"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep
and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters."
So, have you ever made a mess of your life? Or has someone else made a mess of your life? I mean, can you look back on your life and see times or a time where you decided that your way was better than God’s way and now you have a mess to work through in terms of consequences, relationships issues, financial problems, integrity issues, and maybe even substantial loss and because of all this— your future looks pretty bleak right now? In fact, maybe right now, you can’t see past your mess to see anything positive, productive, promising, peaceful, or pleasant in your future. And the fact is, maybe you’re at that point where it all looks so bad to you that you don’t believe that God could or would turn your mess into something beautiful, valuable, and even glorious.
Well, this is where the Israelites who had just Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land found themselves many times because of their many decisions to “do it their way” instead of God’s way. Whether it was their besetting sins of complaining, grumbling, and continually threatening to desert the mission and head back to Egypt or their bent toward idolatry or their lust for immorality or their unwillingness to follow God joyfully or their lack of trust in God—the Israelites did everything they could to wreck their future and provoke God to wreck them.
But, God had a plan for these people—a plan that even incorporated their failures and God was going to fulfill His plan and give them and us a future. You see, God had made a promise that He was going to form this motley crew into His People whom He was going to use to bless the world. That’s right—God’s plan for reconciling the world to Himself included calling the people of Israel to Himself to be the conduit by which God would reveal Himself and His plan to reconcile sinners to Himself so as to make all things right. And God’s plan for Israel included using her as the means by which the Word of God would be recorded and preserved as well as the means by which the Messiah—Jesus Christ the Lord would enter the world.
Now, these Israelites couldn’t see God’s plan or their future in it but God could. They needed to hear that God could take any kind of mess they made and turn it into something good. They needed to see that God could He bring order, beauty, and glory out of their chaos. And I don’t think we're any different. We, too, need to see that God can take people like us who are sinners to our very core—and turn our confusing mess and chaos into a life that brings God glory and us joy and meaning. This is why the Israelites and we too need to be familiar with Genesis 1:1-2 which helps God's people understand that: For His glory God finds joy in turning our chaos, emptiness, darkness, and confusion into order, fullness, beauty, and light.
The Hebrew word for create bara indicates that God intentionally, purposely, and deliberately created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. If you spoke Latin you'd say ex-nihilo. So, this verb bara tells us that when God created he did not use existing materials nor did He create haphazardly. As Hebrews 11:3 puts it—“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.” What God created and how God created during the Creation week were according to His will and thus, His plan in every respect.
Verse 1 tells us what God started on Day 1—He created the Heavens and the Earth. And in reading the rest of chapter one, we know that He took five more days to finish His creative work which primarily focused on Earth. God did not create everything immediately on Day 1 but rather initiated a six-day creation process in which He formed and filled the Earth. And I believe those 6 days were literal 24 hour days not ages of unspecified time. Now, obviously, God chose to create in stages so that on Day 1 He creates the ingredients or raw materials, if you will, that He will use on days 2-4 to form Earth into a place that can sustain human and animal life on days 5 and 6.
But, verse 2 kind of surprises us because the beginning stage of Earth’s creation was not pretty. In fact, the verse says that the Earth in its original created state on Day 1 was formless, empty, and enveloped in darkness. The word formless means desolate. It has a very negative connotation in that it describes that which does not have any recognizable form and that which does not appear to be able to be formed. Some scholars have suggested that it is describing chaos and that which smacks of confusion and disorder. The second word the Bible uses to describe God’s initial Creative act in forming the raw materials which He would form into Earth is void or empty and it basically means uninhabited and uninhabitable. Finally, verse 2 says that “darkness was over the surface of the deep” which simply means Earth’s surface which was some sort of liquid was completely enveloped in darkness.
So, the Bible is not describing the initial creation and constitution of earth as being very attractive, appealing, or promising. Now, we need to keep in mind that this was not an accident as though God made a mistake mixing chemicals to try and find the right ingredients. This couldn't be the case because as we have already seen God's creative work was intentional not haphazard. He knew what he was doing and what He did was totally according to His plan. On top of that, His plan, like all of His plans, was made according to His good pleasure or joy so as to bring Him the most glory (Eph. 1). It is as though God is purposely creating a chaotic mess to begin with in order to make the point that: For His Glory God finds joy in turning chaos, emptiness, darkness, and confusion into order, fullness, beauty, and light.
And the reason I say that God finds joy in doing this is because at the end of the Creation Week God declares everything “very good”. The word “good” which is tove (to-ve) means that which results in joy, glory, beauty, happiness, and value. In other words, God found value and glory and joy and happiness in bringing life, beauty, order, and meaning to something that was ugly, stinky, chaotic, confusing, dead, and enveloped in darkness. And this helps us understand why God began His Creation the way he did. God had much more in mind in His plan of creating than just making Earth. He was using His plan and His Creation to tell a story the Hebrews and we need to hear.
The Hebrews and especially Moses, I think, really needed to know that God could take a band of misfits and their failures and still accomplish His divine purposes in and through them. And we need to know that too because sometimes we look at our sin and our consequences and wonder if God will ever give us back our purpose and our joy. And Genesis 1:2 is telling His people—“Yes, He can and He will and that as bad as it looks right now—in the end it will all work out for our good and His glory.” In other words, Genesis 1:2 is illustrating Romans 8:28.
But, the really BIG story He is using Creation, first and foremost, to illustrate is the Gospel which tells us how God redeems sinners whose lives are chaotic, empty, and enveloped in complete darkness.
Remember, according to Jesus, Genesis, like the rest of the Old Testament is primarily about Him and His work of redeeming and reconciling sinners whose lives are hopelessly dark and confusing and chaotic to God (Lk. 24:26-27, 44-47; Jn. 5:46).
So, thus far we have seen why God began His creation of earth with a mess but now let’s see how He takes this mess and turns it into something good. Take a look back at verse 2 and notice Who was “moving over” the surface of the deep or was moving over and through the darkness that was enveloping Earth—The Spirit of God or as we would say—The Holy Spirit.
The Hebrew word that is used of Spirit is ruach (ru-acch) and it is used in verse 2 as “the Spirit of God” or Elohim. In other words, here we see the third member of the Trinity—the Holy Spirit—in the Beginning—and He is there moving in the chaos—in the confusion—in and over the darkness. And the reason we see the Holy Spirit here is because He is inseparably connected with the Creation of life in the Bible. Throughout the Bible He is referred to as the Originator of life, both in creation and in salvation. In fact, the Apostle Paul refers to Him as "the Spirit of life” in Romans 8:2.
Besides moving and hovering over the initial stage of creation we also see the Spirit being the member of the Trinity Who gives life to Man in Genesis 2:7. When God made man, He formed him "of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (i.e., Spirit) of life…". Job ascribes his life and existence to the Holy Spirit when he says in Job 33:4 that "The Spirit of God made me, and the breath or Spirit of the Almighty has given me life”. And in Psalm 104:30 we see that the creation of animals and even the renewal of life every Spring is attributed to the Holy Spirit. For this reason, in A.D. 381, the early church amended the Nicene Creed so that instead of merely saying that they believed in the Holy Spirit they confessed the Holy Spirit as "the Lord and Giver of life.”
So, when Genesis 1:2 states that the Holy Spirit is “moving” or “hovering” over the surface of the waters that were covering the earth—the Bible is telling us something about the Holy Spirit’s Creative role in the initial stage of Creation. Notice His role was twofold—Number One, He oversaw the Creation from within the Creation bringing it to its intended goal. And Number Two, He energized and animated the Creation infusing it with Life. You see, the Hebrew word for “moving” is describing what a bird like an eagle does with her young as she hatches her eggs and then protects and guides the eaglets ensuring they safely reach the age when they can fly on their own. And, the New Testament equivalent of this word “moving” is used in 2 Peter 1:21 of the Holy Spirit Who is the Member of the Trinity Who inspired Scripture making sure that the men who recorded Scripture wrote down exactly every word God wanted them to use.
So, the Holy Spirit is moving in and over the chaos in Genesis 1:2 so as to animate it and then ensure that it ultimately becomes exactly what God wants it to become and that it pictures exactly what God wants it to picture and that it communicates exactly what God wants communicated in relation to His Redemption story—His story of how He will redeem and save sinners. And in this story of redemption—our story starts just like the initial stage of Creation in Genesis 1:2 started—with us being spiritually empty, dead, powerless, and enveloped in darkness. But, God the Holy Spirit was there and He was at work—in our lives—in our darkness—in our emptiness—in our lost, confusing, and chaotic lives to initiate the work of redemption—the work of salvation in us. You see, just as the Creation could not create physical life—neither can you nor anyone else create spiritual life—It must be created by God and the member of the Trinity who creates this spiritual life is none other than the Holy Spirit of God.
It shouldn’t surprise us therefore that the Holy Spirit is also spoken of as the Author of life in the salvation of sinners. Just as He is the Originator of physical life He is also the Originator of spiritual life. Throughout the Old and New Testament Scriptures the Holy Spirit is identified as the One Who causes the dead sinner to be made spiritually alive so that they can see their lost condition and desire Christ. As Jesus put it in John 6:63, in talking about how God saves people, “It is the Spirit Who gives Life. And this same Holy Spirit Who is God—Who gave us spiritual life so that we trusted in Christ for salvation is the God Who is still always with us even in our mess and Who will ultimately bring us through our mess to the Promised Land. And what we learn from Genesis 1:2 about God and in particular God the Holy Spirit is that—Not only is He fully capable of turning our chaos, emptiness, confusion, and darkness into order, fullness, beauty, and light—He delights in it.
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