Welcome! Good morning! Behold,
we are starting a new series! And the series is entitled, Beholding: A
Wide-Angle View of the True Story of God. As the series title suggests, our
purpose is indeed to stand back, so to speak, and take a look at the big
picture of the story of God as found in the Bible, from Genesis 1 to the coming
of Jesus. As we approach the Christmas season, I think this is a good time to
do this series, perhaps especially given the events of the past two years.
Although most of us have
come through the pandemic so far relatively unscathed, at least physically
speaking, it is hard to overstate the degree that the past two years have
changed the world, our country, our communities, our church, and even our
personal lives. Although it is true that our daily lives are mostly back to
“normal” apart from using masks in certain situations and testing requirements
if you are associated with the university, I think we all sense that we are not
the same, and indeed, nothing is the same as it was before all this started.
We have seen things, we
have beheld things, that we previously could not have imagined. Probably
all of us have a friend or a family member or a friend of a friend or a friend
of a family member who has been impacted severely by the virus. But I feel that
even these tragic situations do not get fully to the root of change. The world
has been reminded of its mortality, yes, but perhaps even more significantly,
the man-made systems and governments of the world have been exposed as having
deep flaws and inadequacies. And I think most people have a sense that these
problems may be fundamentally unfixable. Here I think the world is truly
beholding the Biblical truth of the fact that man is indeed fallen.
And we have been reminded
that the world itself is not safe. Dangers abound, such as this virus
that jumped species to infect people. And regardless of the details of how it
happened, of whether people or a lab was involved, it does not change the fact
that we now know more deeply the truth that pandemics can happen purely
naturally at any time. The world itself seems broken, and this speaks to the
Biblical truth that God’s judgment on man at the fall did not only affect man;
it affected the entire Earth.
And the past two years
have highlighted how intractable our conflicts seem to be, between nations,
between political parties, and even sometimes between friends or family
members. Rather than the world coming together to work to defeat the virus, our
world has been as turbulent and on the brink of war as ever. This reminds us of
the long, sad story of sinful man through history, another major theme of the
Bible.
I could go on with more
examples, but I think this serves to make the point that now is perhaps an
exceedingly appropriate point in time to take the wide-angle view of God and
His interactions with man. Not only because perhaps some of our idols have been
exposed, especially our idols of science, of human “progress”, and of supposed
innate human “goodness”, but because, after being shown the worthlessness of
our idols, at least some people in the world realize that we have taken our
eyes off of our Savior, we have put our hope in things apart from Him, and we
have lost sight of who our Creator really is and what He has been doing. My
hope and prayer for this series is that it would freshly ground us in these
things and that we would then share these truths with those around us.
But I was shocked when I looked up the
word “behold” in the NIV and KJV. In the NIV, “behold” occurs only once, in
Numbers 24:17, a prophetic passage that points, ultimately, to the coming of
Jesus:
“I see him, but not now; I behold him,
but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.
– Numbers 24:17a
But in contrast, how many times does the
KJV use the word “behold”? It occurs one thousand, three hundred and twenty-six
times, in one thousand, two-hundred and seventy-five different verses! The entire
KJV has 31,102 verses, so “behold” appears in about one in every 24 verses,
that is, more than 4% of all verses. And this dramatic difference is not
limited to the NIV; the NAS uses “behold” in the same single verse as the NIV.
Is the word “behold” really in the
original languages? Yes! In Hebrew it is the word “henai”. The first occurrence
is in Genesis 1:29. In the Hebrew, the first three words are “vayomer”, which
means “And said”, “Elohim”, which means God, so “And said God,” or, in better,
Yoda-free English, “And God said”, and the third word is “henai.” “And God
said, ‘Behold!’” What do other translations do? Do they simply use a different
word? In some cases, yes. But frequently they simply leave the word out
altogether.
I have enjoyed listening to the sermons
of Charles Stanley, especially early in my Christian faith, and I think Dr.
Stanley understands “henai” well. He uses it frequently in his own messages,
apart from quoting the Bible, except he translates it with the phrase “now
listen up!” I think “now listen up” is a very good, albeit informal, translation
of “henai.”
When God commands us to behold, hundreds
of times, he wants us to stop paying only half-attention, and “listen up!” He
wants us to stop, and look, and listen, and think about the implications, to
let it sink in. The best response to every instance of “behold” is probably
some combination of amazement and worship, worship of the One who asks us to
“behold.”
And so, let us behold our Creator; let us
“benai Elohim.” Let’s look freshly at Genesis 1.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. – Genesis 1:1
We could easily spend the entire time today on just the first
verse. Ten words in this translation, which is the NIV. Seven words in the
Hebrew; mostly because words like “and” and “the” are actually prefixes in
Hebrew. B’raysheet (in the beginning), bara (made, or formed), Elohim (God,
using a word in the “majestic plural”), et (a word without meaning in English;
it tells us that the object of the sentence is next), hashamayim (the heavens)
v’et (“and”, and the word telling us an object is next, again) haaretz (the
land, the earth, Earth). The word for God is in a plural partly because it is
as if no word in the singular is good enough for Him, and also because it
implies an actual kind of plurality about God’s very nature.
We know that prior to creation there was nothing, only God. The
phrase “heavens and the earth” refers to all that we can see (the earth) and
all that we cannot see (the heavens). It is complete. It is everything. The
heavens in other contexts can also include the air, the atmosphere, but it is also
plural in the Hebrew, again using the “majestic plural”, and it implies
everything in creation apart from the earth and its inhabitants.
Hebrews 1 tells us:
In the past God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us
by his Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through
whom also He made the universe. – Hebrews 1:1-2
God made the universe. Everything that exists apart from God Himself.
And from Col. 1:
For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. – Colossians
1:16
The Him here in Colossians, as well as in Hebrews, is Jesus Christ.
Jesus is God. Yes, Jesus lived and died (and rose again) on Earth as a man, but
Jesus became man. He did not become God; He was always God. God, the plural
Elohim, has plural in unity. Three in one, in fact, as we also know from other
passages that the Holy Spirit is God. In fact, the Spirit is mentioned in the
very next verse in Genesis 1:
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over
the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God
saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called
“night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. – Genesis
1:2-5
There are some Christian believers who hold to a literal meaning
of days here, and there are others who think they could be longer periods of
time. I do not want to divert us from our purpose today, which is beholding our
Creator, except to mention that I think major problems occur when you try to
fully synchronize science with the Bible creation account. The critical issue
for me is that the Bible is clear and consistent that sin entered the world
through the fall, through the choices of Adam and Eve to sin, and that death
entered the world at that time. I have no problems with microevolution, but I
struggle to see how evolution can be the sole mechanism by which we have the
diversity of life that we have today if it is also true that death did not
enter the world when Adam and Eve sinned.
As for the day and night, we don’t fully understand what
separation of light and darkness means prior to the creation of the sun, moon
and stars. But I don’t see a problem with this, as we are viewing things here
from the perspective of Earth, which, if the account is literal, is
supernaturally being supported by God prior to the creation of the rest of the
universe. God can of course do this in any order and in any way that He wishes.
The laws of physics obey Him, not the other way around.
I also think there are many possible views of this account that go
beyond either the literal 24-hour view of the days or the non-literal view that
attempts to conform the Bible account to current scientific consensus. I think
about this a lot because over the years I have written and performed many
computer simulations of various kinds of systems. I am not suggesting that what
we perceive as reality is a simulation, but what I am suggesting is that, just
as the computer programmer is not bound to the timeline inside the simulation,
neither is God bound to the timeline of the universe. In fact, as a programmer,
I often build my code up, running it in a simpler form before adding more and
running it again. I propose that God might have possibly done the same thing
with the universe; He separated the light from the darkness in “run 1” and then
discontinued the run and added more “programming”, starting “run 2” with this
additional content. I mention this not because I feel confident that this is
what He did; I mention it because I think we don’t really have a clue what God
is capable of. I believe that Genesis is not in any way false, but I also think
it is likely a greatly simplified way of presenting the truth to us because we
are simply not capable of understanding the full reality. Genesis 1 is written the way it is to teach us
the truth about God and about His role as Creator, and I believe we are
wise to take the account seriously, to “behold” it, and to seek to learn what He
wants us to learn from it.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the
waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from
the water above it. And it was so. God
called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was
morning—the second day. – Genesis 1:6-8
So on Day 1
we see the separation of light from darkness, and in Day 2 we see a separation
of upper waters from lower waters through a “vault” called the sky. A lot of
people wonder about what these upper waters really are. Are they referring to the
water vapor in the air, or perhaps does it refer to something that no longer
exists, an upper reservoir of water that was released permanently during the
great flood at the time of Noah? Once again, exploring all the possibilities of
this will take us off track, and we also simply don’t know for sure, so let us
continue.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one
place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered
waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Then God said,
“Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the
land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it
was so. The land produced vegetation: plants
bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in
it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. – Genesis
1:9-13
Day 1 was
separation of light from darkness, Day 2 was separation of waters with the sky,
and Day 3 is separation of the waters from dry ground on the surface of the
Earth. And also on Day 3 we see life! Plant life, in its incomprehensible
complexity. Repeatedly we are being told
that these incremental steps of Creation are good, that God likes these
improvements/enhancements to His creation, twice on Day 3. (Using my computer
run analogy, it is as if God programs and runs the code twice on Day 3.)
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to
separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred
times, and days and years, and
let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it
was so. God made two great lights—the greater
light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the
night. He also made the stars. God set them
in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from
darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was
evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. – Genesis 1:14-19
Day 4: God
is continuing His process of separation; now He is separating out the sun, moon
and stars as light sources. To me, it is like watching someone painting with
watercolors. Now, my personal experience with watercolors was traumatizing, as
I was so terrible at it. Personally, I put painting with watercolors as one of
my least favorite activities, right up there with wrapping presents. But I have
watched people who know what they are doing, and often they start with muted
colors and big brushes. It is only as time goes on that more and more detail is
added. This is like what this account feels like to me. God is adding more and
more detail to His creation. Who are we to say that God with His infinite mind
could not have created a working universe with physical laws that enabled the
situation on each day? Could He have changed the whole universe and how it
works on each day? Absolutely!
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and
let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So
God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing
with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their
kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it
was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and
increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase
on the earth.” And
there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. – Genesis 1:20-23
It strikes me that the creation account is much like a diary of
God. Diaries are personal; they show what their authors are thinking. And we
see more of this in Day 5, in which God makes even more life! Animals! Fish and
birds! The same God that works with unimaginable power, over unimaginably large
distances, forming the sun and the stars, also works down on the molecular
level to create DNA and proteins and lipids and the other building blocks of
life and assembles them together in unimaginable complexity. We are far more
than our DNA, as we have souls, or, more properly, to roughly quote C.S. Lewis,
we are souls that have a body, not the other way around. But the
way DNA works in life is astounding. If we think of God’s creation as a
program, He wrote a program with programs that write programs. And the
diversity of God’s work! Spend time watching animals, online, or in person, and
be amazed at our Creator.
And God’s diary reveals that God loves His created beings. We see
here His heart. He speaks a blessing on the animals that they increase in
number. This is interesting to me; note that He does not treat the plants on Day
3 the same way. Animals are indeed a higher lifeform than plants, in that they
have brains and nervous systems. They can feel, and they can experience
emotions. And surprisingly many can communicate through a simple form of
language. The Bible never says that animals were made in the image of God, but
it is clear that they have far more in common with God than plants.
And God said, “Let the land produce living
creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that
move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And
it was so. God made the wild animals according to
their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that
move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. – Genesis 1:24-25
Day 6. Did you notice the fascinating detail about livestock? Why
do I find this fascinating? Because it proves that God had man in mind all
along. Not only did God have man in mind all along, but that He knew that man,
despite having everything He needed in the Garden, including most importantly
the presence of God Himself, that man would fall, would reject God, leading God
to eject man from the Garden, where to survive, man would need to work hard to
get food from the ground and would also need livestock. Now I think science is
correct that man has further domesticated animals through selective breeding
over the past few thousand years, but it still begs the question why animals
existed on earth that were so easy to further domesticate. From an evolutionary
perspective, I don’t understand why such animals would exist apart from man.
But the Bible tells us that He created these animals, what the passage calls
livestock, and, for me, this clearly shows that God’s plan all along included man,
and that He knew what would happen. I think God even knew when creating
livestock that He would also be sending Jesus to earth thousands of years later
to redeem mankind, and that those He sent Him to would reject Him and put Him
on a cross to die. He knew that, upon Jesus’ death, God could redeem His fallen
creation with Himself through Jesus, fully God and fully man, that, without
sin, Jesus could take on the penalty for the sins of the world, and that, upon
His resurrection, forgiveness of sin and restoration with God would be
available to everyone, if only, by faith, they received His gift. I fully
believe that this entire plan was in God’s infinite mind at the beginning of
Day 6, and even before, back even before Day 1.
In fact, I think we should ponder the question of what all this
creation was for, who it was for. When I was a teenager starting
down the path towards what would become full-blown atheism, I wrote a story
about creation, in which the creators – my version of plurality had separate
beings in conversation with one another – realized they made a mistake with
man, so they wiped them out, indeed, wiped out all of creation, and started
again. My story ends with a repeat of the beginning of the story, implying that
the creators have been working on making man, and indeed, their creation,
better over and over and over in some kind of endless loop. I don’t really
remember my exact thoughts as I wrote the story, but I think I was trying to
imply that we were currently in one of these iterations and that the creators
would eventually wipe us out and try again.
I realize I was a strange kid. But what I was wrestling with was
the power of God, as well as the goodness of God. I believe the creation
account speaks to God being all-powerful as well as all-good, but it is only in
light of the entire gospel that we really see that God is indeed both.
And, just to be clear, the Bible account is entirely different
from my story. Did God create lots of drafts of His creation, making mistake
after mistake until He finally got it right, much like how Beethoven wrote his
music? Or did he get everything perfect on the first draft, even writing with a
pen, so to speak, not a pencil with an eraser, the way Mozart reportedly wrote
music? The answer is that God was Mozartian, not Beethovian. (Incidentally, I
was surprised to learn that Mozartian is a real word; Beethovian, sadly, is
not.)
But what the single-draft account of God’s works tells us is that
not only is God unimaginably powerful and unimaginably good, He is also
unimaginably wise. He knows what is needed to turn man, free to sin,
into beings that can commune with Him for eternity. And just as some artists
know that truly perfecting their craft will only come at a great personal
price, God knows from Day 1 what will be required to truly complete His
creation of man so that they ultimately are truly good, like the rest of His
creation.
So let’s look at the creation account of man:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our
image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in
the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild
animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So
God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he
created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase
in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in
the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on
the ground.” – Genesis 1:26-28
As you know, there are really two accounts of the creation of man;
this one, and the one in the next chapter, which is far more specific and gets
into the creation of Adam and Eve and the fall. Here we see that mankind,
unlike every other creature, is made in the image of God; that is, we have been
given attributes that enable us to do many things such as to reason, to choose
to behave righteously, and to choose to love sacrificially. God made us to be
leaders over His creation; that is, He made us to be stewards, to be caretakers
of the countless other creatures He has made.
The Hebrew word translated mankind is Adam. The Hebrew words for in our
image and in our likeness appear together in one other verse in the Bible, in
Genesis 5:3, to describe Adam’s first son: “When Adam had lived 130 years, he
had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.” And as
we know how much new parents love their newborn children, I think we get a
picture of God’s love for us from the first moment of our creation. And yes,
God is infinitely beyond us; His ways are beyond our ways, who can truly
understand Him? But I think the newborn baby is a good analogy in that the baby
understands very little, but quickly learns that his or her parents (and
especially Mommy) provide love and warmth and sustenance and everything one
would ever need. We would well in our relationship with God to cling to God and
put our entire hope in Him the way that a baby clings to and loves his or her
mother.
Then God said, “[Behold:] I give you every seed-bearing plant on
the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They
will be yours for food. And to all
the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that
move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give
every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all
that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and
there was morning—the sixth day. – Genesis 1:29-31
And so God, talking to His new human creation, says, “Now listen
up!” The world is your playground! And there are plentiful plants everywhere
for food. You have all that you ever need, and most of all, you have Me.
I encourage you this week to freshly
behold the Creator. I encourage you to freshly behold God’s creation, this
incredible world, and think about how He made all of this for you. That is how
much He loves us, how much He loves you. You are the delight of His eyes. And
He greatly desires that you behold Him, love Him, worship Him as you were made
to do. There is a place in our hearts built for worshiping; it is unfulfilled
when we do not worship. This is one reason that when we reject God, we are so
quick to worship the wrong things. But God and God alone is worthy of worship,
for He alone is perfectly holy, perfect in wisdom, perfect in power, perfect in
goodness, and perfect in love.
This week on one of my exercise walks it
was a cloudless day and I looked up at the sun. I had the thought of how
incredible it was that there was a direct line-of-sight path from me to the
sun; there was nothing between us except God’s perfect protection and plan; if
we were close to the sun we would burn up in an instant; if we were far from
it, it would just as quickly freeze to death. But God has created this incredibly
powerful ball that produces light and heat, and He has set everything in the
universe in its precise place, including, scientists say, the physical
constants of the universe, accurate to one part in more than a billion billion
billion, so that we can experience the miracle of God’s creation, from the
impossible complexity of life to the simple join of feeling the warm sun on our
face.
I want to close today with a video of a
recent sunrise from the Pinnacle Mountain Summit off of the Foothills trail. As
you watch it, I encourage you to look past the beautiful sunrise and behold our
incredible Creator.
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