Published: June 11, 2023 | Speaker: Tim Freitag | Series: God as Creator - Part 5 | Scripture: Genesis 1-2
Transcript
View Full Transcript →
0:02
tackled for me the remainder of that question out of the sort of first half of Genesis 1 verse 2 the question of the formless and void
0:12
and I want to move us along a little bit this morning we do eventually want to get out of Genesis and on to some other aspects of aspects of where the scripture
0:23
this course is on God as Creator but this is as we've mentioned before obviously the foundation point the point that when we think about God as Creator this is where it begins and this is where his self-revelation begins so this
0:34
is of course where we want to to tackle it I'm going to start by reading a couple of verses out of Genesis 1 um I haven't decided how far we're going to
0:45
go this morning I don't we're not going to make it through the whole chapter this morning and do all of the days unfortunately but try to to just give us the scene here Genesis 1 1 in the beginning God created
0:57
the heavens and the Earth and the Earth was formless and desolate emptiness or formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep or as Chuck said last week the abyss surface of the abyss
1:08
and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness and God called
1:20
the light day in the darkness he called night there was evening and there was mourning one day and then God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters God made the expanse and
1:32
separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse and it was so and God called the expanse Heaven There was evening there was morning a second day I'm gonna stop there for now
1:51
want to pick up here the second half of verse 2 where we see the spirit of God hovering over the surface of the waters or hovering over the surface of the Abyss we come to this condition as we
2:01
begin what was traditionally thought of as the creation account with that formlessness that void that Darkness over the surface of the Abyss there is a chaos and an abyss as a
2:14
backdrop to this Paradigm of creation that we're going to pick up in verses 3 and following we start off with this contrast in some respects um and the the
2:27
terminology in uh chapter 1 verse two gives us these three conditions that we see here in this um this beginning um I'm probably going to put these in
2:38
the wrong order but we see that there's
3:03
emptiness in some respects so one verse 2 gives us these three fairly negative connotations that we're seeing here and in the following parts of the creation story each of these
3:14
conditions is going to be answered by God's counterpart we are going to see Darkness answered with light we're going to see chaos answered with order and we're going to see that emptiness that
3:25
formlessness filled with teeming Abundant Life and so God is going to address all three of these it's part of why we have this I think in one verse two to show that contrast as God exerts
3:37
his authority over it and establishes his own organizational principles um I was hoping that these would be slightly more visible at the front this
3:47
morning but we didn't have time to set up the TV stands some of you are going to have to look that direction but we can see the way that these sort of break down over the days of creation that we
3:57
have light the creation of um light the separation of light and darkness the naming of day and night in verse one is addressing then this aspect of Darkness
4:17
we have in days two through four we have the separation of the waters from the waters the waters below the oceans the waters above and the heavens the appearance of dry land and vegetation creation of sun moon and stars which establishes the seasons and days and
4:31
years as we read in the The Creation account that he set these things to delineate those factors of time so we find then order established well I'll do
4:41
it this way
5:01
and then finally in days five through six we find the filling in of the waters below with the fish the waters above with life in terms of birds and the filling of the land with living things and then finally capped off with the
5:12
creation of man in the image of God so you have that Capstone set on here so we find life answering this emptiness and formlessness
5:23
and formlessness and that life abundantly
5:36
all right so as we move through forward through the creation story a narrative that God gives to us we recognize as it's revealed to Moses and the way he's setting this up that that condition
5:48
that we find in one verse two is critical for what God is going to do as he lays out his order his parameters his own um will upon that new creation that he
6:01
is making here it's often noted of course as I think most of you recognize that the sun moon and stars don't appear until days uh day four in fact a couple of weeks weeks ago
6:14
Lizette came up to me after one of the lessons because I had a picture of stars up on one of my slides and she said what day was that supposed to be because the the Stars don't appear until day four so
6:25
it had been after that but you know it sticks out in the mind of an astute reader doesn't it that we have light created initially and then we find not until day
6:35
um four is it organized into particular vessels the Sun the moon as a reflector the stars that are that are placed throughout the rest of the cosmos
6:46
it stands out in our in our brain in our um you know there's a context of the
6:57
um the existence of the Sun in the context where Moses is is receiving this word and giving it to his people there is the um the context there
7:10
the mythologies that went around even now we have um sort of Quasi science that will tell us I don't know how many of you have heard this recently I've heard it a number of times recently in in
7:20
supposedly scientific contexts talking about the life-giving power of the sun right because all of the energy that we receive here all the vegetation that then becomes the food for the animals
7:31
all of that energy input comes from the sun we have the great life-giving power of the Sun in some ways it Harkens right back to the same kind of um
7:42
problems and and issues that we see in the much less scientifically literate uh Egyptian culture that Moses was bringing
7:52
the um instruction to the people in they were worshiping the son as a God I mean we know they had raw right as the Sun God Ra in Egypt and they worshiped that
8:03
Sun as some sort of life-giving energy and as this you know it sort of wraps up we don't have to go down through their mythology but mythology but there are so many ways both then and now
8:14
that man has placed the Sun at the center of his Universe even those astronomers who recognize the um you know larger context we place the
8:27
Sun as this you know obviously we would have physical issues without the light and warmth of the sun scientifically that is true and accurate but I think part of
8:38
the reason why we're seeing this is the question we're addressing
9:02
in the creation account what is God doing with that and I think one major answer to that is just what we've talked about here in this context which is he specifically it's a
9:14
um it's a denouncement it's a a polemic against the pagan context that he's revealing this to Moses not both it is literally true but
9:25
it is also useful to them to say the light existed before that sun that is being worshiped being held up as some sort of deity in and of itself and so God is answering this
10:17
that light exists by God's power independent of its vessels there are immediate sources of light that we can look at and that astronomers Delight to to observe I mean I don't know how many of you have seen
10:27
um all of the things that are being chattered about now that we have the James Webb Space Telescope and how we're going to see right back to the origins of the cosmos because of the way light travels we can look right back to the
10:38
edge of the the expansion of the Big Bang and as always happens with these things man has by the wisdom God given him built a very sophisticated scientific
10:49
instrument to prove himself wrong because all of the stuff they're getting back from the edges of the universe they've all said oh uh the theory isn't holding up based on
11:00
the distances and the light and the there are some problems that we're observing now that we can see that far um not any surprise to us necessarily but the the point being God has put this
11:12
out there God made the light independent of the immediate vessels of the Sun or the stars or the reflection of the Moon and it it demonstrates
11:24
um his power over these things it it condemns those who are serving created things rather than the Creator as we read at the end of Romans 1 right those
11:36
who are are holding up the creation as the as the deity rather than the Creator it's an intentional refutation of the cosmological views of Moses's day Moses received this in that Egyptian
11:48
cosmological context and God is both describing the true reality of his creation he's also by that dismantling
11:59
intentionally the cosmology that was handed down in the mythologies um there's a quote from Bruce waltke's commentary on Genesis he says since the
12:11
sun is only later introduced as the immediate cause of light the chronology of the text emphasizes that God is the ultimate source of light the disk chronalization probably
12:22
functions as a polemic against Pagan religions which worship the creation or creatures not the Creator upon Whom The Creation depends
12:32
Creation depends and so all right God reveals this to us this light is several days ahead of the sun and moon and the independence of
12:44
um with this context of those vessels of this the sources or the reflectors
12:56
it is and so as we pick up and and Chuck briefly touched on this last week at the end of um some of the things he was summarizing the giving of light
13:09
regardless of its vessels I'm going to erase this part here you know I just said the light shows up a couple of days
13:30
ahead of when we see the sun well how does that work if we don't have the sunset how are we getting the days but we recognize that light is a descriptor of time and Chuck sort of picked this up a little bit last week
13:41
that when when we have light moving through the universe you then have something that is delineating that is encapsulating that is giving some Mark by which you can measure time
14:07
so the the use of the word darkness in both of those is um the same well so so the word that was talked about last week is the
14:20
um the deep is the word Abyss the darkness here is is um let me go back here
14:35
so the formless and and void or formless and desolate as I have it here in The New American Standard that's the tohu Baba who the formless and desolate the darkness in both of these verses is
14:45
fairly generic term for dark for for the absence of light
15:10
the answer is partially yes because one of the things that's happening here and this is skipping ahead a little bit this morning but morning but we're going to see as we move through the rest of the scriptures the way that scripture uses aspects of light and dark
15:23
as metaphor for good and evil and that's been something that has shown up in in human thoughts and understandings and fictions for
15:33
fictions for basically since the dawn of time because we see that used in scripture this separation of light and darkness and one of the things here is
15:43
we just talked about it briefly what is Darkness but the absence of light and so he's separating light from Darkness because he's calling light into
15:56
existence and so in some sense he is um he is permitting or organizing dark so when we see God begin this this phase
16:07
here the world is or the the world the created order is not entirely suffused with light Darkness remains in some capacity he has not banished Darkness to
16:20
non-existence so he has ordered and organized the darkness to his own end to his own purpose and we're going to see that as we move forward a little bit we're going to touch on a couple other verses that that address the aspect of light and
16:31
darkness and even some of the ways we see the scripture address light and darkness in the mind or in the soul of man so on the one hand
16:42
speaking purely materially we know that darkness is not inherently evil um I'm interested in plants and botany and
16:52
things plants actually need a certain amount of dark or they cease to function you know they burn themselves out they need an on and off period same thing with people most
17:03
of us unless you work you know third shift or something most of us are prefer to sleep in the dark um because God has ordered and directed his Universe in this regard we have
17:15
evening we have morning the the existence of night time is not in and of itself evil but we recognize as we're told later in scripture there is a
17:25
contrast drawn I mean you can even think of just in the Proverbs there's a contrast drawn between the things that man does in the dark and the things he does in the light so
17:35
it's complicated is the answer to your question but but here specifically God is calling into existence light and he has not completely banished the
17:48
darkness but he is organizing it by creating light creating light so he is now as Ely points out it is denoting time for us we have we're told
17:59
already um you know days
18:09
here at the end of day one it says and there was evening and there was morning one day one day okay so he's already organized these units of time even though he has not yet set the lights over them to establish
18:20
those as he will for the long term so yes light denotes time and there's a larger uh and we probably don't have time for all this today when we talk
18:31
about light and we talk about the use of light in God's created order there's a there's a very interesting metaphysical sense in which light is the bridge between space and time
18:42
and time I mean even now you ask I mean you're you're a chemist by trade is light a particle or is it a wave I mean scientists look at light it's it
18:53
remains in Oddity we don't really know how to quantify it per se Chuck talked a little bit about Einstein's theory of relativity and the the way that you can
19:03
write that out as E equals m c squared and reconfigure that you can you can describe conversion of matter and energy and a lot of those things deal with light and the speeds at which it moves and sometimes the speed isn't actually a
19:15
constant and there's all of this stuff that now we observe in the cosmos that God created but the point that it all resolves back to is that it was established independent of that uh
19:30
by God's power so he is using it for all of these purposes again I erased our three paradigms here but these ideas of light
19:43
order and life I mean all of them are necessary and all of them are in some sense bound up with the creation of this
19:56
um light here yeah it would be LOL can you can short hand it that way if
20:07
you want you want so yeah I mean light is an oddity to us it remains an oddity to us in in science it's a unique heart of God's Cosmos
20:20
um we have in our Modern Life and I'm very thankful for it on this cloudy morning we have lots of artificial lights okay we we flick switches we have light bulbs we stare at rectangles of light for
20:32
significant portions of the day the way we think about light and darkness is impacted by these things in a way that it would not have been for ancient man so when we talk about reading things in
20:44
the context in which they were given the separation of light and darkness would have really mattered to an ancient man right when you had only so many hours of
20:55
the day to get your stuff done and at night time if it's not a full moon it's pretty dark you didn't have a lot of I mean you could have a campfire you could have a torch but that only pushed that
21:06
edge of that Darkness back so far it's not like it is for us full of light pollution so the idea of of this contrast with Darkness the light was
21:16
prized and in some sense mysterious to them not that they didn't understand how to create artificial light you understand what I'm saying though the impact of artificial light on our
21:27
thinking needs to be examined or at least taken into account when we talk about how would have the the Israelites the the Hebrew people received the message about light and darkness and
21:38
and why is it that the Egyptians would have worshiped the sun I mean you think about um I mean man worship the light of the sun because it was fundamentally important we just talked about this I
21:48
certainly don't want the sun to go out it is important for us in the way that God has organized his creation it does input the energy onto the Earth it does
22:00
feed the plants those things are true it is fundamentally important to life but the point that we're getting at this morning is why is why does the light
22:13
proceed the vessels that it is then organized into the independence of light from those immediate sources has an eschatological component as well and this is probably all we're going to get through this
22:24
morning this concept of light free from its linkage to the material world the fact that it is existing here free of those vessels that it will later be organized into it touches to both the
22:36
intellectual we use the term enlightened when we talk about intellect and spiritual illuminated these spiritual aspects of man light comes first from
22:48
the mind and hand of God and it's first in order of creation so God is establishing it as the first principle there the first thing that he's setting out light is fundamental to man's
22:59
comprehension in the natural world I mean we need light for so many things we just talked about the the telescope that we're using to bring in light from
23:10
the far reaches of the universe we use light to see things to understand them to study them if you want to look at something under a microscope the vast majority of microscopes unless you're using an electron scanning one they're
23:22
using some sort of backlight to make things visible light is fundamental to the way we understand the world you think about some of the stuff that's going on right now and I'm not going to to discourse on this at length but
23:34
one of the big hubbubs in science at the moment is what Dark Matter something that's moving things in the universe that is not interacting with light what is that we don't know because we
23:47
can't observe it we can't shine we literally cannot shine light on it scripture treats light in a similar way in the metaphysical terms with respect to man's knowledge of God and himself and I think this goes back a little bit
23:58
to Abe's question Jesus tells us I mean to skip through my slides here
24:09
oh I missed this part when we were talking about it um you know when we when we think about the use of of light and darkness by God what is the penultimate plague of Egypt
24:20
it was Darkness over the land and what do we read there in Exodus 10 it says the Lord said to Moses reach out with your hand toward the sky so there may be Darkness over the land of Egypt
24:32
even darkness which may be felt so Moses reached out with his hand toward the sky and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days and they did not see one
24:42
another nor did anyone rise from his place for three days but what but all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings
24:56
it comes back to this and it comes back to God's using this so you think about it again you're going to hear me say this more times
25:08
these plagues were on the mind of the people that received Genesis 1 verse 1 verse 2 verse 3. they came out of this and then Moses has given this record to write in this order
25:18
that darkness that could be felt and now the light the light specifically to God's chosen people um I was saying though to go back to Abe's
25:29
question when we think about the use of light and darkness and the the aspects of Good and Evil um again there is a sense in which God is setting up this right at the very
25:40
beginning of creation because it is going to be used as that metaphor throughout the rest of scripture in that light is held up as the good and darkness is held up as the cloak of evil
25:52
and so Jesus says to us in his terms here in Matthew 6 the eye is the lamp of the body so if your eye is clear your whole body is what full of light but if your eye is bad your whole body
26:04
will be full of Darkness and if then the light that is in you is Darkness how great is that Darkness
26:14
man is this microcosm of nature we're going to talk about this a little bit as we move forward to talking about man made in the image of God that Capstone that we see used at the end of the The
26:24
Narrative of creation man has this unique ability to both straddle mind or spirit and body and also that man has this unique
26:36
interaction with both the light and darkness that that is used here in these metaphorical terms um on day one God speaks light into existence in the midst of utter Darkness
26:47
though not all together banishing that Darkness God intentionally gives Darkness this parallel existence he lets it exist alongside to light but he strictly orders and controls it as a
26:59
tool for his own ends we saw again the use as a delineation of time use as a delineation of days later as a use of delineation of seasons um fundamental to understanding the nature
27:10
of God as the Creator is that all things even Darkness even the fallen angels are under his control they're subject to his order they're tasked to his ultimate purposes so yes we're told in some sense
27:22
that there is good in light and there is evil in dark and yet both of these things are still firmly under God's control I mean that's one of the things that we we hold as an
27:37
um a non-negotiable of the nature of God and and I think it comes right here out of the nature of God as creator that these things are still firmly under his control that he does not remove Darkness
27:48
he orders it he tasks it to his end this planned coexistence of light and dark in the early creation is a foreshadowing of its planned
27:59
correspondence to the heart of man um from the very beginning of order in God's Universe it foreshadows inaugurates if you like a struggle between light and dark a constant theme
28:11
that man has explored and we see explored in scripture this reflection of of the mind of the maker I think um is something that that I've wondered
28:21
about a little bit and I don't know how much we'll be able to do it in this study but when we think about a lot of the
28:32
I don't know if this is the right word the media that man creates art uh visual art music movies books all of these things that we've seen over the ages
28:42
there is a an aspect in which those creative impulses are a reflection of the mind of the creator that desire to create things that desire
28:53
to describe things that desire to put into existence and so many of them have a reflection of those organizing principles that we find God establishing
29:04
at the very beginning of creation the theme of light and dark as good and evil has shown up and I did not do an exclusive you know study of the archeology of this let me know if you
29:16
want me to do that but you think you understand where I'm going here we see throughout the history of man the use of light and dark as a motif for good and evil and it's a reflection of God's
29:26
establishing it from the very beginning it's one of those cases where I think you can make the argument that man has copied it both from
29:42
reflection of God's created order and also in a lot of respects those who have read scripture have been inspired to to use it to similar ends to to show that light and dark
29:54
um Paul gives us a description in Ephesians of course of this battle of light and darkness and you think you're all very familiar of course with the armor of God
30:04
Passage but he says finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil
30:16
for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the powers against the world forces of this Darkness this Darkness against the spiritual forces of
30:27
wickedness in the Heavenly places therefore take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day having done everything to stand firm stand firm stand firm therefore having girded your
30:38
loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace and in addition to all taking up the shield of Faith with which
30:49
you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation the sword of the spirit which is the word of God again so what is the struggle against the forces
31:00
of Darkness all of this is an uh anticipated when we look at Genesis 1 verse 3 there
31:12
is a sense in which we are anticipating all of this that's coming right Moses hasn't written all of this that I've just talked about this morning before there but we recognize that all of of
31:25
um you know nothing has come to pass apart from the will of God all of his Providence is his revelation of himself we can read back into this I think validly the will of God here understand
31:36
God as Creator and I think as I've tried to make the point a little bit this morning from the context of Egyptian mythologies and the plagues and the the
31:46
Miracles revealed to them the Hebrews would have also understood and anticipated some of this by their experience the astute reader would have recognized
31:57
what's going on here again it stands out I think to most readers the light is existing before the sun the moon the stars what's going on here it is God's power it's his principles that
32:09
he's establishing there as we look at the long-term revelation of God the Triumph belongs to the light not to the darkness which is its absence
32:20
spiritually and theologically we see a reflection of this in in the call of the
32:30
I want to be careful to cite my sources you know I was I've benefited from Bruce waltke's commentary on on Genesis and um recently some stuff I've been reading by G.K Beale and I actually got to go to
32:40
a conference with him but I I took this quote actually out of Chuck's notes when he studied he studied did his Genesis study because I felt like this this quote really captured
32:52
part of of this um aspect here so I'm quoting from Chuck the spirit of God hovers over the Dark Souls of unregenerate men administers
33:02
the word ordained by the father to be spoken over the hearts of the the elect let there be light and there is born a new creation new heart replaces old and a Child of Light
33:14
is born without exception so we have in the in the parallel the effectual call of the Gospel the new creation By the Light of the word
33:25
that's part of what we're anticipating here when we're looking at God's independent power independent power over these things his organization of light and darkness his ability or his
33:35
decision not to banish Darkness outright but to task it to his ends spiritual Darkness flees before the light of the gospel of Christ with more
33:45
certainty than the dark fleas before the light of the Breaking Dawn we read in in Corinthians it is God who commanded light to shine out of Darkness who has shown in our
33:56
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ the thing I mentioned this week I I was able to attend a two-day seminar about
34:08
Revelation by uh G.K Beale and it was very it was very beneficial and in a lot of um of um useful things out of that but of course Revelation was on my brain and so we're
34:20
thinking about anticipate anticipation and and talking about this specifically the independent organization of light apart from the vessels I couldn't help but think about the ultimate Triumph of
34:30
this Warfare in the life of man and the whole created order is he in Revelation where we read that reaffirmation of God's holy light independent of immediate sources immediate sources he says
34:42
he says I saw no temple in it speaking of the city in Revelation 21 I saw a note temple in it for the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its Temple and the city
34:52
had no need of sun or moon to shine in it for the glory of God illuminated it the lamb is its light and the nations of those who are saved
35:03
shall walk in its light and the kings of the earth bring their Glory and Honor into it its Gates shall not be shut At All by day there shall be no night there
35:13
and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the Nations into it so when we think about this
35:24
these things close the loop back around we've already talked about the ways that revelation anticipates revelation anticipates aspects of creation as we read these things back into it God established the
35:34
light independent of the vessels at the beginning and in his final created order as we read it in Revelation with his new creation there will be no vessels no sources the
35:45
lamb shall be its light
36:07
Our Father we again come before you with Thanksgiving we thank you for shining your light into the world the world we thank you for the light of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and that you
36:18
have indeed shed it into our hearts that we are illuminated by its power we ask that you would increase that light in our understanding and in our
36:29
Spirits this morning that as we go before you in a time of singing a time of prayer a time of gathering around your word that the light of your self-revelation would burn
36:44
brightly increase our understanding and the clarity with which we perceive the truth of your of your person and your work we humbly ask all of these things in the
36:54
name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen