Verses one to three of Genesis are among the most profound words ever written and I feel completely humbled before the Word of God and able only to stand in awe of them. I wish I could preach ten sermons just on these two verses!

In the beginning.

The first thing Genesis teaches us is that there was a beginning. The universe is not eternal.

In the beginning, God.

God, on the other hand, was always there. He is the eternal one.

In the beginning, God created. He is separate from, and independent of, his creation. He is not like the gods of polytheism or the gods of the New Age. He created everything, he is not created by it, like the force in Star Wars.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That is, the whole of reality, both physical and spiritual. Like the ancient creed says, he created all that is, whether visible or invisible. All spiritual forces in the heavenly realm, all creatures on earth, all things within space and time, are God’s creation.

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.

What does that mean? Formless and empty? It points to chaos and meaninglessness. At the beginning of God’s creation, he turned what was without form and without meaning into something that had both order and purpose. It is the exact opposite of the process by which our two and a half year old takes the order of a tidy lounge room and in six seconds turns it into complete chaos!

The six days of creation describe how God took the chaotic emptiness of the primeval universe and formed it into something which reflected his great power, love and unity.

There is a distinct pattern to these six days of creation in verses three to 26. Days one, two and three provide the form or environment for days four five and six which fill it out. On day one God creates Light and Dark. On Day four, he creates the agents of light for the earth, namely sun, moon, and stars.

On day two, God creates the sky and the sea. On day five, he creates the things which live in the sky and the sea.

On day three, he creates the land and the vegetation on the land. On day six he creates the creatures which populate the fertile land.

We also note that these verses follow a standard formula. They begin with “and God said,” and end with “and there was evening and there was morning, the nth day.” Nth being first to sixth. This formula also includes several times “God saw that it was good.”

We learn that God created the universe from nothing and made everything in it, simply by telling it to happen. Unlike the gods in other creation stories, God’s power was so great that all he did was command it to happen, and it did. The New Testament calls Jesus the Word of God, partly because he is the one through whom God the Father spoke the universe into being.

Also, we learn that creation was good in God’s sight. Not all religions and philosophies believe that. Some think of matter as evil, and make up a God who is remote and unknowable, far beyond the created order. Eastern religion sees the most holy people as those who withdraw from the world, treat their bodies harshly, and deny themselves the normal pleasures of life. Genesis, by contrast, teaches us that the created world is good and pleasing to God.

God made the earth as the perfect environment for the creatures he then put in it, and he got a kick out of it. He was pleased with what he had done. And what else would you expect from an all powerful, all good God?

Then comes the pinnacle of God’s creation, in verse 26. ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’

Human life is sacred. That is why for the Christian, as for the Jew and Muslim, who also believe this, abortion on demand and euthanasia are abhorrent. All human life, from womb to grave, is sanctified by this truth, that humans are created in the image of God as the apple of his eye. Human life belongs to him and has the purpose of glorifying him.

This sanctity of human life is the basis for the Jewish and Christian doctrine of the equality of all humans in the sight of God. Unlike for example the Hindu caste system, where human life has more or less value according to your rank in society. Genesis also teaches the equality of the sexes before God. Both are called ‘man’ and both together reflect the image of God. God is Father, Son and Spirit, and the relationship between man and woman reflects the unity in diversity of the Triune nature of God himself.

From these and the following verses, and also chapter two, we learn that God made human beings to be special and to enjoy a relationship with him that was different from the other animals. We learn that humans are qualitatively different from animal life. No animal is created in the image and likeness of God. The bible teaches that humanity is unique, the pinnacle and purpose of God’s creation.

Much of the religious philosophy behind the green movement denies this. It is nature worship. People speak of the spirit of Gaia which emanates from every living and even non-living thing and is somehow the spiritual personification of the planet. Human beings are essentially the same as dolphins or trees. This philosophy even appears in children’s cartoons.

Genesis says, no, God is distinct from creation, he is the creator, and mankind is special. Man is blessed by God and given the command to fill the earth, to subdue it, and to rule over the animal kingdom. But what does this mean? It does not mean that God told us to use up the earth’s resources any way we want to. It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say despoil the earth. So all you pro-loggers can stop cheering.

We are to rule as the image of God. God sets up man to rule over creation as his vice-regent. As God’s image and likeness, we must rule as he would rule. That means not with cruelty, selfishness, and wanton destruction, but with wisdom and kindness. God created order out of chaos. He made good environments for animals and birds and fish, and set them in those environments to enjoy them.

I believe the bible clearly teaches that human beings ought to treat the world with the same respect with which God created it. Is God pleased with battery hens or randomly turning forests into wasteland? Surely not. Revelation 18:11 declares that Jesus is returning to destroy those who destroy the earth.

Genesis gives us reasons for disagreeing with the Green philosophy which makes the earth divine. But Genesis also gives us reasons for not siding with those who would pillage the earth. Human beings do not own the planet, but are given it to look after by God. It is not more Christian to side with those who want to destroy the trees than with those who worship them. Christianity is radically different from greenie philosophy. But it is also radically different from rednecked capitalism with a chainsaw. If your belief in God’s Creation doesn’t offend the greenie and the logger equally, it’s probably a distortion of what the bible teaches.

Now, there is one more day, the seventh day, and on the seventh day, God rested. That is, he stopped creating, and he just sat back and enjoyed it. And the Old Testament bases the idea of the Sabbath day on this. I don’t have time to talk further about this, but it deserves a sermon in itself.

Well, that’s what happened in Genesis one.

I want to ask two questions. Is it true? And does it work? Or, to put it another way, is it believable? And is it livable?

First, is it true? Is it believable? And if so, in what way? Is it literally true, or figuratively true? Is it history, poetry, allegory or myth?

What probably came to your mind as you heard Genesis chapter one read, was ‘what about the theory of evolution?’ I’m not going to dodge the issue, but nor am I going to spend a lot of time presenting scientific evidence for Creation versus Evolution. What I want to say about modern theories of origins is that they are theories, not fact. They are, by their very nature, unproven and, barring the invention of a time machine, unprovable. They are made by extrapolating our present experience and knowlege back into the distant past, which no living person has experienced.

You may feel that it is no longer a scientific option to deny the theory of evolution.

“The Jesuit priest and expert paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin in 1955 described evolution as:

“ ... a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow, and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.” Some, like Chardin, come up with theories of theistic evolution. They make Genesis one fit with evolutionary theory. They call it poetry or myth. But this doesn’t take Genesis seriously on its own terms. The early chapters of Genesis are not poetry. There are poetical accounts of creation, in Job and in the Psalms, and they are very different from Genesis one. No, Genesis intends us to believe that this is actually what happened when God created the heavens and the earth. It is not poetical fiction.

But nor is it entirely literal. Other Christians, in reaction to those who want to make Genesis poetic fiction, have resorted to extremely literalistic interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis which insist for example that a day must be a twenty four hour period of time, and come up with detailed scientific theories to explain it. But Genesis is more sophisticated than being merely an early scientific textbook, the Creationists’ version of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Genesis is not myth or poetry. Nor is it a scientific thesis. I don't think the days of Genesis one are meant to be seen as six literal consecutive twenty four hour periods. I think that, not because of any modern theory of evolution, but because of the text itself. Why? Several reasons. First, in verse two, the Spirit is moving over the surface of the deep, that is, over the surface of the ocean. Yet the ocean is not created until day two. So the language of verse two is not literal. It is using the imagery of the chaotic sea to communicate what it was like at the beginning of creation. Then there is the obvious problem that the things which God gives to man to mark time, the sun, the moon and the stars, are not created until day four, and man himself, who is the timekeeper, does not appear until the sixth day. What meaning can a literal day have before there is any timekeeping? Then there is the fact that each day ends with “there was evening and there was morning, the nth day.” But the seventh day does not end. What is implied is that the end of the seventh day is still to come. Then, finally, in chapter two verse four, we read in the NIV translation, “this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” Why the NIV translates it like that I don’t know, but what it literally says is, “this is the account of the heavens and the earth in THE DAY that they were created.” So Genesis one tells us that God created it all in six days, and Genesis two uses the same hebrew word, yom, to sum up the whole process as one day.

I don’t think these six days are six normal 24 hour periods. But nor do I believe that they are six very long periods of time either. What is the meaning of time anyway, before the timekeeper is created? What it does teach is that God created in an orderly way, according to a definite plan and purpose. Not all things just appeared from nothing. Some appear by process. The land produced vegetation, for example. But some things God just creates from nothing. The birds in the sky for example just appear there, fully formed, at God’s divine command. And this is indeed what the fossil record shows too. There are many questions which evolutionary theory cannot answer. One is ‘what good is half a wing?’ Which is more reasonable to assume? That by a process of random mutations over hundreds of thousands of years, some reptile-like creatures slowly changed their forelegs into wings and then learnt how to fly with them? That the same one in a billion random process just happened to occur again in mammals to produce bats and flying foxes? Or Genesis one twenty: ‘God said, “Let...birds fly across the expanse of the sky.”’ Scientific theory demands that until disproven the simplest hyspothesis is most likely to be right.

I do not believe in evolution. Nor do I believe all the the Creation Science propaganda. Both sides are guilty of twisting evidence, and I think fundamentalist Christians sometimes think they can prove more than they really can.

Genesis is not scientific writing, but it is true. Now, I’m not saying you’re not a real Christian if you believe in theistic evolution. What I am saying is this - don’t feel that you have to believe in evolution because it’s an undeniable fact. It most certainly is not.

Unfortunately, most scientists present evolution, like Chardin said, as something “...to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow.” Seig Heil! It has, in short, become an article of faith. It has biased scientists away from true scientific objectivity. True science also involves experimentally reproducible results, which theories about origins can never do. Evolution belongs more in the realm of philosophy or religion. It is not pure science at all.

Let me put it this way. If you are a secular materialist, you have to believe in the theory of evolution. If you deny God, you have no choice. But if you believe in the first verse of the bible, let me assure you, you do not need to believe in evolution. Don’t feel threatened by the wise fools who confidently declare that Evolution is fact. It isn’t, and you don’t have to commit intellectual suicide to believe in Creation instead. It is a credible alternative.

I’m not going to spend any more time trying to refute evolution. There are many good books (and even more bad ones) which do that. Check it out, and you may be surprised at how slender the evidence is for the theory of evolution.

Creation is every bit as reasonable as evolution. It is believable. But increasingly, what people in our society want to know is not “is it reasonable so that I can believe in it?” but rather, “does it work so that I can live it?”

This is my second question. Does it work? Is it liveable? The answer which we must demonstrate to our post-modern world is, yes it does. Belief in Creation works because it provides a basis for living which honours the uniqueness of every living thing, and especially of human beings. It works because it places God, humanity and the non-human world in the right relationships. Other beliefs, whether Evolutionary theory; new age magic or eastern religion, cheapen and devalue human life by bringing God and Man down and elevating nature. If evolutionary theory or postmodern animism are true, then we live in a world without absolute truth, and without any meaning apart from the subjective ideas of each individual. There is no right or wrong. Evolutionary theory says that we are not the pinnacle of God’s creation, but merely a collection of atoms randomly thrown together for a few years before we dissolve again. Humanity is no more than a statistical aberration in a blind uncaring universe. New Age beliefs take on the ideas of evolution and just add a spiritual dimension. They are totally self-centred and individualistic. Is it any wonder that relationships in our society are deteriorating at the rate they are?

But Christians live with God as our ultimate source of authority. He rules over us. He has the right to tell us what to do, and how to have good relationships, with Him, with each other, and with creation.

The Christian world view leads to a society which values each human life, which says that there are absolutes of right and wrong, and that there is order and purpose and meaning to be found in life. As we shall see in coming weeks, it also explains why the world is no longer perfect, and gives the best hope, in Jesus Christ, that we shall participate in God’s New Creation.

For Jesus is the real key to understanding Genesis. He is the true image of God, and it is his image that is being restored in us. He is the one who rules over us, and rules for us, for he is both God and Man. Don’t worship the trees, or the chainsaws. Worship him, and you will the true meaning and purpose that God intended for his Creation.