If I wanted you to know more about me, I’d take you to my home. Not my house here, but I would take you to my old home in Tuscaloosa. I’d show you my house, where I used to shoot basketball for hours and hours during the summer. I’d show you my room where I played video games with friends all night long. Taking you to my home, my church, and my school where I grew up would give you a better understanding of why I am the way that I am. Moses is doing the exact same thing with the Israelites in Genesis. Genesis was written during the Exodus as God is revealing who He is as the Creator-Covenant God and who they are as His people.
Genesis is a book that is ultimately about God. As this series stemming from Luke 24:12-49 seeks to understand how all the Scriptures are speaking about Christ (specifically Luke 24:27, 44), we must never lose our understanding of God as Trinity. God the Father is always spoken of as Creator and Authority within the Trinity. The Son of God is not only spoken of as submissive to the Father, but also the very glory of the Father (John 17:24). The Spirit is spoken of as submissive to the Father and the Son (John 16:12-15). When we seek to understand Christ’s central place in all of Scripture, we should only do so in a Trinitarian framework.
The sovereign God is creating everything out of nothing. Moses repeats himself over and over by saying “And God said” (Gen 1:3, 6, 9, etc). Everything started with God’s authoritative Word. In order to understand anything about the universe, we first must understand God as Sovereign Lord over all. As God creates everything out of nothing, He has a specific system to it. He creates and divides in the first three days, and then He creates by filling on the second three days. Such as, on day 1 God divides the light from the dark, and on day 4 he fills with the sun, moon and stars. On day 2, God divides the waters from above and below, and on day 5 he fills them with birds and fish. On day 3 God divides the waters from land, and on day 6 He fills with land-animals and man. This theme is not uncommon to Scripture either. God divides humanity at the Tower of Babel in order to fill the earth. Jesus divides the bread and fish in order to fill the 5,000 listeners. God may even divide you from your church or your pastor from your church in order to fill another church to be used to glorify Christ. God’s dividing is to fill!
Genesis 1 tells us everything we need to know in order to understand Who created (God), what was created (everything), and how it was created (Word). But there is something very important that is missing. Moses didn’t know it. God kept His secret for thousands of years. In the midst of the many “And God said,” there was something God didn’t say! Listen closely.
It is crucially important to understand that God spoke creation into existence instead of blinking, twitching his nose, or even merely thinking. God created through His Word! Not until around 4,000 years after God created the universe does He reveal His purpose for doing so. After 33 A.D., John picks up the exact language of Gen 1 when he writes, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). John writes on to say that God created everything through His Word, Jesus Christ. Further, the writer of Hebrews says that God created the universe through Jesus Christ so that Christ would inherit all of the cosmos that was made. This is exactly why Andrew created our CBSM logo the way it is. It is to represent how Jesus is the exact image of God, how everything revolves around Him as He is the nucleus of God’s purposes (Christocentrism), and how the entire universe is created so that He upholds it and rules over it as Lord and King.
John says that Jesus is the “Word” (John 1:1). Jesus calls Himself THE Truth (John 14:6). If God creates everything through His Word who is Christ, then we as Christians must be careful to continually listen to the Word, Message, and Truth of God…the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many competing messages (worldviews) in the world that we allow into our lives through education, books, movies, the media, and music. I wonder if we hear the Word of Christ as much as we hear the world’s words? What are the words of your music teaching you?
