אֱלֹהִים Elohim


Genesis 1:1-2
1In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

To kick off our third year together, we begin at the beginning – Genesis. Admittedly, it is a rather daunting endeavor; 50 chapters covering a few thousand years of history. But as we handled the history books of 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings, we can handle this as well. We will sometimes read just a few verses, and sometimes we’ll read entire stories.

Genesis takes us from the creation of the universe to the person of Moses, who arrives at the beginning of the next book, Exodus. Moses is the person credited with writing down the book of Genesis as well as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These five books are known as the Pentateuch. In Exodus 33:18-23 we find the story of Moses and God together on the mountain. Moses asks to “see” God, so God hides Moses in the cleft of a rock so that Moses cannot see His face as He passes by, but instead allows Moses to see His “back.”

18Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

One of my teachers in the past suggested that God allowed Moses to see the history of the world as God created it and the heroes of the faith we find on the pages of Genesis. This would have been an interesting way for God to show Moses the things he would need to write down for which he himself was not present. Those of you who are saying, “Well, that might be a stretch of the text” – you’re right. But it’s an interesting idea.

In these first two verses of Genesis, we have established that this is God’s story. He was there before it all began and He is the author of it all. “In the beginning – God.” This word for God is Elohim. It is plural. God was, is, and always shall be Trinity. All three members of the Godhead are present in the creation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) Jesus was there, the Spirit was there. The other important concept in these verses is “without form”. This means formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness. There was nothing there until God calls it into being. So as God establishes our story, it begins simply with Him and nothing else. His might, power and sovereign will are all that is necessary to bring everything into being. He is a mighty God.

Just as a side note: I realize that there are daily conversations about the beginnings of the universe. People (even very devout Christian people) do not always agree about these things. So that you know perspective, I’m pretty much old school. Six 24 hour days for creation. And if pressed to the wall, I would land in the “young earth” camp.

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