"The Story Of Creation Is A Song Of Praise" (Audio) - Oct 3, 2004 Text: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31 & 2:1-3
Title: “The Story of Creation Is a Song of Praise” Text: Selected
September 26, 2004 Larry Kirk
THE STORY OF CREATION IS A SONG OF PRAISE
Something about the way the Bible tells the story of creation in Genesis 1 is particularly important to understand. The creation story is not written as a myth. It's telling us the truth about the creation of the world. On the other hand, it's not just presented as a dry essay on the facts of creation. It is history celebrated in lyrical and poetic form. Because of that, the Genesis account tells us a lot of things but doesn't tell us everything. More important, it tells us what it tells us not only to inform us but also, and especially, to inspire us.
Our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” is like that. It is a song written about something that happened in history, but it's a song written to inspire us. During the War of 1812 the British navy bombarded Fort McHenry at Baltimore. When we sing about the rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting in air, we're singing about something that really happened.
But if you just read the words to “The Star Spangled Banner,” you would know it is a song even if you had never heard the music. One way you would know is because of the repetition. The chorus is repeated over and over through the song. Even without music, you see the words and you know this is not just an historical essay. It is a song. And you understand that the purpose of the song is not to give an exact account of how many ships were in the British fleet, how they were deployed, or what kind of rockets and bombs were used. The purpose is to celebrate the victory and inspire pride in and loyalty to our country.
The story of creation is like that. It's full of repetition. Over and over you read “it was evening and it was morning.” Over and over you read “God said . . . and it was so.” Over and over, six times, one for each day of creation, you read “and God saw that it was good.” If you are writing an essay, you don't repeat the same words again and again, but if you are writing a song, you do. The story of creation in Genesis is a song of praise.
Don't let it bother you that Genesis 1 doesn't answer all your questions. That's not the purpose of Genesis 1. The purpose of the first chapter on Genesis is not to detail the method of creation but to reveal its meaning and celebrate its majesty. The story of creation is a song of praise that tells us we can live in this world with great faith in God, because the God who works in our lives is the creator who made the world.
God Is a Good Creator
Genesis 1 opens with the words “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It ends, in verse 31, with the words “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.” This not only tells us that God is the creator of our world but that He is a good creator, for the creation itself is good. The story of creation reveals His artistry and goodness in creating a good place for us to live and calling us into a life of faith and worship..
The first verse invites us into the story with a summary statement . . .
God Created the Whole Universe
In the Hebrew Scriptures, when the Bible links heaven and earth together in a statement, it forms a familiar figure of speech called a merism. A merism is a statement of opposites in order to indicate totality. If you tell someone, “I think about you day and night," you mean, "I think about you all the time." When the Bible says God created the heavens and the earth, it means He created everything.
That is exactly what the Bible says in other places. Revelation 4:11 reads: "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." It is right to honor and worship God because He is the awesome creator of everything in the universe.
God Created a World of Order and Fullness
Verse 2 sets the stage for the story that follows with a dramatic picture of the world at the beginning. It says, “The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.” The words “formless and empty” are interesting. In Hebrew they are the words tohu wa-bohu.
Bruce Waltke, the world-famous Old Testament scholar who has been here to preach for us several times, says they are somewhat like the English “helter skelter.” They describe a state of existence that is chaotic and uninhabitable. God wants us to picture in our minds this dark, shapeless, empty, chaotic world, and He wants us to see where He going to take it and what He's going to do with it.
At the end of the story of creation, God has brought about completeness, beauty, and fruitfulness. He has ruled over the chaotic deep, brought light and life and goodness and order. At the end, God delights in the goodness of His world and rests from His creative work. That movement from chaotic darkness to beautiful completion is what frames the whole creation story.
Embedded in the story is a powerful picture of how God can work in all of our lives. Verse 2 says, “The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,” but the Spirit of God was present, “hovering over the waters.” The Hebrew for “hovering” is not a word that is used of a cloud just floating along. It's the word that is used of a mother eagle or dove hovering over her young, caring for them. The Holy Spirit is pictured hovering over the unformed earth, ready to bring light and life as God begins the work of creation.
The actual work begins with a word. In verse 2, God says, “Let there be light, and there was light.” With those words God begins the six days of creation.
Christian scholars have different opinions and offer different arguments for whether these are six normal days of twenty-four hours each or they represent longer periods of time, or even if the Hebrew word “day” is used as a sort of analogy by which God's creative work days correspond to our days and express a real sequence and structure that compares to our days but are somehow different than ours because He is God. I know solid Christian scholars who differ on those details, but they all agree that the six days of creation are significant because they reveal the majesty of creation's order and fullness, and they establish the pattern that is reflected in our week.
The six days of creation fall into two sets of three days each. In the first three days, God formed what was unformed. In the second three days, He filled what was empty.
1. On the first day, God separated the light from the darkness, forming night and day.
2. On the second day, God separated the waters above from the waters below, forming sea and sky.
3. On the third day, God formed the dry land by separating it from the water.
Then, having formed the environment, He filled it with inhabitants.
4. On the fourth day, God filled day and night with sun, moon, and stars.
5. On the fifth day, God filled the waters below until they teemed with fish and sea creatures, and He filled the skies above with all kinds of birds.
6. On the sixth day, God filled the land with animals and created man in His own image, male and female in His own likeness.
At the end of the sixth day, Scripture says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.”
Have you noticed that the biblical story of creation is full of the voice of God, the words of God, and the thoughts of God? He is speaking throughout the story. Every day He speaks things into existence, He speaks words and gives names to His creation, He looks and evaluates the work and tells us, “It is good.” It's no accident that the Bible says there is a voice and someone speaking through the whole story. It's telling us that there is a heart behind the work of creation, expressing itself and making a good world in which we can live in relationship to Him.
Throughout the story of creation, as God speaks He looks at the world He is making and then tells us, “It is good.”
“It is good.” The light, the seas, the dry land, the plants and trees, the sun, moon, and stars set like signs in the sky, the sea creatures large and small, all the birds that fill the air, the land animals thriving and filling the earth, humankind, male and female, created in God's image and commissioned to make babies and rule the earth, living in God's creation and caring for His creation, God looks at it all and tells us it is very good.
God is delighting in the goodness of the beauty and diversity of His creation. God is Himself good, and His goodness overflows into and is expressed in the goodness and abundance of creation. That's why Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Maybe some would look at this and say, “This isn't scientific. After all there is no explanation of the physics of the thing, there is nothing said about the implications of the measurements of cosmic background, radiation, and lots of other things that scientists have been investigating. Therefore I cannot accept this as true. “
In answer, what we should realize when we read the story of creation is that it is possible to give an absolutely true answer to a question that does not fill in all the technical details that science might want to explore. Suppose a very young child asks her mother, “Mommy, how did I get here?” The mother could try to give a detailed and technical answer that would begin with the human sex organs and move on to the biological process of conception and gestation, labor and delivery. Or the mother, if she was uncomfortable with that could say, “A stork brought you and put you on the doorstep.”
But when you think about it, neither of those two approaches is good. One is far too coldly technical for the child. She wouldn't be able to understand it. And it wouldn't tell her anything about how loved and wanted she was. On the other hand, to make up something about the stork bringing her isn't good either. It's just not true.
But maybe there is another way the mother can answer her daughter's question, “Where did I come from?” Maybe she could say, “God made us so that when a husband and wife love each other, as your father and I do, they can have a baby together. God gives them that child and places the child in a safe place near its mother’s heart where it can be safe and warm until the time comes for it to be born. That's how God brought you into our lives.” Now, is that a scientific answer? No. It is a true answer? Yes.
In fact, for those who believe in God, that is not only a true answer but a better answer. It's better than a technical and scientific description of the biological process that leaves out the plan of God and the love of parents. In fact as the daughter grows older, that mother can add a fuller understanding of sex and birth to what she has told her. She doesn't have to change the story. She just has to add details as the daughter matures.
I think the story of creation in Genesis 1 is like that. This is God's' answer to His children when they ask, “How did the world begin?” It tells us that the story of creation is the story of a good God powerfully and lovingly creating a good place for us to live.
When you look at this world, see it for what it really is. The beauty and order of this planet reflects the glory and goodness of God and calls us to a life of faith and worship. Sin has warped our experience of the world, but the goodness and glory of God still shine through in the majesty of His creation. This world is not God. Don't worship it or anything in it. But enjoy it, appreciate it, and worship God for it. Let the reflection of the majesty of God in the goodness of creation lead you into a life of faith. Psalm 121:1-2 says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills--where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
The Bible tells us that we should live in this world with great faith in God because He is a good creator. But it also tells us that we should live in this world with great faith in God because . . .
God Is a Worthy Ruler
You see God's kingship, His lordship, evident all through the creation story. His voice speaking into our world not only shows us that there is a heart behind creation, but it also shows us that God is giving direction, expressing His will, and ruling over all the powers of heaven and earth.
God Expresses His Kingship with Awesome Authority
There is a pattern to each day of creation.
1. First there is an announcement: “And God said.”
2. Second, a command: “Let there be.”
3. Third, a report: “It was so.”
4. Fourth, an evaluation: “God saw that it was good.”
In each case God's will is expressed in God's word, all nature obeys, and it is good.
So God not only rules with awesome authority, but also . . .
God Establishes His Kingdom with Life-giving Goodness
The rule of God brings the Kingdom of God, and where the Kingdom of God is present it is very good. If we want to understand the Bible, we have to understand the idea of the kingdom of God.
What is the Kingdom of God? It's what you see at the end of the creation story. God's people are in the place God has created, enjoying God's presence, under the guidance of God's precepts.
Those are the four core characteristics of the Kingdom of God that will be woven through the whole story of the Bible. The details will change through the flow of history, but the Kingdom of God is continually characterized as . . .
God's people
in God's place
enjoying God's presence
under the guidance of God's precepts.
Why is this so important? The Bible tells us.
• It's the Kingdom of God that was present at creation.
• It's the Kingdom of God that was challenged and to some degree lost by human rebellion and sin.
• It's the Kingdom of God that is carried forward through the particular history of God and people that becomes the focus of the Bible.
• It's the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God that is confirmed and secured by
Christ in His dying for our sins and rising again as our Lord.
• It's the Kingdom of God that will come and be consummated on earth at the end of this age.
The story of creation not only shows us that God is a good creator but also that He is a worthy ruler. At the end of the story, the Kingdom of God is present on earth, and it is good.
Genesis 2:2-3 says, “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.” The rest with which the creation story ends is not a symbol of God's need to recover but a recognition of the completeness of His work. In verse 2, God's Spirit was hovering over a chaotic, unshaped world. Now, at the end of the story, God has ruled over the chaotic deep, brought light and life and beauty and order, delighted in the goodness of His world, and rested from His creative work.
The story of creation pictures the work God can do in our lives. Did you know that? This is not just a theory that I have. The Bible teaches this clearly.
Christ coming into our world is like the beginning of a new creation. The book of John introduces the story His coming by talking about the creation of the world and then saying (this is in John 1:5) that in Christ's coming into the world “the light shines in the darkness.” The Scriptures are telling us that the world had become a place of chaotic darkness, but the birth of Christ was the beginning of a new work of creation in which He brings light and order and life to the world. The new creation will reveal not only the majesty of God's power but also the depth of His love. God the Son will have to go to the cross, suffer at our hands, and die to pay for our sins so that we can be forgiven and reconciled to our creator. Our creator will become our redeemer. Christ comes to begin a new work of creation.
Christ coming into your life is like the beginning of a new creation. Second Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
The Bible is saying there is too much tohu wa bohu in all of our hearts. Too much chaos and empty darkness. What happens when God gets hold of us with His grace is that He does what He did in the creation of the world. Your soul becomes a little universe in which God works a work of re-creation. God's Spirit moves, and God speaks His words, and your heart begins to be formed and filled with light and life.
It doesn't matter how dark and chaotic and empty your heart is or seems to be. God can bring light and life and goodness. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The work of God in our hearts, like the creation of the world, is not completed in an instant. It unfolds according to His plan in a series of successive stages, each stage building on the work that He has done before. That's the way it is in life.
God is at work, and He is a good creator, a worthy ruler, and an awesome Savior. His work of redemption is also a work of re-creation that will continue until the final rest when the work of redemptive re-creation is completed in our lives. And it will be beautifully completed, because the same God who made the world is at work in the lives of His people today.
What then should we do? Francis of Assisi said it well:
Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!