exodus chapter 3. God says to Moses, by my name Yahweh, by my name I am, I was not revealed to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.
And it looks as though he's saying to Moses, Moses, this is the first time anyone has ever had disclosed to them my personal name. Just as we saw when we were talking about the Trinity, that it's only when Jesus is about to ascend that for the first time in history, in a sense, we learn how to pronounce God's name properly.
Never before in the history of redemption had God been called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yes, little indications that this was so. But here for the first time, as I suggested earlier on, we have God's Christian name. And what we have here in Exodus chapter 3 seems to be God's Exodus name, his redeeming name. But this is not actually the first time the Lord, Yahweh, is used in the Scriptures.
It's used way back in Genesis chapter 2. In Genesis chapter 12, when we are introduced to Abraham, the first thing that we're told is it was the Lord, L-O-R-D, block capital letters in our modern English translations, indicating this is Yahweh speaking. So how do we solve this conundrum that God says to Moses, this is the first time anyone has ever known me as Yahweh,
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of God revealing His name to Moses?
And all this in a sense is already embedded in the opening chapter of the Bible. It's a chapter about God as creator. Now, if I were to ask you, what is the single most important thing about Genesis chapter one? I suspect there would be many Christians today who would say the really important thing about Genesis chapter one is the length of the days of creation.
But if you think back to Moses, it's very doubtful, isn't it, that that was a question that troubled Moses. And I think it's demonstrable that it wasn't the big issue for Moses. Now, that may be an important question. It may be a difficult question. But what I want to emphasize is it's not the message of Genesis chapter 1.
And I want us to think just for a moment then about what is the message of Genesis chapter 1. I want to suggest that that message is sevenfold. First of all, Genesis chapter 1 indicates to us in a preliminary way that creation is the work of God, the Trinity. We hinted at this in a previous study. God the Father speaks the word.
God the Spirit hovers over the original mass of creation and brings order and light and fullness into that creation. So when we think about the created order, much more, I think, than we usually do, we need to reflect on the fact that this is the amazing work of God the Trinity.
The old Latin theologians used to have an expression to describe the work of the Trinity, opera ad extra, the works outside of the Trinity, opera ad extra trinitatis, indivisa sunt. They are indivisible. In everything God does, he always does it in a Trinitarian way. And we need to remember that when we think about creation, and we see it in Genesis chapter 1.
Second thing that we need to note about creation is it's a work of amazing divine power. The theologians have another Latin phrase because they wrote in Latin, many of them, they loved little Latin phrases and theologians always have, haven't they? Creatio ex nihilo. Or sometimes creatio in nihilum. Creation out of nothing and creation into nothing.
And this is the most extraordinary indication of divine power. Sometimes exegetes of Genesis 1 have brought this out by the way in which Genesis speaks about the creation of these great lights for the day and for the night and how God made them. And in the older translations, there is a little addendum to those words and also the stars.
as though the creation of the stars were almost like a, let me add just another little detail to my creation. And when, as we do now, we are able to explore the vastness of the universe, what amazing power to bring this into creation. Actually, what an amazing power this would be if there had already been something that God created our cosmos out of.
But what is the greatest demonstration of divine power is that he created it out of nothing. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the scientists in their exploration, some of them by no means at all, but some of them I think determined to show that there is no creator. What would it be like if they got to the omega point of all things and were able to look over?
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Chapter 4: How does the concept of creation relate to redemption?
Perhaps if Adam and Eve hadn't fallen, we would have discovered them more rapidly. But we do discover them. And like everything else, it's a reminder to us every time we use anything that is a, quote, invention of modern technology, we need to remind ourselves it's not creation of modern technology. It's an engineering of the powers that God has invested in creation.
Fifthly, we should never lose sight of the fact that everything God has created, He has created for His own glory. We spoke about the mutual relationships of the Trinity in a previous study. And that's a wonderful way for us to think about creation, to think about the Father bringing this wonderful world into being for the pleasure of His Son and for the joy of His Spirit.
And Christ, the Word of God, being the instrument of creation in order that creation might be for His Father's pleasure. And the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters and beginning to bring this orderliness out of the darkness and the lack of order in the original stuff of creation. And doing it as a kind of love present for the Father and for the Son.
So that not only in our redemption but in the whole act of creation. We understand that God does all things for His own glory, but His own glory is never adversative to His children's good, and He has done this also for our good. There's a sixth thing that we should notice, and many of the best Reformed theologians, I think, have understood this very well.
that there is a special grace in creation. We Christians tend to think of the word grace as related to sin. So people might define God's grace as his demerited kindness to sinners. But God didn't become gracious only when man fell, did he? God didn't change and become gracious.
His response to the future tragedy of the fall was the determination to be savingly gracious, but the God who became savingly gracious to us was always gracious. We mustn't think that God before creation was any less gracious. We mustn't think that the God who made Adam and Eve was less gracious when he created them. than when he redeemed them. He was always gracious. He was always kind.
He was always generous. It wouldn't surprise me that some of us, even when we were young children, lay in bed after our parents had put the light out and hoped we were sleeping. And in some childish form or another, we asked ourselves the question, why am I here? Why is anything here? And here is the fundamental answer. Because the God we have is a gracious God.
And then seventhly, what we need to see in Genesis chapter 1 is it's going somewhere. So if I were to ask you, where is Genesis 1 going somewhere? What is the apex? What is the telos? What is the goal of all of these creating acts of God? And it's very clear when you read Genesis chapter 1 that the goal is ourselves. The goal is the creation of man and woman as the image of God.
And even when you read through the passage, there's a rhythm in the passage, isn't there? And then suddenly that rhythm is changed. I wonder if you've ever noticed that. The rhythm is dramatically changed. And the creation of man and woman is put, as it were, into a different kind of order. from the creation of all other things.
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