The Beginning

DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE BEGINNING

Gen 1:1-2

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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.

NIV

What more fitting way to leave the Revelation than to travel to the very beginning. This is a record of the origin of: our universe, the human race, sin, redemption, family life, corruption of society, the nations, the different languages, the Hebrew race plus much more. We are going to see much of which modern society rebuts as being true, especially in the wake of a man named Darwin. He published his “Origin of Species” in 1859 which is claimed as a work of scientific literature. From this work, mankind has sprung into believing Darwin’s theory rather than God’s truth. The main problem we have with this work of scientific literature is it springs from the mind of man. Secondly just how much science did man have in the early 1800’s? It is just because he saw so many different species he just had to believe they all came from one? Whatever all his thoughts, his theories, in all reality they are just that, his thoughts and theories, which mean may not actually be fact. Is it possible that Darwin’s theory of evolution can co-exist with the record of creation? Not knowing the exact time frame of the creation it is possible some might consider that God took thousands, millions of years to evolve the world and all that lives upon it, including us. But we simply cannot co-mingle the truth of scripture with thoughts of a man who states in his own literature, "his views are that of an Agnostic and that science has nothing to do with Christ, except insofar as the habit of scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation." Darwin.  We do have to admit it does come down to what each person believes, but then because someone believes something that does not make it true. Truth is not dependent on what we believe. We could say that we do not believe in the science or principle of gravity, but if we jump we will always come down. We have sufficient evidence to prove this is a truth. A truth which has been established by God in his creation of the world. But because of the work of other scientific minds the second law of thermodynamics states that order cannot arise from chaos, the chaos can only become more chaos. This is referred also as entropy. Darwin would have us believe that order came from chaos all by itself, which the order of this world evolved from some form of chaos, a premortal soup of sorts. Could this be the void, the nothing, the darkness over the surface of the deep, and the waters the Spirit of God was hovering over? Perhaps it is, but this chaos did not evolve into order without the Spirit of God. It is only through the power of God, who by the way established the laws of thermodynamics which man has been able to discover. So we begin. We believe God. We believe the scriptures are God-breathed. We believe God created all that was created. But first we should take a look at God. Who is God? Why do we call him God? The original word used here is 'elohiym, a word to denote many things, a ruler, a judge, angels, gods, a god-like one, the one true God, God. So who is this ‘elohiym, this God? Perhaps it would be best to take the words of one of our ancient scholars who have taken the time to write a somewhat lengthy view of God. Adam Clarke states:

"Many attempts have been made to define the term "GOD". As to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among our ancestors signified not only the Divine Being, now commonly designated by the word, but also "good"; as in their apprehensions it appeared that God and good were correlative terms; and when they thought or spoke of him, they were doubtless led from the word itself to consider him as "THE GOOD BEING," a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence toward his creatures.

A general definition of this great First Cause, as far as human words dare attempt one, may be thus given: The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being: the Being whose purposes and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence; known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can be fully apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived, and who, from his infinite goodness can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind. Reader, such is the God of the Bible; but how widely different from the God of most human creeds and apprehensions!"

(from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

And so we have God and we have the deep, the waters that his Spirit is hovering over. From this all that is, all we see today, all that has ever been, and all that will ever be, will come, and it will come because he spoke it so. This is our beginning.