In The Beginning (Gen. 1:1-5)

 

The most asked and hotly debated question of all time:  Where did we come from?  Is there a reason and meaning behind our existence, or are we just here by happenstance? Was this universe in which we live created with a purpose in mind or was it only by chance that it came into being as some would have us believe?

What answer to that question we come to has serious ramifications for our lives.  It affects us in everything we do, in every part of our lives, and in what choices we make.  It affects how we view life in general.

If we are here by just some random cause, then there is nothing to which we can look to for help and guidance through our day to day lives except our own strength, abilities, intellect, the resources we acquire, the people around us, and the communities in which we live.  And if all those things fail to meet our needs and if the people we depend on for whatever reason turn against us and abandon us, then we are without any hope and we are damned to live a life of misery and pass away never to be remembered.  It will be as though we never were.

Furthermore, if life is without meaning then we cannot even be sure we are asking the right questions.  The concepts of right and wrong are but an illusion, love and hate are merely emotions that are subject to change like anger, happiness, sorrow, joy, fear, and contentment.  They are nothing more than mere random chemical reactions.  And if all things are relative, then what need have we of anyone to rule and govern over us.  What need have we of laws, and courts?  If there is no right and wrong, then the concepts of law, order, and justice are also an illusion.  Every man might as well be a law unto himself.

But when we observe and study nature, everything appears to be created to serve a purpose necessary for sustaining life:  The sun to give warmth to the earth, the rain to water the ground so that the plants man and animals depend on for food can grow.  The animals, other than presently being a food source alongside plants, are here to provide various forms of service for man.

Gravity holds things in place, the stars and planets being in past times, used by sea farers to navigate the oceans, and the moon to regulate the ocean tides and to mark the months.  How could anything be trusted to function the way it is supposed to and in a beneficial manner if the universe was brought about by a random process?  How did random processes know to place the earth in the right location to be the right distance from the sun for life-sustaining temperatures?  How would randomness know to create the atmospheric conditions that would enable life and to keep our magnetic field and gravitational forces at the right levels for life to abide?  How could time and chance have in place all that which we know to be necessary for various forms of life to exist and thrive?

Those who insist that the universe and all that is in it is but a product of happenstance, have tried to come up with many theories and possibilities to explain how the universe came about by chance but none of the explanations provided so far give a satisfying answer but for those who believe that our existence is not a product of random process it is not a challenge for them to explain how all things came to be. 

For those of us who believe that the universe was created do we also conclude that there must be some point to our existence and that all things were created to serve a purpose and possess meaning.  It is only from a Creator can we ever receive purpose and meaning for our own lives.

No other creature ever asks where it came from or why it exists.  They do not look back to the past or forward to the future; only man does that.  Animals simply live in the moment.  And what drives man to study his surroundings the way other creatures do not?  What is there in man that gives him an appreciation for the things of beauty to which animals show indifference and what instills the creative and innovative attributes in man that other animals do not have? 

There is so much about us that sets us apart from all other forms of life but what sets us apart the most is that we have instilled in us a need for something beyond ourselves that is capable of establishing a sense of purpose, meaning, peace, stability, and order in our lives that we cannot find within ourselves as we recognize our own limitations and that events arise that are beyond our own capacity to control.

We naturally seek after figures and objects from which we can find meaning and purpose in our lives, to provide us a sense of order and stability, an inner peace in a world of trouble, to ease our worst fears, to give us an unfailing hope that things will eventually be set aright in our own lives and in the world around us.  This is the very reason why men find themselves relying on an authority or power to offer them assistance and guidance that cannot be found within the material realm.

Those who believe in a Creator conclude that if He established laws by which the natural world is governed, then He has also established laws by which to govern the lives and affairs of men, but how do we know what these laws are except that they are revealed to us which can only be done by direct divine intervention?

It is only by such revelation that we are able know that which the Maker has deemed to be right and wrong, good and evil in His sight.  And from that arise the concepts justice and a recognition of a need for justice to be carried out when a wrong or evil is committed.  It is by such laws that man must be governed because there are no other means by which his otherwise unbridled passions could be restrained and while there exists within all people this basic understanding of right and wrong we differ on what is deemed right and wrong and what is deemed good and evil because of the various different belief systems that presently exist in our world.

Though the differences in creeds, doctrines, laws, and traditions amongst the nations and different cultures reveal that many have gone astray from that which the Creator desired of them, still that which we hold in common is evidence in that He did reveal Himself to men and that men once knew Him and knew His laws with a much greater clarity than most seem to know today, but that clarity has been lost by a corruption of the truth once revealed, even to the point of forgetting who their Maker is, and in forgetting their Maker, they have also forgotten His teachings and His standards.  They have been left to their own devices, wandering about in spiritual darkness, perhaps retaining some sense of His truth, but not in the purity that they once had.  They may still retain a sense of what His standards are, but not with the clarity that they once had, but that a semblance of truth remains, even amongst those nations who have forgotten their Maker testifies to the fact that He has not left Himself with out a witness.  He is still speaking to our hearts and minds, and appeals to our conscience that we might seek Him out, turn from our corrupted ways, learn His ways and abide therein, worshiping Him in the manner that He has required of us. 

But because there are many objects of worship and many different creeds, ideologies, and philosophies, how do we know what the real truth is?

The only way to know is if the entity to whom we owe our existence and highest devotion has revealed to us as to who He is, what kind of a God He is, His precepts, a means  for redemption if we have fallen short of His standards, and the ultimate fate mankind is destined for.  But only a divine revelation can make the acquiring of that knowledge possible, for without divine revelation, we are lost to our own devices and are slaves to a sea of confusion without any sense of direction, but by the voice of the Creator, does His truth distinguish itself from all the lies that have led humanity far from Him and which have blinded us to His ways and have perverted His truth in our mind and hearts, changing it into a lie, the end of which being only destruction.

It is by an act of divine revelation that truth is revealed to us, for our Maker is the source of that truth which defines our reality, enables us to know between what is right and wrong, good and evil, and will hold us accountable for the deeds done in this life; those righteous in His sight granted an everlasting reward, and the wicked, punishment and torment for all eternity.  And it is by divine revelation that we can know the beginning and the ultimate end, which leads me now to the scriptures which speak the beginning and the end and with which wisdom and knowledge begins starting with the book of Genesis.

Genesis, the first book in the scriptures and upon which all the scriptures rest, also called the first book of mention, beginning with the story of creation:

“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon

the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved

upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light:

and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good:

and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called

the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And the evening

and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

Not only was there darkness before the light shown into that void, but it was also a watery void without any form to it.  It should be no surprise to us nor should we of the faith be dismayed when

we hear reports of ice and liquid bodies upon lifeless planets, as it is evidence that rather than

challenging the authority of the scripture only vindicates it in that it testifies to the fact that the foundation to all that we see in this material universe was water as described in the scripture.  Furthermore, the stars in space are kept lit by a molecule called hydrogen, which is also required for the formation of  water or any water based liquid.

But what the scripture tells us which nature presently does not is

that the space in which the universe had its origins, although dark, might not have been

the cold place we know it today, for as it is written, "the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:2).  At present, water freezes in the midst of space, but in the beginning, the temperature was warm enough that the water being the foundation for the creation, to be in a liquid state.

And when God spoke the light into the darkness and made the first day (evening and morning),

this was also the beginning of time in our physical world and our history.  But just as the universe in the beginning was shrouded in darkness, so our very souls when we are born into this world are covered in darkness as well, by a condition called sin.  It is a darkness that robs us of our clarity and subjects us to confusion, that twists our reasoning, and clouds our understanding.  Ever since the fall of the first man and woman (Gen. 3) of whom we are descendants, we have, from the first day we are born, inherited this corrupted nature (Rom. 5:12).  No matter what we do, we can never rid ourselves of it.  It is in our blood stream.  We are a being corrupted from the inside out and that which begins in us inwardly, will always, in some form or fashion manifest ourselves outwardly.  It is this sinful nature within us that prevents us from being able to live up to the standards of a pure and holy God, and as a consequence, creates a separation between us and our Creator, because God, who is light, cannot dwell alongside that which is dark (2 Cor. 6:14), for the darkness, being the opposite of light, is always at enmity with the light, and corruption an enemy of that which is pure.

And because this darkness cannot dwell in light, we by our sin are sentenced to condemnation and eternal separation from God Almighty.  "But I am a good person" you say, but even when we try to be good, even our own goodness which we attempt to carry out is corrupted by wrong motives.  Not only are our outward actions judged, but so is our inward man, even our every thought.  We may make every attempt to keep the outward part of ourselves clean, but our inward parts are perpetually stained by our sin.  And only by an honest examination of ourselves and the motives that drive us,

do we even begin to understand how even the best of us, the purest of us from a man's point of view

still remains corrupted in comparison to an incorruptible God.

But just as the light shown upon the darkness of the void of what was to become our world and universe, so the light of God is made to shine upon the darkness of our souls.  Though we be corrupted by a dark nature, we were created to be creatures of light and to have fellowship with our Maker, and it is because our Maker desires our devotion and fellowship, that He has made in our place a sacrifice to take away our sins, that sacrifice being Jesus Christ our Lord, who being the incorruptible Son of God, died for the us the corrupted; the sinless, dying for the sinner and afterwards being raised from the dead thereby conquering sin, darkness, and death and serving as the bridge between us and the Creator, breaking down that barrier that separates us from God in order that we can have direct access to the throne of God through Him, Christ Jesus, who is the light of the world (Jn. 8:12), who shines His light into the darkness and sends His Spirit to call us away from our sin and darkness (Jn. 16:8) to embrace the light of our Savior and submit ourselves to His Kingship, that we might become citizens of His Kingdom, because in receiving Him as our Savior for the forgiveness of sins, does His light come to dwell in us in order that we can one day dwell in a kingdom where only the light can dwell and where no darkness can abide.

Men are not meant to live in the dark.  Even the most wicked of men find themselves dependent upon a light source in order to find their way around, for without light, we stumble about not knowing where we go, groping about and not knowing what we touch and feel, and becoming easily disoriented, but when a light switch is flipped, a candle is lit, or a flash light is turned on, the light exposes what is in front of us in order that we may maintain our bearings and so that we may avoid potential hazards that we otherwise would not see without the aid of light.  Light also gives us comfort and security whereas darkness makes us feel vulnerable.

It is why most of our activities are done during the day and not during the night, but due to evil which is at work both night and day, it has, in this present darkness, become necessary for men in certain occupations, to work at night.  Because the lawless are at work day and night, law enforcement also has to be at work day and night.  Because wars can start either night or day, militaries have to be on watch day and night for enemy attacks.  Because emergencies take place night and day, emergency responders must operate night and day.  But this was not how it was to be in the beginning.  Man was created to do most of his activities during the day when he is better able to see what he is doing and with the aid of the day light, is able to more easily complete his tasks whereas in the darkness of night, it becomes practically impossible for him to be able to do what he could do during the day unless he is aided by a torch, candle or some type of flash light, but even with the aid of a small source a light in the midst of darkness, he still will have more difficulty completing any given task than he otherwise would if given the aid of broad daylight.

But there is a darkness that causes a blindness in us that goes beyond the physical eyes but which also blinds the eyes of our souls, which hides from us purpose, conceals our true nature from us, obscures, and confuses, and from which arises disorder, perversion, corruption, and distorts and makes twisted that which was meant to be pure, good, and holy, but from which the Savior was sent to liberate those of us who would turn to Him for the liberation of their souls from the darkness of sin which causes us to be condemned before the Lord, but it is the light that makes known to us our fallen state.  It speaks to our consciences and knocks on the door of our hearts.  It calls out to us in nature, through sets of circumstances, through more ways than we can fathom, calling us to turn from the darkness of our sin and selfish desires, because it is not the will of the Lord that any should perish and be damned for eternity, but that all would come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9), and in embracing Christ who is that light that dispels the darkness in our lives, our souls are liberated from the sentence of eternal damnation, we begin to see things with a clarity not had before coming to our Lord, and a new sense of purpose and meaning which we had not possessed before.

As light was the beginning of life in this universe, so the light of Christ, when it enters into us, is the beginning of a new life in us and the start of a new work which is destined to become a perfect work to one day become a part of a new and perfect creation free from the curse of sin and the decaying sin of death (Rev. 21:4) if we will only but repent of our sins and surrender ourselves to Christ, embracing Him as both the Savior of our souls and Lord of our lives, letting Him set the course of our lives, and placing in His hands our, cares, worries, and our future, and abide in Him alone.

Scripture references:

1.  Genesis 1:1-2

2.  Genesis 3

3.  2 Corinthians 6:14

4.  John 8:12

5.  John 16:8

6.  2 Peter 3:8

7.  Revelation 21:4