In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is the foundational premise of the whole Bible. It announces Gods creation. It offers no explanation or descriptive of who God is or where He came from. We could discard this piece of information since there is no evidence of this “God.” But, by doing so, the rest of the Bible does not have to make any sense. I used to say it would make no sense at all, but have discovered that some people thrive on abstract reality….in kind of a mentally deficient way. The reason for God creation is not explained either. We will later discover that God does not do anything without a purpose and will be able to connect the idea that God has some purpose for creating “the heavens and earth.” “In the beginning” are the first three descriptive words used to describe God’s creation “the heavens and the earth.” This would probably be the pre-beginning stages of any concept of time, also, as God establishes morning and night and the end of one day. There could have been a big bang as God spoke the heavens and earth into existence. But there was no explosion of matter from nothing except for the creative energy of God. This also establishes the theme for the entire Bible: All things are seen in relation to Him and with God as the central figure.
There are two words that describe the creative activity of God: “progression” and “power.” The Hebrew words “tohu” and “bohu”, used in the expression ‘without form and void,’ are so striking that it was apparently used to rivet the readers attention on the condition in its initial stages. That God created ex nihilo (a Latin term meaning “out of nothing”) while not explicitly stated, is continually implied throughout scripture, as in Paul’s statement about God ‘who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence the things that do not exist.’(Rom 4:17). Apparently creation progressed from a state of nothingness through a state of formlessness and emptiness to a condition where formlessness gave way to form and emptiness surrendered to fullness. However, one could debate whether creation came from “nothing” if one expounds upon the definition of “nothing.” It is conceivable that God could create something to exist that did not exist before. However, the idea would have come from the mind of God. Only God could do such a feat. Man cannot create anything outside of his own knowledge. Nor can he imagine anything beyond that scope. The Hebrew words “asah” and “yatsar” (“make” and “form”), and is something man is can do but only with pre-existing materials. Man can create but only off of material or ideas that are already existing.
The existence of God is one of the great mysteries. Neither man nor angel can comprehend it. There must be heights and depths in the Infinite that can never be measured by the finite. As Job asked, “Canst thou by searching find God?…..the measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.” There is nothing to suggest where “God” came from. He created. That is all that is reported. We think in terms of time…beginning and end. God is not limited by time. Time is sometimes our problem and sometimes our limitation……but God is not restrained by time. He rules over time just as He rules over eternity, which can begin in time…but extends far beyond it. Man can only think of the infinite in terms of “beginning” and “end” but those two words do not even remotely apply to the term. I have to conclude, then, that even “beginning” and “end” were created by God and it is we who live in this temporal existence between a beginning and an end.but in the reality of the eternal there is really no such thing at all. This would also make sense as to why Jesus is referred to as the Alpha AND Omega…the beginning and the end.
The significance of a Trinity for us is that before there was a universe, there was a “wholeness” and a “completeness” about God in His “three person relatedness” which made Him totally self-sufficient. Any suggestion that God needed the universe to be fulfilled or that He was less than complete without mankind misses the point of the trinity in whom love and communication is perfected. When you ask a man about themselves they usually tell you about their jobs. Identity seems to be bound up in what we do. Often women, when asked the same question, talk about their children. Human identity is discovered and displayed in terms of relationships and activities, and this leads some people to assume that God created the worlds to prove something to Himself and then created mankind to make it possible for Him to have relationships in order to complete His personhood. This would suggest that if God had not created He would have been less than He is and therefore creation served to meet some kind of need in Him. But, God did not have to create in order to feel good about Himself; neither did he need mankind to relate in order to discover His identity. The triune God has always and continues to be complete and needing nothing.
Although Genesis begins “in the Beginning,” that does not mean that there was not anything before that. Jesus’ prayer to God in John 17:24 says “Thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world.
