It’s good to be back in Genesis. We’ve had a couple interruptions the last few weeks — holidays, a baptism for one grandson, then another baptized on Easter — but now we’re settling back into our study.
My goal as we move through Genesis is to go slowly. Not tediously slow, I hope, but slow enough to see what’s really there. We’ll keep making connections to the New Testament and to truths that help us see the greatness of God more clearly.
Today, I want to begin in the New Testament before returning to Genesis.
“What Is Seen Was Not Made Out of Things Which Are Visible”
Turn to Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter. Let me read the opening verses:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” (Hebrews 11:1–3)
That last line is what we’re focusing on: “what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
As someone who taught chemistry and physics for 25 years, that verse always meant a lot to me. The more you dig into almost any subject, the more it ends up glorifying God. If you grow flowers, you plant a seed in the same dirt as everything else — potatoes, corn, tomatoes — and yet each plant comes up tasting like what it’s supposed to taste like. That alone is amazing.
But let’s talk about something even smaller.
A Little Science — and a Big God
Everything in the material world is made of atoms. Atoms are too small to see. There are over a hundred elements — iron, copper, zinc, oxygen, hydrogen — but most of what we deal with every day is made from maybe ten or twelve of them.
Every atom has three parts: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The sacks in the picture represent the idea that God made everything from those three components. (In actuality, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but I think it gives you a mental picture.)
- Protons carry a positive charge.
- Neutrons have no charge.
- Electrons carry a negative charge and move around the outside of the atom.
Protons and neutrons are packed tightly together in the nucleus. Electrons move around that nucleus. Opposites attract — positive and negative — so the electrons are attracted to the nucleus.
Now here’s where it gets interesting.
Take carbon. Carbon has six protons and six neutrons in its nucleus, and six electrons outside. That’s what carbon is. Graphite in your pencil is carbon. A diamond is carbon.
Add one proton, one neutron, and one electron, and now you have nitrogen — an odorless gas that makes up a large part of our air. And if you were to add three hydrogen atoms, also an orderless gas, to one nitrogen, you have ammonia, which is anything but odorless.
Add another proton, neutron, and electron to nitrogen, you have oxygen — the air we breathe.
It’s the number of protons that makes an element what it is. God, in creating, used these basic building blocks — protons, neutrons, electrons — and from them came everything.
Let’s talk about iron.
Iron has 26 protons and 30 neutrons in its nucleus, with 26 electrons outside. That’s iron.
If you hold a common nail in your hand — mostly iron — that nail contains 26 billion billion atoms.
Now stretch your mind a little.
If we could expand one iron atom so that its nucleus was the size of a ping pong ball, the nearest electrons would be about 26 feet away. The outermost electrons would be about a third of a mile away.
And between the nucleus and those electrons?
Nothing.
Empty space. Not air, because air is made of atoms and there are no atoms within other atoms.
That means an atom of iron — something that seems solid and hard — is mostly nothing. The next atom would be another third of a mile beyond that.
So this nail, which holds buildings together and will hurt if you drive it into your finger, is mostly empty space. It’s made of things you cannot see — and most of it is nothing.
When you hit a nail with a hammer, the atoms of the hammer never actually touch the atoms of the nail. The electrons around each atom repel one another. It’s like magnets pushing away from each other. Forces are involved, but nothing truly “touches.”
And God did that.
The God you worship designed matter that way. The God who made you made a world where solid iron is mostly empty space held together by forces we cannot see.
That’s what Hebrews 11:3 means in part: “what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
Now go back to Genesis 1.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
“The earth was without form and void… and darkness was over the surface of the deep… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”
Before God spoke, there was no light.
He commanded something that did not exist to exist.
That’s not magic. That’s authority. He spoke to what did not exist and said, “Light, exist.” And light obeyed.
Paul picks this up in 2 Corinthians 4:6:
“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The saving work of Christ is like creation. God says, “Let there be light,” and light shines in a dark heart. He creates spiritual life just as He created physical light.
Romans 4:17 says He is the One who “calls into being that which does not exist.”
That’s what God does.
Separations, Naming, and Order
As we move through Genesis 1, notice what God does.
After creating the heavens and the earth and bringing light into existence, much of what follows is separation and ordering.
- He separates light from darkness.
- He names the light “day” and the darkness “night.”
- There was evening and there was morning, day one.
On the second day, He creates the expanse — the firmament — to separate waters from waters. He calls the expanse “heaven.”
The Hebrew word for that expanse, raqia, comes from a word meaning to beat out metal into a thin sheet. Ancient people looked up and saw what appeared to be a solid dome. That’s the language being used.
God separates waters above from waters below. Then He gathers the waters below so dry land appears.
Up to this point, after the initial creation and the creation of light, He hasn’t created new materials. He has been separating and ordering what He already brought into existence.
Light and darkness. Waters above and below. Sea and dry land.
He is dividing, naming, structuring.
The Sovereign God Who Does It All
Let me close with Isaiah 45.
God speaks to Cyrus, a pagan king. Cyrus did not know Him. Yet God says:
“I am the one who forms light and creates darkness, producing peace and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7)
There is no other.
He forms light. He creates darkness. He produces peace. He creates calamity. He raises up kings. He brings down kings.
This is the God who created iron atoms that are mostly empty space. This is the God who spoke light into existence. This is the God who shines light into human hearts.
And this same God gave us a Savior.
He could have judged us all. We have all rebelled against Him. But He desired to save. He desired to glorify Himself in mercy. So He sent Christ. The God who calls things into existence that do not exist called us into spiritual life.
That’s the God we’re studying in Genesis. And that’s the God we worship.