In the Beginning

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

These ten English words begin a journey of knowledge, faith and revelation beyond the capacity of the human mind to exhaust. In the realm of science, they are as unalterable and confronting as another list of ten. Of course, that list is the Ten Commandments which deal with faith and morality.

Who wrote such confronting words? He must have been told about the event, not being present at the beginning. I’d suggest it was Adam who kept the record from his conversations with God. As we will discover Adam was no grunting, evolving ape. He was created fully endowed with physical, mental and spiritual capabilities beyond our comprehension.  To get some idea of this man you need to see him through the lens, as it were, of the 2^nd Adam as Jesus is called. Ultimately it would be Moses who compiled the account with other sources to give to us the first five books of Scripture.

This verse in one breath sweeps away any notion that the universe is eternal or imbued with God’s nature. Later on this is re-enforced by the announcement of Isaiah 65:17: ‘See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.’ Why was this necessary? We will consider the reason later.

The word for ‘beginning’is also translated as ‘first, chief and first-fruit.’ Would I be off beam to say God is here establishing a principle He would require from His people? They were expected to bring of the first-fruits of their crop and herds as a gift to Him. In the opening verse of the Bible the Lord God prepared a magnificent first fruit gift of His creative act for Adam and future generations. The heavens not only declare the Lord’s glory, they express His generosity.

By stating the universe and everything it in had a beginning points to the Lord as being before it. Within the pages of Scripture we come across one of His titles, Alpha and Omega. Revelation 1:8: ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’ In the Greek alphabet Alpha is the beginning and Omega is the end. Again we are confronted by a principle. The Lord claims the right by His very being as well as by His creation of Humankind to be their, our, Alpha. Only then can we be assured He will be our Omega when our life comes to its full stop. We need to heed Isaiah 45:21-22: ‘There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Saviour; there is none like me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.’

If you or I take the accounts of Genesis as beautiful fiction, fantasy or fable we will succumb to a mishmash of theories. These will weaken our foundation for faith and cause malnutrition of the spirit. Genesis is fact, plain and simple it may be, but fact it remains. You will never need to apologise for your faith because God’s word is eternally true and not subject to ever recurring changes when so called scientific findings are promoted.

In the beginning, God! 

Therefore, I resolve to make it my business to build my life on the God as reveled in the Bible.