2018.09.17 Hopewell @Home ▫ Genesis 1:1

Read Genesis 1:1

Questions for Littles: When does this verse start? Who is already there? What did He create? From what did He create them? 

From the Scripture for this week’s sermon, we learn the terms upon which we may study and think about the origins of all things.

First, it is impossible for us to reason from the evidence of what we see in the creation backward to the process by which it was created. The word for create, here is בָּרָ֣א (bara). There are many words in Hebrew for “create”—words meaning to form, cut, build, arrange, and make from other things. But this particular “creation” word is only ever used of God. It means to create from nothing.

We are very creative, but we must use materials that exist already, and even the ideas in our minds are built upon things that we have already experienced. We just don’t have a point of reference for what it means to create from nothing. We must also remember that the creation itself was cursed for man’s sake in the Fall (Gen 3:17), and that in Genesis 8:22 God restored to the created order a continuity that had been disrupted in the flood.

We simply do not have access to either the process by which “bara” happened or the way creation was before Genesis 8:22.

Second, without any valid basis in the created things for drawing conclusions about the creation process, we are left only with eyewitness accounts. And there is only one Eyewitness, and the account that He has given us is the Scripture.

“In the beginning, God.” Full stop. He is the only One there. In fact, He does not create man until day six. Therefore, we are entirely dependent upon Him to tell us what happened.

Reading the Bible, like other acts of worship, is practice at not being God. Are we willing to submit? Are we willing to acknowledge that God alone can tell us about how creation happened? Will we be thankful that He has told us about it? Or will we, without valid reason, decide to formulate our own theories?

How would you respond to a sincere believer who tries to convince you of theistic evolution?

Suggested Songs: ARP19A “The Skies Above Declare” or TPH250 “I Sing the Almighty Power of God”