The First Creation Festival, Part 2

            When we read Genesis 1, we are not just reading the words.  Let’s look at the familiar words again.  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was formless and void, and the Spirit hovered over the darkness of the deep.  Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.”  And we know the rest.  God made land, and animals and birds and... you know.    But when we look at these words, we see “created” as meaning, “There was nothing and God created something.”  But that’s not what it says.  It says God created the heavens and the earth, and then it immediately talks about the earth as already existing.  And other stuff, too—water, darkness and the Spirit.  Before the creation of Genesis 1 even begins, there’s already something there.¹

Sure, it’s a mess—a terrible mess called “void” or “chaos.”  But how did that mess get there?  Did God make it?  “Dang, I forgot to clean up the universe this week.  Well, I’d better get to it…?”  Actually, we have a clue in Psalm 74: 12-17.  There, the old poet Asaph mentions an ancient battle, and then discusses creation in Genesis 1 as God’s cleanup.  In this battle, happening before Genesis 1, the good guy is God—of course.  The bad guy is this guy named Leviathan with his friend the Waters, AKA Yom, the Sea.  Who are these guys?  They are powerful spiritual beings, often described as dragons, and they messed up the world.²   So what’s going on in Genesis 1?  The beginning of the Bible is an amazing aftermath of a terrible battle between powerful spiritual creatures which devastated the earth.  All that is left is chaos.  But God could command order out of this chaos with just a word.  And who is God impressing?  The other powerful spiritual beings who may not be on God’s level, but they are enough of peers that God wants to impress them.

And impress them he does.  He separates the powerful enemy, water, and puts it totally under His command.  He limits the powerful enemy, darkness, so that it’s opposite, light, has authority.  Then he places both the light and the darkness under the authority of other powerful spiritual beings called the Sun and the Moon.  God’s enemies are subdued.  The angels swoon.  Wow.  This guy is amazing.  Is there anything he can’t do?

He flexes his muscle of creativity and makes birds and plants and sea creatures and animals to an almost infinite variety.  This is also quite impressive.  The spiritual beings ooh and aah.  They clap their hands.  What a performer! 

Now it comes to the climax. God had taken this messy battlefield and created out of it a paradise of color and variety.  Disney couldn’t have done better.  So now we reach the ultimate: Who’s going to be in charge of all this?  Everything God had made up to this point, he placed in charge of someone else.  What about the creatures of the earth?  It must be someone powerful.  Someone famous.  Someone almost the equal of God himself.

And God made humanity—male and female.  And he told them that they were in charge.  The audience is stunned.  This isn’t what they expected.  What about power?  What about fame?  These humans were wimps, and completely insignificant!  They don’t live for long, and can get killed if you look at them funny.  They are completely dependent on each other, and have to have children to perpetuate their power after they die.  How could God even make such weak creatures, let alone place them in charge of the earth?  The angels were looking for Captain Marvel, and they got Billy Batson—or better, Curious George!

This isn’t a climax, it’s an anticlimax.  The movers and shakers of the universe are disappointed.  But, strangely, there is clapping in the background.  Someone is impressed.  Who is it?  My goodness, it is God himself.  He looked at everything he made and thought he did a marvelous job!  He just loves it.  And humanity at the top of it, he tells everyone, what a stroke of genius!

The court looks at each other.  They may find little to be impressed with, but they clap along. 

After a bit, though, they realize God’s insight.  They were thinking that a powerful, significant universe-player would have to rule such a magnificent world.  But they finally realized God’s masterpiece.  Humanity, in all its frailty, in all of its weakness, in all of its insignificance—to make them rulers of a world of marvels is stunning. 

Brilliant. 

Unthinkable. 

To take the weakest, and make them the strongest.  To take dirt from the earth and make it a great power to be reckoned with.  This was not the Milli Vanilli act the angels all thought it was—it was Dave Gilmour, BB King and Jimmy Page all rolled into one! 

Art at its finest.  Sublime, yet evocative.

Notes:

1. There is no evidence in the Bible for a young earth.  In Genesis 1, the creation of humanity—the beginning point of the young earth countdown—happens at some long, but unknown time after the six day creation of Genesis 1. 
2. The Dragon Yom comes from a Canaanite myth where Baal destroys the chaos-dragon Yom.  The center verse of Psalm 74 takes the same story, but places Yahweh in Baal’s place.  So does this mean that the Bible teaches that the pagan myths are real?  Probably not, but the ideas of many of them are.  This is the lesson of the reality of the Iliad.

The First Creation Festival, Part 1

O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?

Yet You have made him a little lower than the gods,

And You crown him with glory and majesty!

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field,

The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,

Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!

-Ancient Hebrew Poetry (otherwise known as Psalm 8)

I’m a pastor and a Bible student (which are just euphemisms for “It’s my job to help people get closer to Jesus” and “I read the Bible so much it comes out of my toes”) and I need to let you in on a trade secret about God: He likes good press.  Some might say that He’s got a problem with pride or that He just does it for the fame—whatever you like to think.  But all these words like “glory” and “majesty” and “holy name”—they all have to do with God’s reputation, or how the media represent him.  And words like “praise” “splendor” and “honor” mean that He’s getting what he feels he deserves.  If He had his way, the international press would constantly be referring to him in positive terms: “God does it again!”  “Amazing feat by God!”  Kinda like the Daily Planet headlines on Superman. 

            Although it’s hard to imagine, that’s the main reason God created the earth.  For the good press.  The most natural question is: But who was there to be impressed?  Us folks who wouldn’t exist for a really long time? In the next century are we going to dig up an old reel: “God makes a big bang—film at eleven”?  Nope, wasn’t us.  Frankly, God already had an audience that he was concerned about much more than us insignificant folk.  In Genesis 1, they are mentioned in the passages in which God calls himself “we.”  In Psalm 8, the passage above, this audience is called “gods” and also “adversaries.”  Who are these “gods”?  Is the Bible secretly promoting polytheism?

            Not exactly.  These are powerful beings that have done great work in our universe, although they are rarely understood except as spectators and messengers.  In fact, “angel” a Greek term for these beings literally means “messenger”, although the Hebrew phrase “son of God” is probably more well-rounded.   They helped create the world, they counsel with God as to the destiny of the universe, they rule over nations and they dictate the present and future of humanity.  They truly are “gods” in the ancient polytheistic sense.

            And yet the Bible isn’t polytheistic.  It demands belief in one God. How, then, does it hypocritically speak of many gods?  Which is it?  As often happens when we find a seeming contradiction in the Bible, the answer isn’t either/or, but both.  Yes, there is but one God, with no one his equal.  And there are powerful beings, called angels or demons or “gods” who are real, and very powerful and under the One God’s orders.   If you want to see how it works, then look at Job 1. 

            This is the audience that God was trying to impress by creation.  There is still a problem—weren’t angels created after the universe?  If the universe was created after angels, then where did they live?  Was there a spiritual temporary shelter until God was ready with the ultimate development project?  The problem is in the way we see the creation of the universe.