The Creation of the World

(Genesis 1:1–2)

Foundation of Foundations

The first verse of the Bible is the foundational verse of the Bible. If the Book of Genesis is indeed the Bible’s foundational book, as shown in chapter 1 then it is obvious that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which deal with the whole world and with all the nations, constitute the foundation for the rest of Genesis, which deals specifically with the beginnings of the nation Israel.

By the same token, chapter 1 of Genesis is the foundational chapter of these first eleven chapters, since it summarizes the creation of the world and all things therein. Finally, Genesis 1:1 is the foundational verse of this foundational chapter, speaking of the primeval creation of the universe itself. It is the foundation of all foundations and is thus the most important verse in the Bible. It undoubtedly contains the first words ever written, and, since it is the opening statement of the world’s most often printed book, these are surely the most widely read words ever written. Most people at least start to read the Bible and, therefore, most people have read at least these opening words in the Bible, even if they never got any farther.

It has often been pointed out that if a person really believes Genesis 1:1, he will not find it difficult to believe anything else recorded in the Bible. That is, if God really created all things, then He controls all things and can do all things.

Furthermore, this one verse refutes all of man’s false philosophies concerning the origin and meaning of the world:

(1)     It refutes atheism, because the universe was created by God.

(2)     It refutes pantheism, for God is transcendent to that which He created.

(3)     It refutes polytheism, for one God created all things.

(4)     It refutes materialism, for matter had a beginning.

(5)     It refutes dualism, because God was alone when He created.

(6)     It refutes humanism, because God, not man, is the ultimate reality.

(7)     It refutes evolutionism, because God created all things.

Actually all such false philosophies are merely different ways of expressing the same unbelief. Each one proposes that there is no personal, transcendent God; that ultimate reality is to be found in the eternal cosmos itself; and that the development of the universe into its present form is contingent solely on the innate properties of its own components. In essence, each of the above philosophies embraces all the others. Dualism, for example, is a summary form of polytheism, which is the popular expression of pantheism, which presupposes materialism, which functions in terms of evolutionism, which finds its consummation in humanism, which culminates in atheism.

The entire system could well be called the system of atheistic evolutionary humanism. Other philosophical ideas could also be incorporated into the same monstrous structure: naturalism, uniformitarianism, deism, agnosticism, monism, determinism, pragmatism, and others. All are arrayed in opposition to the great truth—marvelously simple, and understandable to a child, yet inexhaustibly profound—that “in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”

It is remarkable that, when there have been so many anti-theistic philosophies (ancient and modern) affecting untold millions of people, the book of God makes no attempt to prove that God exists. The opening verse of Genesis simply takes this fact for granted, as though it were so obvious that only a fool could say “there is no God” (Psalm 14:1).

That this fact is not obvious, however, is obvious in light of the contrary fact that only in the Bible does such a revelation appear. That is, all of the other ancient religious books and religious systems, as well as all modern philosophies, begin, not with God, but with preexisting matter or energy in some form. In the primeval chaos (of water or fire or whatever), the forces of nature (or the gods and goddesses personifying them) then begin to bring about the cosmic changes which developed the world into its present form.

In spite of the universal prevalence of such pantheistic evolutionary cosmogonies among the nations of antiquity, the inspired account in Genesis does not attempt to refute them or to prove the existence of the true God. The reason for this strange silence is, most likely, the fact that the Genesis account was written before any of these other systems developed. The others were developed later for the very purpose of combating and replacing the true account in Genesis. The latter had been written originally, possibly by God Himself (“the generations of the heavens and the earth”) soon after the Creation, setting forth in simple narrative form the actual events of Creation Week. At that point in time, there was no need to argue about the reality of God and the Creation, since no one doubted it!

The First Verse

It is vitally important, if we would ever really fully understand anything in the Bible, or in the world in general, that we first understand the teaching of Genesis 1:1. Consider, therefore, each word in this all-important declaration.

1 “God”

This first occurrence of the divine name is the Hebrew Elohim, the name of God which stresses His majesty and omnipotence. This is the name used throughout the first chapter of Genesis. The im ending is the Hebrew plural ending, so that Elohim can actually mean “gods,” and is so translated in various passages referring to the gods of the heathen (e.g., Psalm 96:5).

However, it is clearly used here in the singular, as the mighty name of God the Creator, the first of over two thousand times where it is used in this way. Thus Elohim is a plural name with a singular meaning, a “uni-plural” noun, thereby suggesting the uni-plurality of the Godhead. God is one, yet more than one.

2 “Created”

This is the remarkable word bara, used always only of the work of God. Only God can create—that is, call into existence that which had no existence. He “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). “… The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3).

Men can “make” things or “form” things, but they cannot create things. God also can “make” and “form” things (Hebrew asah and yatsar, respectively), and do so far more effectively and quickly than man can do. The work of creation, however, is uniquely a work of God. The work of making and forming consists of organizing already existing materials into more complex systems, whereas the act of creation is that of speaking into existence something whose materials had no previous existence, except in the mind and power of God.

The use of the word “create” here in Genesis 1:1 informs us that, at this point, the physical universe was spoken into existence by God. It had no existence prior to this primeval creative act of God. God alone is infinite and eternal. He also is omnipotent, so that it was possible for Him to call the universe into being. Although it is impossible for us to comprehend fully this concept of an eternal, transcendent God, the only alternative is the concept of an eternal, self-existing universe; and this concept is also incomprehensible. Eternal God or eternal matter—that is the choice. The latter is an impossibility if the present scientific law of cause and effect is valid, since random particles of matter could not, by themselves, generate a complex, orderly, intelligible universe, not to mention living persons capable of applying intelligence to the understanding of the complex order of the universe. A personal God is the only adequate Cause to produce such effects.

3 “Heaven”

This word is the Hebrew shamayim which, like Elohim, is a plural noun, and can be translated either “heaven” or “heavens,” depending on the context and on whether it is associated with a singular or plural verb. It does not mean the stars of heaven, which were made only on the fourth day of Creation Week (Genesis 1:16), and which constitute the “host” of heaven, not heaven itself (Genesis 2:1).

There is a bare possibility that the Hebrew word may originally represent a compound of sham (“there”) and mayim (“waters”), thus reflecting the primeval association of water with the upper reaches of the atmosphere (Genesis 1:7).

It seems, however, that the essential meaning of the word corresponds to our modern term space, such as when we speak of the universe as a universe of space and time. Apparently there is no other Hebrew word used in this sense in the Bible, whereas the use of “heaven” is everywhere consistent with such a concept.

Understood in this way, it can also refer either to space in general or to a particular space, just as we may speak of “outer space,” “inner space,” “atmospheric space,” and so forth. In Genesis 1:1, the term refers to the component of space in the basic space-mass-time universe.

4 “Earth”

In like manner the term “earth” refers to the component of matter in the universe. At the time of the initial creation, there were no other planets, stars, or other material bodies in the universe; nor did any of them come into being until the fourth day. The earth itself originally had no form to it (Genesis 1:2); so this verse must speak essentially of the creation of the basic elements of matter, which thereafter were to be organized into the structured earth and later into other material bodies. The word is the Hebrew erets and is often also translated either “ground” or “land.” Somewhat similarly to the use of “heaven,” it can mean either a particular portion of earth (e.g., the “land of Canaan”—Genesis 12:5) or the earth material in general (e.g., “Let the earth bring forth grass”—Genesis 1:11).

5 “In the beginning”

Not only does the first verse of the Bible speak of the creation of space and matter, but it also notes the beginning of time. The universe is actually a continuum of space, matter, and time, no one of which can have a meaningful existence without the other two. The term matter is understood to include energy, and must function in both space and time. “Space” is measurable and accessible to sense observation only in terms of the entities that exist and the events that happen in space, and these require both matter and time. The concept time likewise is meaningful only in terms of entities and events existing and transpiring during time, which likewise require space and matter.

Thus, Genesis 1:1 can legitimately and incisively be paraphrased as follows: “The transcendent, omnipotent Godhead called into existence the space-mass-time universe.” As noted earlier, the name Elohim suggests that God is both one God, yet more than one. Though it does not specify that God is a trinity, the fact that the product of His creative activity was a tri-universe does at least strongly suggest this possibility. A trinity, or tri-unity is not the same as a triad (in which there are three distinct and separate components comprising a system), but rather is a continuum in which each component is itself coexistent and coterminous with the whole. That is, the universe is not part space, part time, and part matter, but rather all space, all time, all matter, and so is a true tri-unity.

The phrase “In the beginning” is the Hebrew bereshith, and is properly translated in the Authorized Version. In the Greek Septuagint it is translated en arche, the same words used in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word.” Although the universe had a beginning, the Word was already there and thus transcends the universe.

Some modern translators, trying to find a means of accommodating the supposedly great age of the universe, have suggested a weaker translation of bereshith, such as: “In the beginning of God’s creating …,” or “When God began to create.…” Although Hebrew scholars recognize that this is a grammatically permissible translation, the context precludes it. The purpose is clearly to tell about the beginning of all things; whereas this kind of translation, rather than answering the question, really raises the question instead. Furthermore, the conjunction “And” connecting verses 1 and 2 clearly shows sequential action. That is, verse 1 cannot be a sort of modifying clause of verse 2, but rather is a declarative statement followed by a second declarative statement.

Neither can verse 1 as a whole be considered a title or summary of the events described in the succeeding verses of the chapter, for the same reasons. The summary, in fact, is given in Genesis 2:4: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.…” Furthermore, Genesis 2:1 notes the termination of the work of the six days of creation by the following summary: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” This statement clearly refers to the work of the previous six days, including the first day. However, it includes “the heavens” in this summary; and the only mention of the heavens during the six days is in Genesis 1:1, a fact which demonstrates that the summary of Genesis 2:1 embraces also the work of Genesis 1:1. In other words, the primeval creation of the heaven and the earth in the beginning was the first act of the first day of the six days, calling into existence the basic elements of the space-mass-time continuum which constitutes the physical universe.