Creation

Text: Genesis 1:1-27

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT

June 16, 2024

If you grew up in church you probably remember the wonderful stories your Sunday School teachers told from the Bible.  There is God creating the world. There is Noah and the Ark.  David and Goliath.  Jonah and the whale. Among others.

The thing is we have come to see these biblical events as merely children’s stories. We think of them as kind of cute, simple, and kind of fun.  In this sermon series I want to reclaim these stories as more than cute, innocent, children’s stories.  They are in the Bible and the authors put them there for a reason.  When we actually read these parts of the Bible we find they aren’t just cute little Sunday School stories but narratives that are full of much more than we often hear.  We have much to learn about them even as adults.

We begin with the story of creation.  Most Sunday School curriculums begin here.  Everyone starts in the Fall and this is the first story.  Everyone is in class the first week because the intention of parents is to start the year right.  So this is one story everyone gets.

As children we learn that God created the sky, the plants, the animals, and us.  How lovely.  But as we get older we learn about science.  Many people pit the story of creation in Genesis against scientific discovery.  The result is discounting Genesis and skepticism about anything in the Bible.

We have sometimes kept a child’s understanding and haven’t matured as Bible readers.  Thus, we read these stories as adults and either keep a very simplistic understanding while ignoring the real questions they raise, or we shove them in a drawer or even try to dismiss them all together.

I want to try to help us read Genesis 1 and 2 with maturity of faith.

“In the beginning God…”  And so starts the story that begins the Bible.

There are all kinds of questions when it comes to interpreting Genesis 1 and 2.  Many of the problems Bible readers encounter come from a very literal and wooden reading of this part of the Bible. A careful reading of Genesis 1 and 2 show there are probably two different creation accounts. There is one in Genesis 1 and then a second that begins in Genesis 2:4. They vary just a bit.  For example, they are both different in terms of the order of appearance of plants and humans. So they both can’t be literally correct. What are they telling us?

I don’t know that we can ever know precisely what is intended by every verse and part of the creation story. You can find plenty of places to debate the multitude of issues people bring up about these chapters. What I want to focus on this morning is what we can know. What are the claims the creation accounts are making? What does it tell us about our world, us, and most importantly God? Sometimes we get lost in the trees and miss the forest.

In all faithful reading of the Bible we have to ask ourselves what did the original author – the person who wrote this many centuries ago - want to convey?  The best meaning of any passage in the Bible comes from what the writer intended. Whoever wrote this may have had – probably did have – different concerns than 21st century, western, scientific people have.

In order to get what the original author meant we have to try to understand the language and culture of the author.  We can’t just put it into our language and culture and assume we have the correct meaning.

We also need to try to understand how the original hearers understood this story.  Their concerns and questions may not be our concerns and questions.

Our task is to find our place in God’s story.  And it is God’s story. He has stirred the writing of these things so that we can know him and be in relationship with him.

“In the beginning God…” Have you ever thought about those words? It is not the beginning of God. So what is the author telling us? Is the author telling us this is the beginning of time and history?  Is it a more scientific beginning like the beginning of the physical universe?  Is it just the beginning of a larger story that continues as we read the Bible?  Is it the beginning of our human race? The beginning of what?

This phrase could easily be translated, “When God began to create…”  A few Bibles, including Jewish translations, read like this. If we read the first verse, “When God began to create…” it suggests that God’s creating work isn’t a one time, one-and-done thing but something that is a process. God continues to be at work.

The Hebrew word for “create” in the Bible is only ever applied to God.  Only God creates. And it never is used to refer to the creating of materials. In the creation story manufacturing of things is not the issue.  The issue is organization of materials.  God is assigning roles and functions to the various parts of his creation. The point isn’t that God created light or water or plants.  The point is how God makes them function and their purpose.

Interpretation of these passages in our times have told us that the origin of matter is what is important. But this doesn’t seem to be the concern of the writer of Genesis.[1]

There were other ancient creation stories circulating.  Other cultures and other religions had their stories.  If you compare the account in the Bible to those stories you see a big difference.  For example, in one ancient creation story people are created from the spilled guts of a god, who is in conflict with other gods for power. What does that say about human? In other creation stories there is struggle between powers, manipulation, and deception to control.  Not in the story of Israel’s God.

Israel would have heard these other stories and could have adopted them.  But Genesis 1 and 2 contradict many parts of these stories. There are no other gods. The world isn’t ordered out of a power struggle.  And humans are created in the image of God, not out of the killing of a god.

In Genesis 1 and 2 God isn’t in his creation but stands apart from it.  That is one reason we are not “pantheists.”  Pantheists believe God is in the wind and the sea and the trees and so forth.  No, the Bible tells us God is outside and above his creation. He is the Creator.  Other things are not him and therefore not to be worshipped. And humans are the high point of his creation, which we will return to in a moment.

In the creation story, over and over again God says, “Let there be…”  God brings into existence a creation. This creation is characterized by precision, order, and harmony. And God speaks his creation into being. Genesis 1:2 tells us that the earth was formless and empty.  What follows is God bringing form and content and order to the earth.

When God speaks the light into being, he identifies the light and the darkness. From this evening and morning come to be.  What is this about? It is God setting time in motion. God sets up the climate. He is responsible for providing the availability of water and the ability of the land to grow vegetation. It doesn’t talk about his creation of the land, although we know he did that.  It talks about what the land does. God orders the laws of agriculture and the seasonal cycles. Everything is created with a role to play. All of this was ordered by God and was good. God is not a tyrant and the world is not meant to be threatening as was the case in other creation accounts of other ancient Near Eastern cultures.[2]

Now, in our century the debate about evolution and creation came to be. It wasn’t always like this for most of history. It has led to big discussions about science and faith.  We often get stuck here. “Too often we have allowed the creation-evolution debate to be staged as if the main issue is the origin of things.  We should rather focus on the meaning and purpose of” the things in this world and our existence as humans.[3]

Without going into the faith vs. science conversation let’s understand that evolution can explain how things evolve, but it cannot explain their purpose.  It might be able to explain how people have adapted over a great deal of time, but it cannot give a reason for why we are here and for what we are created. The issue in Genesis is not the specifics of the theory of evolution.  In Genesis the issue is that life is not the result of impersonal forces, but rather the result of a personal God.  And this God had purpose and value to what he designed.

Our modern reading of Genesis often asks the wrong questions.  We ask very scientific questions.  We live in a very scientific age.  It is vastly different from the world in which the writer of Genesis lived.  We know more scientifically speaking. But the story in Genesis may very well not be addressing those scientific questions.

This doesn’t mean science and faith have nothing to do with each other.  Or that there is not harmony between the Bible and science.  They just address different parts of our world.

Stephen Jay Gould was a very well-known and respected scientist who was not a person of faith.  He said, “No scientific theory, including evolution, can pose any threat to religion – for these two great tools of human understanding operate in complementary (not contrary) fashion in their totally separate realms: science as an inquiry about the factual state of the natural world, religion as a search for spiritual meaning and ethical values.”[4]

Again, the purpose of the story of creation is to say that the one God has brought order and function to everything.  Creation has purpose and God is the sovereign One behind it all.

If we were to talk about someone building a computer, we wouldn’t talk about how the screen was manufactured, who made the keyboard, or how the chips are made.  We would be talking about how all the parts were assembled so that the computer could operate.

The building of the computer would begin with scattered pieces all over the table. The builder would put in the motherboard so that the chip would make the computer run fast and efficiently.  Which is its purpose. The maker of the computer would put in the hard drive to organize all the data.  That’s the purpose of the hard drive. The builder would install the operating system to integrate all the functions of the computer.  The purpose of an operating system. And so forth.  The point is the functioning of the computer.

Here is another way to look at the creation story. If we went up to Hale Theater and came into a play late and asked the person sitting next to us how the play began, we would not want an explanation of the idea of the playwright to write the production, or how the set was put together, or how the cast was chosen.  Yes, that is part of the play but not what we mean by “what happened in the beginning.”  So with our reading of Genesis we have to be careful what we are asking.  Scripture isn’t interested in the set, the cast, and the script.  It is interested in the play itself, the story, though God is the link between the two.

Or one final illustration. If someone asked us about where we live, we could tell the story of how the house was built: the foundation, the roof, the electricity and plumbing.  We could describe the details of how these things were made and the manufacturing of them.  Unless you are Dale Broughton this probably isn’t what you are interested in. What people are more interested in is how we have made a home.

How have we furnished the home?  How have we decorated it?  What rooms function in what ways? How have we put the home together? Both the house story and the home story are creation stories.  But people are usually more interested in how we have furnished, decorated, and put together our home. Genesis is about furnishing the home, not manufacturing the furniture.[5]

But above and beyond all the stuff that is in this world, this is a story about God, and about us.  Genesis tells us that God is not some power who rules from far away but the God who takes interest in this world and the people he has placed here.  God is highly relational.  Read these chapters.  God speaks. God shows his own involvement in this. And God invites people to participate with him in his creation. He gives the man and the woman responsibility, freedom, and choice.

Genesis tells us that human beings are the very pinnacle of God’s good creation.  Man and woman are both created in the image of God.  We are not an accident, nor are we bad.  After humans come into being and are given their place it says God saw all that he made and “it was very good.”  Everything else that was ordered was called “good.”  This is the first time something is called “very good.”

Human beings are unique from everything else God made.  Man and woman enjoy personal relationship with God.

To be made in God’s image means that all humans beings have dignity, value, responsibility.  This is why we as Christians should do everything to honor the dignity of all human beings. The story goes on to show the man and the woman falling away from the relationship God intended.  This part of the story is important to understanding so many other parts of the Bible, not the least of which is the redemption we have in Jesus Christ.  It is because of man and woman’s rebellion against the Lord that Christ comes to die, rise and restore us to our Father.

God’s revelation to us is for the purpose of knowing him, not to answer all of our questions.  I have and will always have many questions about Genesis 1 and 2.  But I stand on what I do understand.

There are many other parts of Genesis 1, 2, and 3 that are worth time.  For such a short, few pages, this story gets a lot of attention.  Look at most Bible commentaries which are books that give explanations of the Bible, and as much as a quarter of the commentary will be dedicated to these few pages, while the rest of the commentary address the other 47 chapters of Genesis but in much shorter fashion.

But what I hope this sermon has done for us is to read Genesis with new eyes and I believe faithful eyes, paying attention to what the original intent of these stories might have been.  And most of all, learning about God who is our Creator and the One we worship and serve.  And who loved us enough to come himself in Christ, into this creation, to reconcile us to himself.

Prayer: Lord, always help us to read the Bible faithfully.  Help us to move from a childish faith to a mature faith.  Help us to not make Genesis an argument but a story to nurture our understanding of you, how you work, and our place with you.

We thank you for creating us and for your love for us.  We thank you for the beauty and goodness of this world, and also understand how we have injured it.

So help us to live as you created us to live.

Amen.

[1] John Walton, Genesis: The NIV Application Commentary, pp. 71-72.  I lean heavily on Walton’s commentary for this sermon.  Also “Wisdom for Faithful Reading” by Walton.

[2] John Walton, Victor Matthews, and Mark Chavalas, “The IVP Bible background Commentary”: Old Testament, p.28, quoted in “The Drama of Scripture: Finding our Place in the Biblical Story,” Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen.

[3] Walton, p.37

[4] Quoted in Walton, Genesis, p.96

[5] Walton, Wisdom For Faithful Reading, p.97