Genesis 1:3-23 Why Did God Do This?

Quotes
Augustine—The Spirit of God who spoke through them did not choose to teach about the heavens to men, as it was of no use for salvation.
Galileo Galilie—The Bible tells how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.
Albert Einstein—The function of setting up goals and passing statements of value transcends the domain of science.

Waltke: …Genesis 1 is concerned with ultimate cause, not proximation. …When the psalmist says “You knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psa. 139:13), he is not intending to comment on genetics or immediate cause. To suggest otherwise is to distort the text.
What, then, is the genre of the Genesis creation account? Following Henri Bocher, we can describe the creation account as an artistic, literary representation of creation intended to fortify God’s covenant with creation. It represents truths about origins in anthropomorphic language so that the covenant community may have a proper worldview and be wise unto salvation. It represents the world as coming into being through God’s proclamation so that the world depends on his will, purpose, and presence.


2nd Sermon: WHY DID HE CREATE THE WORLD THE WAY HE DID? To show us who he is!

WHY?
Why should Creation Week mean anything to me? Why should we take time to understand it?
1. The story claims that God created the world by his word; does that not mean it is yet under his control?
2. The world I see is broken. The original construction of the universe, the architectural drawing, offers us the divine plan for its reconstruction, by his Word.
3. The creation of the world by His Word was described to Israel by Moses as God was forming the nation by His spoken Word.
4. The creation of the church is following a similar pattern, by His Word.
5. If God did in fact create the universe, that changes the way I see that world and my place in it.

What happened in the Creative Week? How might that impact my worldview?

A. The importance of Paradigms.
i. Why does all this exist?
Premodern view: invisible forces have produced this dark, dangerous place; dark means are required to deal with dark threats.
Modern view: by chance, don’t read anything into it, nor out of it! It’s just there; deal with it.
Postmodern view: who knows? Enjoy the mystery; just don’t tell me that you have figured this all out and that we must all see things as you do! (Jean-François Lyotard)

ii. What role does perspective play?
[cycle paradigm-shift graphics]

ii. God confronts other paradigms and expects us to do the same.
2Cor. 10:3-5 For though we live as human beings, we do not wage war according to human standards, for the weapons of our warfare are not human weapons, but are made powerful by God for tearing down strongholds. We tear down arguments and every arrogant obstacle that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obey Christ.

1. Other religions.
2. Secularism.
3. Consumerism.

iii. God offers us a very old paradigm that is new to us:
1. Mercy.
2. Justice.
3. Restoration.
4. Peace.

Central Idea: The Days of Creation are an explanation of God’s nature, a statement of God’s intentions, and a polemic against the religions of that day and this.
They serve us in the same manner: see and understand what is there, live out of this paradigm, which explains our lives, and subverts our culture’s paradigm. This is the pathway to reinventing the world, restoring justice…evangelism.

Transition: “in the beginning” in defiance of the world’s religions, which are cyclical.
Days of Creation: what they are and what they represent.

WHAT?
B. God creates and affirms what he did: “it is good.”
He allows us to interpret and understand his work.
What is good/what is not good.
Our eyes and minds must discern.

HOW DOES GOD ACCOMPLISH THESE INTENTIONS WITHIN CREATION WEEK?
Central Idea: The Days of Creation are a snapshot of God’s nature, a statement of God’s intentions, and a polemic against the religions of the day.

C. God implements his intentions through Creation Week:
1. God reveals His nature by creating the world.

Rom. 1:20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. NASB95

a. God declares his timelessness.
1. He was before time.
“Genesis begins with breathtaking comprehensiveness. It commences with the limits of time (“in the beginning”), and proceeds immediately to the limits of space (“the heavens and the earth”). …the introductory and concluding statements of ‘chaos’ and ‘rest,’ form a complementary pair.” Laurence Turner, Genesis, p. 19

2. He has no ancestors.
New sections of Genesis…”These are the descendants of…” (5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12, 13, 19; 36:1; 37:2), and all human characters in Genesis 1:11 have genealogical relationships with one another. Yet here, God, the major charcter in Genesis 1-11, is given neither toledot formula nor genealogy. The concluding formula (2:4a) refers to the toledot of the ‘heavens and earth,’ not God. With no family tree, God is the unique character in the story. He transcends the creative and procreative processes, as the creator of the “universe.” Laurence Turner

APPLICATION: God’s timelessness, an antidote to my fear of mortality, as I am anchored in him.

b. God demonstrates his Providence, his orderly nature.
…An integral part of God’s creating…is the organizing of the cosmos. For example, the separating of day from night, waters above from waters below, dry land from seas. Before this separation the earth was an undifferentiated mass. …as order increases with each successive day, chaos is left further and further behind. Laurence Turner

i. The intricate design evident in the Creative Week describes the careful precision, the harmony and balance of God’s work.
Waltke, p.57—“The creation account is divided into two triads, which contrast with the unformed (tohu) and unfilled (bohu) state of the earth when the story begins.”

FORM [versus tohu] FILL [versus bohu]
Day Day
1 Light (1:3-5) 4 Lights (1:14-19)
2 Firmament (1:6-8) 5 Inhabitants (1:20-34)
sky birds
seas fish
3 Dry land (1:9-10) 6 Land animals (1:24-25)
Vegetation (1:11-13) Human beings (1:26-31)

Waltke, p. 57
The first triad separates the formless chaos into three static spheres. In the second triad, the spheres that house and shelter life are filled with the moving forms of sun, moon, and living creatures. The inhabitants of the second triad rule over the corresponding spheres: the sun and the moon rule the darkness, while humanity (head over everything) rules the earth.

APPLICATION: God’s providence, a comfort in my fear of chaos.

ii. The God who implemented the creation can be trusted to sustain all it contains.
Cf. Cassuto; Whereas the forces of nature are often deities in the ancient Near Eastern creation myths, here all derive from and are subject to God’s word.

iii. The God who created the world proves his overarching purposes are good.
1. When God later formed Israel, he used the same means; Israel received the Word of God, which defined the nation.
“Later, when Israel received “the Word of the Lord,” they knew it was that creative word. Should they not obey this powerful word, as all creation had? Could they not trust it? Ross, Creation and Blessing, p. 102

2. Creation of the world symbolizes the work of God in our redemption; he transforms chaos and darkness into good and worthy.

Ross, p. 102--…God transformed the chaos into the cosmos, turned darkness into light, and altered that which was unprofitable to that which was good, holy, and worth blessing. This direction in the passage parallels the direction of the message in the Pentateuch as a whole, in which God redeems Israel from the darkness and chaos of Egypt and leads them on toward blessing and rest. The pattern of God’s redemptive work thus first begins to unfold at creation.

APPLICATION: God’s care and order in creation persuades me that his Word can bring order and personal care into my life.

CREATIVE WEEK:
Day One: Light & Darkness

Gen. 1:3-5 God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! God saw that the light was good, so God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” There was evening, and there was morning, marking the first day.

Waltke: Day--…literal twenty-four-hours periods, extended ages or epochs, and structures of a literary framework designed to illustrate the orderly nature of God’s creation and to enable the covenant people to mime the Creator. The first two interpretations pose scientific and textual difficulties. The third interpretation is consistent with the text’s emphasis on theological, rather than scientific, issues. The presentation of creation through “days” reveals God’s sovereign ordering of creation and God’s care to accommodate himself to humanity in finite and understandable terms. God’s decision to create the cosmos through successive days, not instantaneous fiat, serves as a paradigm for his development of humanity through successive eras of history.

Polemic: Time has its limits; God does not.

Turner: The separation of light from darkenss initiates the temporal rhythm of ‘evening and morning’, forming the first day. Once ‘darkness’ is set in its place, given a function, and named “Night,” it ceases to be an element of chaos. Creation, therefore, involves not only the advent of a new element (‘light’), but also the ‘domestication’ of previously existing chaos.

Laf—implication: human humility in the face of our limited grasp or control of either space or time.

Ross: Light—It is natural, physical light; but it is much more. …light is the realm of God and the righteous; darkness is the domain of the Evil One and death. …when God brought the judgment of darkness on Egypt, Israel enjoyed light in their dwellings [Exod. 10:21-23]. When Israel followed the Lord’s light through the wilderness by night, they were assured of his presence. When they were instructed to keep the lamps burning in the Holy Place, they knew that there was something symbolic about that light. In the act of creating light in the darkened arena of the world, God thus also manifested his nature and will.


Day Two: Sky

Gen. 1:6-8 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water. So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

Pagan mythology considered the heavens to be the domain of the high gods. According to Genesis, however, God not only created this domain but also controlled it by making a division in it. the theological significance of this teaching involves Israel’s compliance with all the divisions and distinctions he made in his creation. Ross: p. 109f.

Polemic: God controls the supposed domain of the pagan gods; he controls our “heavens” as well. Our domain is that of our minds, our supposed control of our lives and of nature through trust in technology (our selves and our smartest neighbours).

Day Three: Plants & Trees
Gen. 1:9-13 God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear.” It was so. God called the dry ground “land” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good. God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” It was so. The land produced vegetation–plants yielding seeds according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. There was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

Turner: … Because the earth is ordered it may now participate in the ongoing act of creation by itself ‘bringing forth’ vegetation (1:11).

Ross: shift from bringing order to bringing fullness.
In contrast to corrupt accounts of fertility, the text of Genesis simply but powerfully reports that God gathered the seas together and decreed that the fertile earth produce vegetation. Fertility is a self-perpetuating process decreed by God, a created capacity from the true Lord of life. …Vegetation does not result from some pagan God’s springtime ascendancy through depraved ritual. It results from the majestic Word of the sovereign Lord of creation.

Waltke: Good—with the life-support systems now in place, God evaluates creation and twice declares it good (1:10,12).

Polemic: The sea is not to be worshiped, but its Maker.
Fertility does not come by sacrifices to the gods, but by the gift of God.
Potency comes by his potent Word.


Day Four: Sun, Moon, Stars
Day & Night

Gen. 1:14-19 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years, and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” It was so. God made two great lights–the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also. God placed the lights in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth, to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

Laf: As the earth is now perpetually fertile, so the sun, moon and stars now perpetually provide light…

Polemic: the Egyptian sun-god (most religions worshiped the sun); just the ‘greater light’, casually described.
Astrology: the stars have no control over our destinies.

Day Five: Water creatures, birds

Gen. 1:20-23 God said, “Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” God created the great sea creatures and every living and moving thing with which the water swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” There was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.


Turner: p. 23--…a new element occurs on the fifth day: God blesses the creatures of sea and air.

Ross: …declares that life came into being by the direct command of God.

Polemic: the great sea creatures worshiped by fearful pagans are dismissed.
The great sea itself does not have the power for spontaneous generation.


CONCLUSION:
The world exists because God wanted us to know that He created all things, that he rules all that he created, and that his work is our work.
1. By His Word.
2. By His Will.
3. Ex nihilo

All that we see and much that we cannot has been carefully created and personally placed in a setting that highlights the person and nature of God himself.

Conclusion: Gospel
So, what will we do with our knowledge of this account?
Weigh it against other paradigms.
Given thoughtful review, I suggest that you will conclude with me that this account explains away all others.
The claim, then, is on our minds, our wills, our hearts.
The Word of God was made human. He was named Jesus; he lived his childhood in Nazareth, walked out his adulthood in Palestine, surrendered his life outside Jerusalem, was buried in a tomb near the city, but as creator of the universe overcame death after three days. He ascended to the throne of his father and rules all his creation from there now.
He challenged his followers to complete the work he began, by the same power he launched the restoration of the world, his Holy Spirit.