Let there be. . . Forgiveness and Eternal Life

Gen. 1:1-13 NLT

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 

   3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. 

   6  Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.  9 Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. 10 God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened. 12 The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day.

Let's go back to the beginning. Have you ever noticed how the creation narrative is worded?  It describes how God created.  Now if you were to make a narrative of me creating a wood project in my shop (ignoring all my errors and bad results), you would describe my planning, then my assembling materials, then my measureing, then my cutting, gluing, nailing, sanding, painting. . .  etc.  But that is not how the Creation narrative goes. We are not lead through a mechanical series of steps on how God created each aspect of creation. We are shown the pure power of God at work!




 We read that "God created" heavens and earth. That would mean the entire universe.  That space that is so vast it takes light gazillions of years to penetrate across its breadth, was something God could "hover over" (v2).  The next sentence sounds like the big bang of scientific myths when it says "God said 'let there be light' and there was light. Catch the vocuablulary-- "LET" is used. To paraphrase, it was like God said 'permit light to form.' Darkness was there but there was no light other than God. So God, who IS light empowered His light to become light for all the universe and all of the mechanical processes going in in the millions of galaxies with millions of suns each. God released his light to become light for creation.



Next, God said Let there be a space between the waters on the planet and the water in the atmosphere surrounding the planet, calling it Sky. In other words, the very power that IS God, impressed Sky into existence from the other elements he was creating. Still, in verse 9 we read that on the third day God said "let the waters flow. . ."  The power that IS God impressed movement upon the water on the planet so that bodies of water and land would emerge. God caused the continental plates to move across the face of the Globe-- something that scientists are only beginning to grasp. But a writer of Genesis understood it thousands of years ago.

The point is that God said "LET THERE BE. . . . . " and that became. So when we read later in God's Word about Christ coming to forgive sin, and that through trust and faith in Christ we begin to be remade by God, why do we doubt?  God said that we would be made again into new creations, freed from sin and empowered to love and serve others in His plan. Just as sure as we are of the existence of the sky and the land and the bodies of water, and the continental tectonic plates, we can be sure of God making us into a new creation released from sin and guided into eternal life.

Your servant in Christ's love

Dan
drdanelliott@gmail.com