“In the Beginning, God . . .”
The first in a series: “I Will be Your God and You Will Be My People.”
Texts: Genesis 1:1 and select texts (Job 38:1-21; John 14:5-14)
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This is the first sermon in a series of sermons entitled, “I Will be Your God and You Will Be My People.” Throughout this series we will survey the great themes which unfold in redemptive history--the glorious story of God acting in human history to save his people from the guilt, power and consequences of their sin.
This series will take us from eternity past to the end of the age. We will cover God’s creation of the world, the fall of Adam into sin, God’s promise to send a redeemer to save his people, the story of the covenant mediator being revealed through the call of Abraham, Israel’s captivity in Egypt, the journey in the wilderness and the entrance into Canaan. We will look at the message of the prophets, the coming of Jesus Christ, and finally to the recreation of all things at the end of time, when every hint and trace of the stain of human sin will be finally removed from God’s creation. This is a story which will take us from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.
The purpose of this series is two-fold. The first purpose is to set forth what has been called “the greatest story ever told,” that is, the story of our redemption as it unfolds in the Scriptures. As we will see, the history of redemption centers in God’s repeated and wonderful covenant promise, “I Will be Your God and You Will Be My People,” hence the title of the series.
My second purpose is closely related. As we work our way through the Scriptures, we will see how the unique truth claim of Christianity–as a religion firmly grounded in history–stands over against so much of contemporary religious expression which sees religion as essentially a matter of the human heart. Therefore, this series will have both a redemptive-historical as well as an apologetics focus. In many ways the two things are inseparable-or at least they should be. The essence of Christianity is found in those historical acts which demonstrate what God has done to rescue his creatures from the consequences of their rebellion against him. And this points us to objective, factual history--the story of redemption as set forth in the Scriptures. The stands in marked contrast to all other forms of religion which arise in the human heart and in the human religious imagination–in other words, what men and women do for God or what they do for themselves.
As Martin Luther once put it, there are only two basic religions in the world; religions of law and Christianity, which is the religion of the gospel. If this is true, the Christian religion is necessarily a story about God and what he has done to save us from our sins. In fact, in the Bible we find God saying and doing those things which are necessary to rescue us from the consequences of our sin and the havoc we have brought upon ourselves. When reduced to their lowest common denominator, all other religions are really but a part of the story of humanity and the on-going human quest to find God on our own terms, not his.
Instead of looking to God as he has revealed himself to us in creation and his word, the human religious quest inevitably reaches its goal when we look in the mirror and we then worship the reflection looking back at us. This religious impulse, common to all sinful men and women, is what John Calvin once called the “idol factory.”
This is precisely why we spend so much time talking about redemptive history here at Christ Reformed Church. Too often people tell me that church is boring and that two-thousand year old Bible stories have no relevance for their lives. In an entertainment-based culture, such as ours, people bore very easily if not constantly entertained. And though God refuses to oblige such people, far too many preachers are only too willing to indulge them.
The reason why people become bored with the church and its divinely commanded activities (word and sacrament) is because they do not see that these two-thousand year old stories are the foundation of Christ’s church, the covenant community that Jesus himself established. And although God has not seen fit to add new books to the Canon of Scripture since the New Testament was completed, this does not mean that redemptive history and our connection to it somehow ceases with the close of the Canon of Scripture. God has spoken in history. He still speaks today through his word. The history of Christ’s church continues on into the present as we gather each Lord’s Day to hear this word (the redemptive story containing the law and the gospel) and receive the very same sacraments set forth in that word.
These two-thousand year old stories gave birth to Christ's church. But as God’s people, we are still part of that on-going story as God directs all of human history toward its final goal, the return of Jesus Christ and the recreation of the heavens and the earth. This is why the ancient story speaks to us today every bit as much as it did to Christians in the first century. For the story has not yet come to an end, and we must see ourselves as part of the on-going drama.
Interestingly enough, the same thing is true for those opponents of God and of his Christ–those individuals, who in the Scriptures, sought to prevent God’s promise from being realized, those who sought to distort the biblical gospel taught us by Christ and his disciples. Even as God’s people, we are a part of this on-going redemptive history, so are the opponents of God. From the very beginning there has always been a struggle between Christ and the antichrist, between faith and unbelief, between the people of God and the false religions of the world. Those who deny Christ and his kingdom are also a part of the on-going struggle between the kingdom of God and the forces of darkness.
This is why we are told that our struggle is not against mere rulers and authorities, but against principalities and powers. Satan is the father of lies. And all the while God advances his kingdom through word and sacrament, so too Satan seeks to advance his through lies and deception. But the final chapters of the Bible tell us that Satan is bound through the preaching of the gospel–through the continual retelling of the greatest story ever told. Satan is defeated whenever God’s people rest in God’s promise, that he is our God and that we are his people. This is why we ground everything we do here in the word of God and the history of redemption. And this it is why is so important to be familiar with the story! For we, too, participate in this great struggle.
Before we can even talk about redemptive history and God’s covenant promise, we must first talk about creation–the theater in which the story takes place. And before we talk about creation, we must first talk about God, the creator of all things, and therefore, both the architect of the theater and the author of the story.
And so we begin our new series where the Bible itself begins, with the words of Genesis 1:1– “In the Beginning, God . . .”
This is a rather simple assertion and it is easy to skip right over it. But when you stop and think about it for a moment, it soon becomes clear that these four words presuppose a great many things, things certainly worthy of our consideration. In fact, some of the most fundamental and basic of Christian doctrines are assumed by this short declaration, and we can only list some of them briefly in this sermon.
The first thing we must consider is that these words plainly tell us that before anything was created, God already was. He always was. This means a number of things, most notably that God alone is uncreated and is therefore, eternal. He exists before time itself. And since everything else is created, God alone is without beginning or end.
Unlike his creatures who are bound by time and by space, God knows no such creaturely limitations. This is the theology which undergirds our opening words of that famous hymn of praise, “immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes...”
A second thing we learn is that God is the creator of all things, a subject to which we will turn in some detail in the coming sermons. For our purposes, this simply means that whatever now is, exists because God created it. There is no eternal matter as pagans contend. There is no eternal realm of the ideal as Plato would have us believe. There is no eternal convulsing of matter–ever expanding, ever contracting–as found in so much of contemporary science. There is only an eternal God who created all things and who already was in the beginning.
The most profound thing about this opening assertion of the Bible is that a God who always was, and who alone is without beginning or end, and who created all things, must be fundamentally unlike his creation. If God alone is uncreated, then everything else that exists is created–whether that be mountain or beast, sea or star, fish or mammal. All created things are finite and subject to the limits of time and space. This also means that nothing exists then apart from the will of God and all things necessarily are contingent and dependent upon God for their very existence. Thus, unlike God, we are creatures. And we will always be creatures, dependent upon God for our very life and breath.
It is at this exact point where the war between Christ and his foes depicted in redemptive history begins. For Satan, a creature, once desired to be like God and was cast from heaven. And then Adam too, listened to this Satanic lie and also desired to be like God, knowing good and evil. This plunged the human race into sin and unleashed its awful consequences upon us.
Now it is hard to conceive of such difficult things properly since we are creatures bound by time and space, when God is not. But not only are we limited by the mere fact that we are creatures, unfortunately, we are further limited by our own sinfulness. As we will see as we unpack the story of redemption itself, the great drama which unfolds as God secures our salvation is set against the backdrop of humanity’s fall into sin. And we will see how the effects of that fall into sin only further limits the ability of men and women who are already bound to time and space to understand the things of God as we ought. Our sinfulness clouds our thinking about God. Our sinfulness fills our minds and hearts with images and thoughts about God that arise from within, and which are not based upon God’s revelation of himself to us in creation and in the Scriptures. This gets to the heart of the problem, and is why Calvin was so correct to speak of the mind of fallen sinners as an idol factory.
The point is that the creature is forever distinct from the creator. I am reminded of the famous passage in Job 38–our Old Testament lesson–when Job’s friend Elihu become angry with Job for justifying his own actions rather than defending God’s right to do as he wishes. It is after Elihu’s speech that God appears to Job from the whirlwind, giving him a brief lesson in his transcendent otherness, and in effect, reminding Job of the differences between God and his creatures:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!
It is this “otherness” of God–the distance between God and his creatures, what theologians call the creator-creature distinction–which is the dilemma we must face before we even talk about redemptive history. How can we truly know anything about a God such as this who was in the beginning and who created all things? This is the God who gives orders to the morning, who controls the gates of the shadow of death. This God utterly transcends his creatures. And how can finite creatures, bound by both time and space, and blinded by sin, truly know and correctly understand anything about a God who is so utterly transcendent that he cannot be seen or observed?
The answer to this dilemma is, of course, that such an infinite God cannot be known by his finite creatures, unless he chooses to reveal himself to his creatures in such a way that they can know and understand him, and that is exactly what he does through both general and special revelation.
The first place to go for a resolution of this dilemma is to be found by looking to creation itself. If we cannot see the creator, we can certainly see his handiwork. Our own Belgic Confession (Article 2) puts it this way– “First, we know God by the creation, preservation and government of the universe, since the universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: His eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.”
There is a great deal of truth about God revealed in nature. Certainly creation tells us that God is all powerful and that he is eternal, that he is good, and that all men and women must worship him.
And yet, we also know that general revelation through the created order is not enough. It is not enough because while creation can tell us that God is, that he is all powerful, that he must be eternal, nevertheless, creation cannot speak. It’s testimony is silent. Creation can only point us beyond itself back to its creator. Creation does not tell us what God himself is like. It says nothing of the Triune nature of God, nor does it reveal to the gospel.
In fact, the creation can only reveal to us God’s law, which is written upon the hearts of all his creatures. It is our failure to keep this law that leaves us under the sentence of God’s just condemnation. Furthermore, when creation points us back to God it still leaves us to wonder about the nagging question, “how God is like his creation?” “How is God like a sunset?” “How is God like a majestic mountain peak?” What creation tell us about God is true and useful. It obviously is not enough. Some further explanation is surely required.
Such knowledge of God derived from creation can also be easily distorted. Notice that the Belgic Confession goes on to echo the words of Paul in Romans 1. “All these things–that is the revelation of God’s power and divine nature–are enough to convict men and to leave people without excuse.” God is indeed known, in part, by what he has made. But because of human sinfulness, that which is known about God through creation is sinfully suppressed. As Paul declares in Romans 1:18-25:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.
If we take Paul at his word, this means that not only is there no such thing as a true atheist–only someone who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness–but it also means that everything men and women learn about God from creation is sinfully suppressed. The inevitable result is false religion and idolatry. Unbelief is suppression of truth. It is a form of self-deception. It is this suppressed truth which is the well-spring of all false religion.
This, then, explains the on-going conflict between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of antichrist. God reveals himself to be eternal, all-powerful, the only legitimate object of worship. And yet because of human sin, his own creatures exchange the truth he has revealed for a lie and they end up worshiping that which God has made and not the creator himself.
To worship and serve a created thing rather than the creator is the height of arrogance and sin. It is to say to the one who shapes the seas, that the seas are greater than he. It is to say to the one who makes the clouds to be his garment, that the garment is greater than its maker. It is to say, in effect, that the creation is God, not the creator. It is in many ways to agree with the famous quip, "God once created man in his image, and now man has returned the favor"–worshiping a god of his own imagining, rather than the God who was in the beginning.
This is why we cannot trust the religious musings of the fallen mind. We can never listen to the person who says to us, “I think God is like . . .” We can never trust an unrighteous suppresser of truth to tell us what we should do in moments of moral crisis or times of doubt. We can never trust such a person to speak the truth about God’s purposes for our life. We cannot heed the counsel of those who deny the biblical teaching about sin, and who see the essence of spirituality as the personal journey to find God within and to somehow “experience” him.
I recently read of a 40 year old woman–a life-long Southern Baptist, though she could be found in any Reformed church as well–who claims to feel a spiritual dimension to life which her church just doesn’t meet. She recently joined with four other women from her church to “take a leave of absence from the church” to pursue this new spiritual quest. After her group read the book by Jean Bolen, The Goddess Within Every Woman she concluded “it was time for me to find God within myself. My timing. Not yours or anybody else’s.” She says what she wants most is a direct experience of the divine and has begun reading everything she can find about Eastern Religions, goddess literature, and portions of the bible that she says “Baptist preachers never told her about.” What is worse, I guess, is that she sees no incompatibility between this and Christianity, because after all, the books she is reading tells her what her Baptist upbringing would never allow–that all religious roads lead to the same place. Who are the Baptists to say they are right and everyone else is wrong? “How can we condemn all non-Christians to hell when God is love?” she laments (see Wade Clark Roof, Spiritual Marketplaces, Princeton, 1999, 22-25).
This woman has indeed found the god within. But the “god” she found is the reflection in her mirror. She has exchanged God’s truth for a lie. What is most frightening about this is that 25 years ago this would have been unthinkable for someone who professed to be an Evangelical. But now according to many sociologists of religion, this women is no longer an exception. She may well be in the mainstream of contemporary American religious thought, even among so-called Evangelicals. And, no doubt, there are many so-called Reformed Christians doing the same thing. Such a quest for the “god” within is nothing but idolatry whether the “questor” is a Buddhist, a Baptist or a professing Reformed Christian.
This is also why when we consider the God of Christianity–the God who was in the beginning, and not the god we find within–we soon find ourselves going back to redemptive history and the unfolding drama of redemption. For even though creation tells us many wonderful and true things about God, it is a revelation which sinful men and women inevitably distort. For such revelation is limited to observation and natural phenomena. It is not a revelation in words and sentences or the divine acts in history. Because of its limits, God’s revelation of himself in nature can never be enough to do anything more than condemn us for not worshiping him as we ought.
Well then, where, then, do we go for sufficient knowledge of God? If God’s revelation of himself in creation is insufficient what are we to do? The solution, of course, is that God has not left us in the dark, but that God entered history in the person of Jesus Christ to tell us something about the God who was in the beginning. And this takes us from creation to history, from general revelation to special revelation, from the religious impulse of sinful humanity, to God’s word, the Bible.
It is one of the great truths of the bible that we are not left on our own, to connect what we see in creation–say a beautiful mountain peak or a sunset–with what God is like in himself. Nor must we turn within to find the presence of the god who supposedly resides there. No, God has spoken in words and sentences. God has entered into history not only to speak but to act, to do those things which give us a true and certain knowledge of him, even though he remains far beyond our comprehension. This is why we as Christians dare to say, “God has spoken,” while so many others either claim to speak for him or speak falsely about him. Who needs such musings of sinful creatures, when the creator himself has spoken?
In one sense, this very issue was addressed in the 14th chapter of John’s gospel when Philip asked Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” In context, Jesus had begun to speak about going away–he meant his coming death, resurrection and his ascension. His disciples not yet understanding, were thinking that Jesus was leaving them, that he was going to some other location. And they wanted to go with him. As we see in our New Testament lesson, the discussion begins with Thomas imploring Jesus to show them the way to that place where Jesus was going so that they could follow. And Jesus, of course, answered that he himself was the way, the truth and the life. And with these words, he was claiming to be God. Therefore, if the disciples knew Jesus, they also knew the father. Says Jesus in verse 8, “from now on you do know him and have seen him.” This provokes Philip’s question. “Okay Jesus, give us a glimpse of God and we’ll understand!”
Jesus’ answer must have shocked them beyond belief.
Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
It is Jesus who is the supreme revelation of the God who was in the beginning. To have seen Jesus–Jesus himself tells us–is to have seen God. Not God in all his transcendent glory, mind you, but God now come to earth, his glory veiled in human flesh.
How could Jesus say this? He could say this because as we find out in the New Testament, Jesus is the second person of the blessed Trinity, eternal God now veiled in human flesh. Jesus, we will learn, is the one who created all things, for he was with God in the beginning and all things were created by him. And as he himself will soon tell his disciples after his resurrection, when he appears to two of them on the road to Emmaus, everything in Moses and the prophets bears witness to him. In other words, it is God in human flesh who tells his disciples that everything written in the Scriptures is about him. To see Jesus is to see God incarnate. To read the Scriptures, is to read the story of Jesus.
Though he is hidden in type and shadow throughout the Old Testament, and only fully revealed in the New, whenever we ask the question, “what is God like?” “who is this God who was in the beginning?” we are directed by Jesus, to himself. He does not teach us to look to creation. He does not tell us to look within. For it is in him and in him alone, that the transcendent God is fully revealed. The Bible is his story. It is a record of Jesus the savior, the redeemer, the covenant mediator. And since it is the story of Jesus, it is a story that we must know well.
For in this story the covenant God says to us again and again, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” And this is a promise which is realized only through faith in Jesus Christ!
Amen!
To read the next sermon in this series, Click here: Riddleblog - For He Chose Us in Him