Heavens and Earth

Previously I highlighted my beliefs concerning, both the eternal nature of God, and the literal demonstration of His expression as The Sole Creator. In this post I want to examine His first act of creation recorded in Genesis 1:1.

The scripture plainly states that the first act of creation was the making of the heavens and the earth. I have heard or read numerous debates regarding the details of that initial act and the possibility of preceding creative works. It is not my intention to expound on all of that here, but I will say that scripture lends itself to the idea that some aspects of existence predate what we know Heaven and Earth to be.

God existed before the beginning. That has already been discussed. In John 4:24 we read the curious words of Christ, "God is spirit, and they that worship Him, worship in spirit and truth." There can be no higher authority on the nature of God than Himself, and no greater communicator of His essence than Himself made flesh, Christ.

Considering creation, that illuminates for us the very real principle that Spirit came before the beginning. In fact, it means that everything we understand about creation is seen or understood through the physical. It is then no small wonder that the Bible tells us to "walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)." The implications being that the spiritual is in fact far more real than the physical.

So what does it mean in Genesis 1:1 that God created the heavens and the earth? It means He created physical existence, as some would refer to it, He crafted physical space itself. It's no great leap when grasping that idea, to begin to understand the awe-inspiring-unequivocal-reverence that the prophets of old showed to The Creator.

What an unimaginable and incredibly powerful God we serve.

God Created

My previous entry discussed the nature of God's beginning-less-ness. In continuing with my reflection on Genesis 1:1 let me look at the concept of creating.

I love to draw. I have all of my life. Some of my earliest memories are moments with pencil, pen, or crayon in hand rendering some childlike fantasy upon paper. I remember once in school being declared "most creative" in my class. Many years have gone by and my desire to create has never faltered nor diminished. In fact, I would say that more and more with each passing season some new creative endeavor begins to take shape within my soul.

Illustration, song, poem, essay, blog, t-shirt, sermon, video, web site, or story; all my efforts to create are the sum total of things that already are. At their root, they are not really creation at all, they are expression. They are expressions of who I am, the things that intrigue me, and the things I love. They are not new.

"God created," is the one and only time those words can be used in a very literal context. His creation was both expression, (The heavens are telling of the glory of God...) and demonstration (... and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. -Psalm 19:1 NASB).

The next time you see a beautiful vista, hear a song bird, or find yourself standing at the mirror, take a good look, you're witnessing the expression and demonstration of The Creator.

In the Beginning

I’m going to spend the next couple of days looking at thevery first verse in the Old Testament.

In the beginning Godcreated the heavens and the earth. - Genesis 1:1

The first four words speak volumes. God was there at that point our feeble finiteminds would call “the beginning”. However, God is beginning-less.

Have you ever tried to wrap your mind around eternity? C.S. Lewis described it in Mere Christianity using a brilliantanalogy dealing with ink on paper. Mortal life is the ink; time is the paper; and God is the one holdingthe pen and paper. Eternity is a weightythought that when contemplated heavily can actually lead to doubt in somemeasure because we really cannot fully grasp it. It is so beyond our capacity to understand.

I once asked a room full of people to define eternity for m eand started getting words like; forever, never ending, and endless, but eternity is more than time, and God is eternal.

That all sounds great in my head or as I read and reread it back to myself, but what kind of implication does it have for me today? If God must come before the “beginning”, He will most certainly endure beyond the “end”. I find great comfort in the notion that in spite of all my failed attempts to comprehend—He still is.

In essence, we can’t really grasp Him with our minds, luckily we can seek Him with our hearts. Knowing that God was before beginning gives me a steadfast faith in His unyielding sovereignty and that can only be a good thing.

If I were to write my own story, it wouldn’t start with “in the beginning Nathan,” that would be preposterously presumptuous; but God did because He was, is, and will be. “In the beginning God” might be some of the most comforting words we could ever hear.