How would you react if you found out that someone had left a very large inheritance for you in a safe deposit box at a nearby bank? No one else can get to it but you.
That’s the scenario that is pictured for us in 1 Peter 1:4-5. Last week we saw that God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I mentioned that it is a real hope, not a hope-so hope. The sentence continues into the next couple of verses. We have this hope, but there is a target for it. The hope God gives is leading us somewhere.
Verse 4 tells us that it is leading to an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, already set aside in heaven for us. First of all, this inheritance is incorruptible or imperishable. The inheritance cannot rust or rot or spoil. It remains whole and intact. Secondly, it is undefiled, pure, untainted with any impurities or pollutants. It has no faults in it. And third, it doesn’t fade away. It doesn’t just melt away like the snow that’s been around our house for more than a month. Let your mind ponder those three words that describe the surety of the inheritance God has provided for us through Christ.
Finally, the Bible says it is reserved in heaven for us. The word is a very strong word like “guarded” or “protected,” and it is written in a verb tense that means the guard and protection has already been placed on this inheritance and that protection is still in place to this day. In other words, when we get to heaven, someone isn’t going to have to look around and see if he can find it under a bed somewhere. The inheritance is in the vault, and it is being guarded 24/7 from the moment it was placed there. May God strengthen and encourage your heart this morning as you consider these amazing descriptions of God’s provision for our eternal salvation.
This is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life. And it’s not easy to apply. That’s part of why I keep coming back to it. Grace means a great deal to me, and I see many Christians struggling right here.
What I’m arguing is this: the Sabbath rest of God after creation is a picture—a type—of the kind of rest God is offering you and me today.
And I want to be clear about something right from the beginning. We’re not talking about death. We’re not talking about heaven. We’re talking about a rest that is available right now. Today is a day we can be entering God’s rest. And when tomorrow comes, it will be today again—and the same offer will still be there.
What Do We Mean by “Rest”?
Before we go further, it helps to slow down and ask what we mean by rest.
When we think of rest, we think of things like ceasing activity, relaxing, being restored, letting go of pressure. There’s even a kind of surrender involved. When you lie down for a nap, you’re letting something go. The pressure is off.
That idea—the pressure being off—is important. Because what we’re going to see is that God is offering something deeper than physical rest. He’s offering a rest that reaches into the heart.
The Warning from the Past
The passage we’re working through brings us into Hebrews 3, where the author quotes Psalm 95. And in that psalm, God is looking back to Israel in the wilderness. Those people had seen His works for forty years. And yet God says of them:
“They always go astray in their heart… As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.”
The key issue wasn’t just outward behavior. It was the heart. And specifically, it was unbelief. The author of Hebrews presses that point. He warns:
“Take care… that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”
Notice how those words are tied together—evil and unbelieving. Disobedience and unbelief are not really separate things. They go together. At the root, the sin-issue is that we don’t believe what God has said.
Encouraging One Another—Today
Because of that danger, we’re told to encourage one another.
“Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today.’”
That word “today” keeps coming up. It’s not abstract. It’s immediate. When should we encourage one another? Today. And when tomorrow comes? It will be today again.
This isn’t something we put off. The reason we encourage each other now is so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There is a real danger, even for believers, of a kind of hardening that comes from not believing God.
And God uses both His Spirit and His people to keep us. Our security isn’t some detached guarantee. It’s something God actively sustains—through His Word and through one another.
The Problem: Hearing Without Believing
The Israelites had good news proclaimed to them. God promised to meet their needs. He promised provision in the wilderness. But the word they heard did not profit them.
Why?
Because it wasn’t united with faith. They heard it—but they didn’t believe it.
And that’s where this becomes very close to home. God says, “I will meet your needs.” But we find ourselves thinking, “I’m not sure He will—not in this situation.” God says He gives peace. And yet we say, “I don’t have peace.” If God gave it and we don’t have it, where did it go? At some point, that raises a question: do we really believe Him?
If we truly believed that God has given peace, then we would live in that peace. The issue comes back again to belief.
Entering the Rest by Faith
The writer of Hebrews makes a remarkable statement:
“We who have believed enter that rest.” Not will enter. Enter. This is present reality. This rest is something believers are meant to experience now. And to help us understand it, the passage reaches all the way back to creation:
“And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.”
That rest of God becomes the model. The author connects it with the rest Israel failed to enter—and then says that rest is still available. How do we know it’s still available? Because the word “today” is still being spoken.
The door has not closed.
There Remains a Rest
This leads to one of the most important statements in the passage: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
There remains a rest—for you, right now. Not next week. Not someday. Today.
And this rest is more than stopping activity. It’s something deeper than that. It touches the heart, the inner striving, the pressure we carry.
Resting from Our Works
The passage brings us to this final idea:
“The one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
That’s the picture. God finished His work—and He rested.
And we are told that there is a way for us, in Christ, to enter into that same kind of rest. Not by ceasing all activity—we still live, work, make decisions, raise families—but by ceasing the inner striving, especially the inner striving to prove yourself to God somehow. The grace of God forgives all sins and declares us righteous. The striving for perfection is over!
Ceasing the pressure.
Ceasing the sense that everything depends on us.
What That Looks Like in Real Life
I’ve been trying to think through what this actually looks like.
You go through your day—running errands, making decisions, dealing with responsibilities. Nothing outward necessarily changes. But inwardly, something is different. You are at rest. You’re no longer carrying everything. You’re no longer striving in the same way. The pressure has been lifted.
That’s not easy. I can tell you from experience—it’s not easy. You face real situations, real concerns, real stress. And there’s something in you that wants to hold on—to keep worrying, to keep managing, to keep carrying it. And yet God says, in effect, “Trust Me.”
And we respond, “But if I don’t carry this, who will?” And the answer is—He will.
There’s that verse about casting your cares on Him. And I’ve come to read it this way: not just that He cares about me, but that He does the caring for me. He carries what I’ve been trying to carry.
That’s the rest being offered.
God finished His work. And in Christ, we are invited into that same kind of rest—to say, in the middle of life, “It’s in His hands.”
And the question that remains is whether we will believe Him enough to enter into it.
*Some articles on this publication or website are adapted from my recorded Bible teaching. I use transcription and editing tools (including AI-assisted editing) to convert spoken lectures into readable written form. The ideas, interpretations, and theological conclusions are my own and come directly from my teaching.
We’re still in Genesis chapter 1—five weeks in now. It’s been a little slow going, but I wanted to make sure we didn’t rush past the end of the chapter, especially beginning in verse 29, which we didn’t get to last time.
What God Gave for Food
At the end of Genesis 1, we’re told what God provided for food. He says:
“Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.”
So what did Adam receive? Plants. Trees. Fruit. Herbs. Everything growing from the ground. And notably—no animals. We’re not even at the stage of clean versus unclean animals. There simply are no animals given for food at all. Both man and animals were plant-eaters. Verse 30 tells us that every beast and bird was also given green plants for food. That’s hard for us to picture. Lions eating vegetation. No predation. No death in that sense.And this is before the fall, so none of the frustrations we’re used to were present. No weeds. No disease. No fungus ruining crops. No worms in the fruit. Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to.
“Very Good”
Then we come to verse 31:
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”
Up to this point, God repeatedly said things were “good.” But here, at the completion of creation—especially after the creation of man—He says it is “very good.” The Hebrew intensifies it. Not just good—but fully, completely good. Everything is exactly as He intended. important. Creation wasn’t partial. It wasn’t unfinished. It wasn’t “good enough for now.” It was complete, and it pleased Him.
The Seventh Day: What God Did
As we move into Genesis 2:1–3, we’re really still finishing the creation account.
There are four things God does on the seventh day:
He finished His work
He rested
He blessed the day
He sanctified it
That sequence matters.
God Finished
When God finished, He didn’t stop because He ran out of time or energy. He stopped because there was nothing left to do. He had done everything that was necessary to complete His goals.
That’s different from how we experience work. We might stop working at the end of the day, but most of the time it’s not because everything is truly finished. There’s always more to do tomorrow. But when God finished, it was complete. Exactly as He intended. Nothing lacking. Nothing needing revision.
That’s how God works. He finishes what He starts.
God Rested
God rested—not because He was tired—but because the work was complete.
This rest is not inactivity. Later, Jesus makes it clear that God is still working. But He is at rest in the sense that His creative work is finished and fully sufficient.
God Blessed the Day
When God blesses something, He places His approval on it. It’s not a casual acknowledgment—it’s a full affirmation. He sets this day apart as something good for His creation.
God Sanctified It
To sanctify means to make holy—to set apart as special. So the seventh day becomes distinct. Not just another day, but one marked off by God Himself. Later, Jesus would tell us that the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around. Unlike the pagan nations that would eventually live in the surrounding territories, God’s people are distinct. They understand that man should not work sunrise to sunset seven days a week.
“Hosts”: Everything Under His Command
Genesis 2:1 says the heavens and the earth were completed “and all their hosts.”
That word “hosts” is important. It can mean armies, but more broadly it refers to everything under God’s command. The stars, the heavens, all creation—everything exists under His authority. Nothing operates independently. Everything answers to Him.
The Sabbath in Israel
When we move forward to Exodus 20, the Sabbath becomes a command.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
Why? Because God already made it holy. Now Israel is commanded to treat it that way.
They were to rest completely:
No work
No labor from servants
No work from animals
The entire rhythm of life stopped.
And the reason given is creation itself—God rested, so they were to rest. In addition, God told them to keep the Sabbath because they had been a slave in Egypt. There again it pointed to the fact that His people were set apart, different.
Later, in Exodus 31, the Sabbath is described as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. It wasn’t just a helpful practice—it was part of their covenant relationship with Him.
Before the Law: The Manna
Even before the Ten Commandments, we see a preview of Sabbath in Exodus 16 with the manna. They were to gather daily—but not hoard it. If they tried to store it, it spoiled. Except on the sixth day. On that day, they were to gather double, because no manna would come on the seventh day.
God was already teaching them a rhythm of trust and rest before formally giving the law. God would always make sure that they had enough.
What Happened by the Time of Jesus
By the time we get to the Gospels, the Sabbath had become something very different. The Pharisees had developed extensive rules—thirty-nine categories of prohibited work, each expanded into detailed restrictions. Simple actions—like picking grain, tying knots, carrying small items, or even writing a couple of letters—could be considered violations. The focus had shifted from the meaning of the Sabbath to the regulation of behavior.
Jesus and the Sabbath
In Mark 2, Jesus’ disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees object.
Jesus responds with two key statements:
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”
“The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
That reframes everything. The Sabbath exists for human good—not as a burden. And Jesus, as Lord of the Sabbath, has authority over how it is understood and applied.In another instance (Mark 3), Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath and confronts the question directly:
“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?”
The issue is no longer technical compliance—it’s the heart and purpose behind the command.
The New Testament Perspective
When we come to Romans 14, Paul addresses how believers treat days.
“One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.”
This is a shift. Under the new covenant, Sabbath-keeping as a legal requirement is no longer binding in the same way it was for Israel. Some believers set aside a particular day with special focus on the Lord. Others treat all days alike. Both can be done in a way that honors God.
The Meaning That Remains
Even though the commandment structure changes, the meaning of the Sabbath does not disappear.
God rested.
And He invites us into that rest.
That’s the deeper reality.
Not merely setting aside a day—but entering into a way of living where we trust God, where we are not constantly striving, where we rest in His completed work. That doesn’t mean inactivity. God Himself is still working. But it does mean confidence. Peace. Trust. And that’s something we struggle with.
We go through seasons where life feels like constant striving—pressure, confusion, responsibility. And in the middle of that, God says: enter My rest.
That’s not easy. It’s something we have to learn.
As Scripture says, we are to “strive to enter that rest.”
There’s effort involved—not in working more, but in learning how to rest in Him.
Living It Out
Even practically, there is wisdom in stepping back. Not as a legal requirement—but as something good for us.
We don’t need to live seven days a week at full speed. There is value in setting time aside—time focused on God, time that is not driven by work.
Some treat Sunday that way very intentionally. Others don’t structure it the same way. But the principle remains: we were not made for endless striving. We were made to rest in God.
And learning how to do that—really do that—is something we grow into over time.
For the next weeks I would like to draw some meditations from the book of First Peter. I have decided to use the books that Peter wrote to help me deepen my understanding of Jesus and the gospel since Peter followed Jesus around for so many years. These posts will give you the opportunity to think about Peter’s message along with me over the next several months.
Today let’s look at 1 Peter 1:1-2: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.”
Let me just give you a few quick thoughts to whet your appetite to study the passage more thoroughly:
My first thought is to remember who wrote this. It was Jesus’s disciple Peter who had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, often speaking before thinking. But now he is a leader in the church and reaching out to scattered Christians all throughout Asia Minor.
Notice that Peter refers to these people, along with all other believers as chosen by God long ago according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. My purpose here is not to get into a big debate about how all of this works, but it is interesting that God the Father, who is all-wise and all-knowing, chose us to serve and follow Him. Whatever this means, and however it works, it is an amazing thought! But the next section is where I really want us to focus. All of this takes place through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
What does sanctification of the Spirit mean? It means that the Spirit of God sets us apart for God’s glory and His service. We once were part of the world system and walked according to the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2). But now, we have been set apart for God’s glory by the Holy Spirit. That’s an amazing thought to me.
The second half of the phrase tells us the purpose of this setting apart: It is for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That means that God’s intention and goal is to make us obedient followers who have been cleansed and forgiven through the blood of Jesus. Putting this all together, you could say the Holy Spirit sets us apart to be cleansed by Jesus’s blood resulting in an obedient life. This is what the Christian life is all about. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul, in Romans 16, speaks of the mystery “made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith (Rom 16:25-26). That’s God’s goal, isn’t it? Obedient followers?
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.
Last week we spent a little time thinking about time itself, and I hope it didn’t fry anyone’s circuits too badly. Before time even began, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were already there. They existed before He made the heavens and the earth, and in perfect unity they determined how everything would unfold. We get a small glimpse of that divine conversation when God says, “Let us make man in our image.”
Today we’re going to look at the opening verses of Genesis 1 and start unpacking them.
The Text
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”
We touched on this briefly last time, but now let’s slow down and ask some real questions.
Who Was the Original Audience?
Even though the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture for every generation—including us—the first people to hear or read these words were the Israelites. Moses wrote this account for the people of Israel, the Jewish people of that time.
When we read the Bible, it helps to remember that different parts belong to different genres. The Psalms, for example, are largely poetry—not the rhyming kind we’re used to in English, but Hebrew poetry. Genesis is true history, yet it’s written in a way that carries a poetic rhythm and style natural to the Hebrew language. The original hearers would have picked up certain nuances that we sometimes miss. That doesn’t mean we’re misunderstanding the text; it just means we can gain helpful perspective by imagining how they heard it.
The Name “God” – Elohim
The very first word for God in Genesis 1:1 is Elohim. You’ve probably heard that term before. It’s grammatically plural, yet it’s used here with singular verbs to refer to the one true God we worship. Elohim is actually a more generic word for deity. When Aaron made the golden calf, he pointed to it and said, “This is your Elohim who brought you out of Egypt.” Foreign idols and false gods were also called elohim (lowercase in our English translations to show the distinction).
Hebrew didn’t use upper- and lowercase letters, so context carried the weight. We do something similar in English when we say “the gods of the Egyptians” versus “the God of Israel.”
That plural form of Elohim—combined with phrases like “Let us make man in our image”—offers a quiet hint of the Trinity. It’s not a full explanation, but the plurality is there.
Later in chapter 2 we’ll meet another name: Yahweh (often rendered “LORD” in all capital letters in our English Bibles). That’s the personal, covenant name God gave to Moses—“I AM.” Many of us grew up saying “Jehovah,” but the more accurate pronunciation scholars use today is Yahweh. Personally, I prefer using the name when Scripture does. Saying “the LORD says” feels a little like stepping back into third-person distance, while “Yahweh says” keeps the directness of the text.
The Word That Creates – Connecting to John 1
Genesis 1:1 begins, “In the beginning God created…” John 1:1 picks up the same phrase: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
The Greek word logos means far more than a single spoken word. For the Greeks it carried the sense of wisdom, logic, reason, order—the organizing principle of the universe. John is telling us that this logos—this wisdom and commanding speech—was there in the beginning. When God said, “Let there be light,” that was the logos in action.
Later John says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So the one through whom God creates is none other than Jesus, the second person of the Trinity.
Psalm 33 echoes the same truth: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth… For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”
Why That Should Fill Us with Awe
Think about it. We can’t speak physical reality into existence. I can’t say, “Let there be a chair,” and have one appear. But God speaks, and entire realms come into being. That same word holds everything together right now. Colossians tells us that in Christ all things hold together. If He stopped sustaining creation for even an instant, it would unravel.
A being with that kind of power and reach ought to inspire both awe and a healthy fear. We were made to worship Him. When we grasp—even a little—that He can call things into existence from nothing and can just as easily call them out of existence, respect and wonder are the only right responses.
The Earth Was Without Form and Void – To hu va-bohu
Genesis 1:2 says the earth was tohu va-bohu—without form and void. Those Hebrew words roll off the tongue in a memorable way. Tohu appears far more often than bohu in Scripture, and Isaiah uses it more than anyone else.
Tohu gets translated in various places as:
wasteland
wilderness
empty space
confusion
empty things
nowhere
Put together, the picture is a chaotic, empty, desolate, unfinished wilderness—a dark, watery, formless expanse.
Isaiah 45:18 says God “did not create [the earth] in vain [tohu]; He formed it to be inhabited.” So the original state wasn’t the final goal. He didn’t make a permanent mess. Something was underway.
Other passages that use tohu and bohu describe places under God’s judgment—Edom turned to burning pitch and desolation (Isaiah 34), or the land shaken and emptied because of the Lord’s fierce anger (Jeremiah 4). In both cases the language echoes Genesis 1:2.
Three Ways People Have Understood This
A blank canvas / unshaped clay God created the raw material in a formless, void state—like a potter’s lump of clay or an empty page—and then over the six days He shaped it into the ordered, inhabited world. Nothing wrong with that view.
A result of judgment Some suggest a catastrophe happened between verses 1 and 2—perhaps tied to Satan’s fall and being cast to the earth—leaving the creation in chaos. God then reshaped it.
A pre-Adamic world judged An older view (popularized by Scofield) proposed an entire earlier creation—animals, perhaps even people—that God judged, leaving fossils and a tohu va-bohu earth before the six-day work began. Many today (including Ken Ham) push back on that because it would place death before Adam’s sin.
We don’t have a definitive answer. What we do know is that God makes no mistakes and has no Plan B. He doesn’t say, “Oops, that didn’t work; let me try again.” Everything unfolds according to His eternal purpose.
The Spirit Hovering / Brooding
Genesis 1:2 ends with the Spirit of God “hovering” over the face of the waters. The Hebrew word carries the sense of brooding, fluttering, protecting—like a bird over its nest, wings moving, eyes focused, single-mindedly watching and guarding.
The Spirit wasn’t abandoning this dark, watery chaos. He was present, actively involved, poised for what came next. When God said, “Let there be light,” the work began.
That’s where we’ll pick up next time.
Lord willing, we’ll keep moving slowly through the chapter. There’s depth here worth taking our time with.
* Some articles on this publication or website are adapted from my recorded Bible teaching. I use transcription and editing tools (including AI-assisted editing) to convert spoken lectures into readable written form. The ideas, interpretations, and theological conclusions are my own and come directly from my teaching.
As I have studied the Bible over the years, I sometimes want to go back and think about the beginning. We who have been raised in the church know a lot about the Old Testament through the Bible stories that were read to us as children. But I don’t think that we take enough time to really take in what the Bible says about the relationship and interaction of the True God with His creation. I’m going to take time over the next weeks and months to do that for myself to better inform my thinking and teaching.
The Bible starts out with the statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” My mind then wanders to questions like, “What was going on before time?” and “Why did God decide to create the universe at that particular place and time?”
Time itself deserves some attention. Time did not begin until God created it at the beginning. According to 2 Timothy 1:9, God’s purpose and grace were given to us “before time began.” With God there is no “before” or “after.” He just is. He is outside of time. I believe that when God speaks to us in terms of time, such as “before” or “after,” He is accommodating the fact that we as humans live in time.
Colossians 1:7 speaks of Jesus Christ like this: “He is before all things.” I think we would expect the word “was” in that context. Apparently, God is not just present everywhere in the location sense, He is present everywhere in time. That doesn’t just mean that God has always been present. It means that He is present right now at all times. He is as much present with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob now as He is with us. We don’t understand that of course, but the Bible seems to be pretty clear about that. At the time Jesus was walking the streets of the Holy Land with His disciples, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).
Isaiah tells us that God inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). Isaiah also quotes God as saying, “Even from eternity I am He” (Isaiah 43:13). Revelation 4:8 explains that Jesus is the one who “was, is, and is to come.” For God, a day is no different than a 1000 years (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).
But, in my own feeble way, I still want to know what was going on before time began – before “In the beginning”? The Bible does give us some clues. In John 17:24, Jesus acknowledges that God loved Him before the foundation of the world. This means that love existed before there were any people. There was love between the Father and the Son. In Proverbs 8, wisdom is personified and says, “From everlasting I was installed,” and “Before the mountains…I was brought forth” (Proverbs 8:23, 25).
What else was going on “Before”? Titus 1:2 tells us that God promised eternal life before all time. Jesus was foreordained and considered slain before the world was created (1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 13:8). And we know that the kingdom was prepared for God’s people before the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).
So in the mind and heart of God, plans were in place to accomplish the complete work of redemption that would be needed to restore a broken world and broken people to Himself. You should never think that God must have a plan B or C depending on how we respond to events and circumstances. God encompasses it all.
I think I’ll wrap up my thoughts about the “Before” at this point. Next time I have a chance, I’ll write some of my thoughts related to the first few verses of Genesis 1.
This is a repost of a blog article I wrote in 2005 after I had read The Vanishing Word by Arthur W. Hunt III. I think the main points are still valid even after 20 years, and probably even more so considering the proliferation of visual imaging technologies including AI.
I have just finished reading a most fascinating book called The Vanishing Word by Arthur W. Hunt III. At the risk of oversimplification, let me summarize my understanding of Hunt’s thesis. Basically he ties classic Judaism/Christianity with word-based thinking and communication. On the other side, paganism throughout history has been associated with the image and image-based communication. Hunt compares paganism in the ancient history of Egypt and Babylon with the text-based culture of the Hebrews. He then explains how the “Dark Ages” were a return to the ancient paganism at the same time that the literary culture was falling by the wayside. With the invention of the printing press and the spread of the Reformation, textual based thinking and communication became dominate and true religion was able to flourish. His concern now is that with the advent of television, movies and the Internet, we are becoming an image-based culture, and as such, the danger of a return to paganism is very real. In using the image, paganism both ancient and modern involves a heavy emphasis on sex, violence, and celebrity worship.
I have been a public school teacher for over 30 years and I have been able to see the decline in verbal skills during that entire time. More recently with the advent of the Internet, students’ ability to communicate their ideas and thoughts verbally is very low. My son, who teaches engineering in college, is frustrated by the fact that students are not able to communicate to him their understanding of the concepts they are supposed to be learning. If they could accurately communicate their ideas, he would know whether they understood the concepts or not, and if not he could help them to correct their misunderstandings, but as it is, it is very difficult even to know what they understand.
This problem should be especially alarming to us as Christians because God has chosen to reveal Himself and the truth about Himself in words! If we cannot understand the words, we will not know who God is or what our condition is or how that condition can be rectified. The two components of the Great Commission involve proclamation of the gospel and teaching the Word of God. Although good teaching and even the proclamation of the gospel can be aided by illustrations and stories or can even be presented in dramatic form, it ultimately comes down to understanding the declarative propositions God has made of Himself.
Many of the recent innovations in worship style that have taken place in Evangelical churches in recent years have involved the reduction in word and the increase in image. Many churches have replaced the sermon with dramatic productions. Sermon outlines are now projected on lovely backgrounds using computer technology. Rather than encouraging people to have a copy of the Word of God in their hands, many churches are providing key passages on the screen using that same display. While it is the same word of God, it is my opinion that it reduces the church member’s appreciation for and respect for the Word of God. Reading the key passage in context used to be encouraged, but now with the display of a short passage, the context is missing. When the display changes, the reader can’t go back and re-read the text to allow it to settle into his mind. All of this tends to minimize the importance of the Word and to reinforce the cultural view that image is everything.
Another recent innovation that has been brought to us by our technological society is the commodification of faith and especially music. By commodification I mean the fact that aspects of Christian worship, especially music, has become a big business commodity. Most of the major Christian record labels are not owned by Christians anymore. CD’s are being produced and mass marketed and they are hyped over Christian radio in the same way that secular music is marketed. The result is that the consumer brings these newly developed tastes into the church and expects to be served the same fare. In many instances, there does not seem to be much thought given to the effect this market driven approach will have on the worship of God’s people. Who is asking the questions about what God has required in His word for His worship? Who is asking questions about what is being taught by the music (or the VBS materials, or the Sunday School youth magazines, etc.) that are being adopted for use in our churches? Do these increase our understanding of the Word or do they cater to the image saturation of our culture?
In concluding his book, Dr. Hunt gives several suggestions for reducing the impact of the image in our lives. To his thoughts I add my own. Most of these involve time and attitude adjustments. With respect to time, we need to give less time to the image and more time to reading. This means spending less time in front of the television and computer screens and more time reading and conversing. Churches can help by re-elevating the importance of the word in worship and in teaching. We are going to have to do some re-educating of the people in our churches who have been raised in an image based society. They do not know how to think in the thought patterns that the printed word requires. We are going to have to help them learn how to do this. I think of how Wycliffe Bible Translators and other groups have worked tirelessly not only to translate the scriptures, but to bring literacy to the people. We are going to have to have our own version of this in our churches as we seek to raise the literacy level of our members.
May God help us not to just jump into the cultural river and “go with the flow”. God calls us to be a distinct people. We must use the technological innovations whether printing press, TV or computer for God’s glory, but we must set the agenda based on God’s Word and not let the appeal of the pagan image lead the way.
The start of a new year is often the time when many Christians commit to being more disciplined about their Bible reading. Bible reading plans abound, and you can easily find one that will help you read the Bible through in a year if that is your goal.
Some of you may be like me, in that you fall behind in a very short time and are tempted to give up. You may get to late February and March and get bogged down in Leviticus or Numbers. After you get a week or two behind, the temptation is to shelve the whole project and make it your goal to start anew next January. You become very familiar with Genesis and Exodus, but the rest of the Bible is still sort of in the dark for you.
A missionary friend of mine gave me the simple solution to this dilemma. Use a book mark! Use a book mark like you would when reading any other book. If some time has gone by, just open the Bible to the book mark and begin reading again. Don’t worry about how many days you are behind. Just keep at it and read as much or as little as you want on any given day. You’ll eventually make it through and it will be well worth your while.
Let me tweak that advice a little more. Many Bible reading plans have you reading something from the Old Testament, something from the Psalms and Proverbs, and then something from the New Testament. What I do now is use three bookmarks. One goes at the beginning of Genesis, another at the beginning of Psalms, and the third at the beginning of the New Testament. Then simply rotate through the sections as time and interest allow. Use the Psalms bookmark to work your way through Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Then move it back to the beginning of the Psalms again.
If you can develop the habit and routine to read the Bible like this, it won’t matter how long it takes you to read through the entire Bible, but you will do it, and your spiritual life will be strengthened as a result.
Next time we’ll talk about how to take it a little deeper.
Paul writes the following in Romans 10:2-3: “For I testify about them [his Jewish people] that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For not knowing about the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”
He’s writing here about his desire to see his Jewish friends and relatives come to know the salvation that is found in Jesus the Messiah. But what he teaches us here about their error in thinking, could be said of most religious people, no matter what the religion.
He says that they “have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” The Christian faith is built on truth and on knowledge of that truth. God has acted in history by sending his son Jesus into this world for the purpose of dying on the cross to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. The events surrounding all of what took place, happened on this earth in space and time. On the day Jesus was executed, the sun came up and a new day had arrived. When Jesus died, it was a specific time of day and his heart stopped beating. On the third day his heart began to beat again, and his entire body came alive. These are real events. Having a zeal for God outside the truth of these events is futile. Our faith must be according to knowledge of the truth, not just religious wishful thinking.
What did these religious Jews not know? They did not know about the righteousness of God. This is the plight of all human beings. We know a god exists and we also know we are not perfect, but we do not recognize or realize how righteous and perfect God is. That’s the problem. Further, these people, not knowing the righteousness of God, sought to establish their own. And that’s what we do. We establish our own standard of righteousness, making sure that it is a standard that we can attain. We say we treat others fairly and kindly, but what we mean by that is that we treat them as fairly and kindly as our own standard specifies. We never compare ourselves to the standard of kindness God requires.
And here is what Paul writes as the conclusion of the above passage: “They did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” We subject ourselves to our own righteousness which has a standard we can meet, but we don’t subject ourselves to the righteousness of God because we know that we can never reach that level of perfection. We recognize immediately that if we are subject to God’s standard, we are doomed! In Romans 3:23, Paul tells us that everyone has sinned and falls short of God’s glory. That’s the truth that we have to accept to be able to receive God’s solution to our problem.
What is God’s solution? The Bible speaks of the righteousness of faith. In Romans 10:9-10 he says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation.” According to the Bible, God counts believing as righteousness. What we do is try to earn our salvation by trying to be righteous enough. But as we have seen, that is an impossible goal. There is a righteousness separate and apart from the list of rules. Romans 3:21-22 tells us that “the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all who believe.”
God’s righteousness is given to all who believe what God has said. This is a crucial thing to understand. When we believe what God says about himself and about the accomplishment of his son on the cross; and when we believe the solution God has provided in Jesus the Messiah, our believing is counted by God as righteousness. It’s a gift from God because of his amazing grace toward us.
Here’s what Paul writes in Philippians 3:9 with my comments added in brackets: “I want to be found in Him, not having my own righteousness [because my righteousness will never ever measure up] which is from the law [the list of rules God has laid down for us to obey], but [the righteousness] which is through faith in Christ [believing that Jesus Christ bore all of my guilt on the cross], the righteousness which is from God by faith [by believing God and his word].
In other words, when we believe what God has said about his son Jesus, God declares us righteous and we are assured of Jesus’s life living through us here and now, and a home in heaven when we die, and the promise that there will be no condemnation for us ever! (See Romans 8:1). Rule-keeping plays no part in this righteousness. It is righteousness as a free gift from God when we believe the record that God has given of his son. Do you believe this?
