God Created Everything from Nothing

This morning we have the joy of stepping into a universe of truth as we begin to move our way through the book of Genesis, verse-by-verse, section-by-section. Two weeks ago I preached an overview sermon to whet our appetites to the manifold power, wisdom and grace of God that we see throughout the book of Genesis—the book of beginnings and our Unshakable Foundation.

Genesis answers questions like,

“Who is God?”

“Why did God create the world?”

“Was God bored?”

“Who am I?”

“How did I get here?”

“How am I supposed to live?”

“What is wrong?”

“What is wrong with me?”

“How can everything be made right?”

“Can anything be made right?”

When believed by faith in God and His revealed Word, Genesis will bring a strong confidence in our all-powerful, unstoppable God who achieves everything He purposes. And everyone who rests in the good, loving sovereign plan of God will find comfort in difficulties, both great and small.

Will you pray with me?

PRAYER: Our majestic Lord; Almighty God, Savior, Sustainer and Spirit who indwells those who believe. Fill us with your wisdom as we look at your powerful and complete revelation to us this morning. Help us to see you as the only majestic creator and perfectly good ruler of our world. And may we worship you wholeheartedly in light of your glorious revelation to us in the Bible. —Amen

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Genesis 1:1–2 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The 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.

This is the beginning of the entire Bible! Everything that follows in the Bible is inseparably connected to these two verses.

“In the beginning...”

What a wonderful phrase to draw us into the truest of all stories. Before the beginning there was nothing. Imagine it, if you can, but you cannot, because it is unimaginable!

If I were to put an image on the screen, or tell you to close your eyes and imagine nothing, you could not. You’d envision black—which is something. But there was nothing, no one, except God.

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1. (Before) the beginning, there was only God—the Uncreated Creator.

I put the world “before” in parentheses because technically-speaking there was no “before” the beginning because there was no time. With “the beginning,” or “in the beginning” was the moment when God created time. But “before” (to use the only word our minds can comprehend for this understanding) God created time there was only God—the Uncreated Creator—”the Unmoved Mover” (as Aristotle sought to understand him).

The theological term is the “aseity” of God. (I love this term, and we need its richness.) Say that word, “Aseity.”

“Aseity” is a latin word meaning "from himself.” When we speak of God’s independence we mean that [>SLIDES] God is independent of the created order, self-sufficient, and self-existent. “Put positively, he is life in and of himself.” (Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God, 48.)

We often ask the question, “What was God doing before he created the world?” and if you listen closely to most Christians you’ll see a shrug of the shoulders and, assuming God must’ve been bored or lonely, hear something along the lines of, “God must’ve needed something or someone else, so he created the world and people.”

Friends, listen closely and with a mind and heart ready to focus on God, not yourself:

[SLOWLY]

God is not needy. God does not need you. He doesn’t need me, and he doesn’t need anyone or anything in this world. In fact, he doesn’t need the world at all. Period.

In several places, Scripture teaches that God does not need any part of creation in order to exist or for any other reason. God is absolutely independent and gloriously self-sufficient.

SLIDES for 3 Scripture Passages

Paul proclaims to the men of Athens in Acts 17,

Acts 17:24–25 (ESV)

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

God asks Job,

Job 41:11 (ESV)

11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?

Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

No one has ever contributed to God anything that did not first come from God who created all things.

Similarly, we read God’s word in Psalm 50:

Psalm 50:10–12 (ESV)

10 For every beast of the forest is mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

11 I know all the birds of the hills,

and all that moves in the field is mine.

12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and its fullness are mine.

POINT OF APPLICATION:

Imagine needing help from a “god” who needed you. (Now, in human relationships we know it’s healthy to need others.) But not God. Knowing our own weakness, we wouldn’t be too encouraged to ask.

This is why we pray. If you don’t pray, you’re functionally saying, “I don’t need God! So I will not ask God. I will not talk with God.”

Friend, brother, sister…we need God quite simply because everything flows from Him and through him. And he created us dependent on Him. Our souls long for Him in every way!

Tell God you need Him—even now—that is humility.

SLIDE — A.W. Pink quote from The Solitariness of God

There was a time, if “time” it could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone.

“In the beginning God.” There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power.

There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but “from everlasting.” During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing.

Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity.

The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished. — A.W. Pink, The Solitariness of God.

Moses wrote one Psalm, Psalm 90:

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Psalm 90:1–2 ESV

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Moses goes on in the middle of the Psalm to speak of the reality that our days are numbered, and we, because of our sin, are rightfully under God’s wrath for sin. And we are right to consider God’s anger toward sin, but stand in awe of his mercy, pity, kindness.

And then he says in the last six verses.

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Psalm 90:12–17 ESV

12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. 13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. 16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. 17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!

(Shane and Shane have this on their newest album (I mentioned it on our Facebook and Insta pages this morning). And I’m telling ya’, it’s an excellent prayer to begin your day. Wake up, open to Psalm 90 (Satisfy Us With Your Love) and sing this song with all your heart! Or listen to Prov. 8 which speak about the beauty of gaining Wisdom (who is God).)

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2. God created absolutely everything, from absolutely nothing.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

God (ʾĕl ō hîm — אֱלֹהִים)

El—the Mighty One—in the majestic/honorific plural (hîm) means the Almighty One—the Almighty God and is used 2,310 times to refer to God, the Uncreated Creator.

This name of God represents his transcendent relationship to creation. He is the quintessential expression of a heavenly being. “God, unlike human beings, is without beginning, begetting, opposition, or limitations of power.” (Bruce Waltke)

“created the heavens and the earth”

Everything is flowing from God when “God created (bara’ — בָּרָ֣א)”

I believe this is the first act, the initiation, of creation, which will be filled out and described in the rest of Genesis 1.

(Drawing on the strong connection between the earth in v 1 and v 2, Vern Poythress (298) draws out this distinction thoroughly.)

But it’s worth noting the other prominent perspective is that v. 1 is a summary statement. Both views are made by committed Christians with a high view of Scripture.

The main concern is that we see God creating absolutely everything out of absolutely nothing. He didn’t start with a cosmic kit and use matter that had been already created.

Douglas Kelly points out that this expression, “‘God created …’ (bara’ when used in this particular way in the Hebrew) (Qal stem) is employed in the Scriptures only with reference to the divine agency.

“This Hebrew verb form has a uniqueness about it; an absoluteness. It means that the infinite, personal Triune God of the Bible made something out of nothing (in Latin, ex nihilo),1 that is, without pre-existing material.” (Kelley, 75) (Note 1: The verb does not necessarily mean creation ex nihilo in every case. For example, compare its use in Genesis 1:26–28 with what is later said in Genesis 2:7.)

As people, we’re familiar enough with the concept of ‘creation out of something’ (that is, with pre-existing material). Developing something that is already there is, in the Biblical sense, ‘secondary’ creation or ‘relative’ creation.

The Bible has specific words which carry this meaning, such as a potter taking clay and forming it into a jar upon his wheel, or a carpenter using wood and tools to construct a chest, or perhaps a painter employing oils, brush and canvas to ‘create’ a portrait.

Even God in Gen. 2:7 “forming Adam” from the dust of the ground is different from absolute creation of the heavens and the earth.

God created everything without pre-existing material.

Listen as Hebrews 11:3 comments on the creative action of God in Genesis 1:1:

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Hebrews 11:3 ESV

3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Doug Kelly explains:

“The writer of Hebrews is saying that the visible reality we perceive (the room we are presently in, the larger building, the trees, the soil, our bodies, the stars) do not originally come from other things that we can see (or even theorize), such as simpler life forms: protozoa, amoeba or sheer dust, as though they were a rearrangement of earlier types of matter. Instead, things that we see were made out of things that do not appear; that is to say, out of nothing.”

In biblical terms, the Triune God spoke and a cosmos sprang into existence, whereas there was absolutely nothing of a created, finite nature before His speaking divinely. Psalm 33:6 and 9 refer to this incredibly unique event:

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Psalm 33:6 ESV

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

Psalm 33:9 ESV

9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

“…the heavens...” (sha ma yim— שָּׁמַ֖יִם) and the earth.” (er ez — אָֽרֶץ׃).

This is a Hebrew expression called a merrism, which essentially means everything. It includes everything from the high heavens to the lower earth.

ILL: It would be like speaking of the United States and saying, “from east to west,” where everything in between is included.

“heavens” means height, and when plural it means “height of height”

outer space - solar system - sky - home of the stars, planets, sun, galaxies, even heaven itself

“earth” - earth - ground

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Genesis 1:2 ESV

2 The 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.

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3. The earth is created and ready for God to form and fill.

We begin to see the triune God even more than in just the plural of Elohim. We know from Colossians 1:15-17 that Jesus was active in the creation of the heavens and the earth.

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Colossians 1:15–17 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And here as we see the condition of the earth

The condition of the earth

It was deformed (originally created this way. A mass of material.)

Formless - a mass of material

Hebrew word for formless (tōhû — תֹּהוּ) is used in:

Deut 32 for wasteland

Is 44 desolate place

Is 41 and empty place

Is 59 a confused place - no order

Void - waste, void (bōhû — בֹּהוּ )

When God first created the earth is was uninhabited, unproductive

Steven J. Lawson says so well that:

“the earth was deformed and would need to be formed. Conformed to His blueprint. Undeveloped. Unorganized. Indistinct. Yet all the material he would need He has created and put there.”

ILL: The earth was in a place like an artist who makes a statue begins with a piece of pottery, raw dirt, raw clay, or as a painter with their canvas begins with blobs of paint on a pallet, ready to paint her beautiful masterpiece.

The coming of the Spirit of God hovering and moving over the earth.

Water covering the surface of the earth - covering the mass of material

The earth is lifeless, engulfed in darkness, covered by water

“The Spirit of God is ready to bring beauty out of barrenness, and” (again as Steven J. Lawson beautifully pictures), form out of futility.”

Conclusion and Transition to Communion

Friends, these are some of the most important verses of the Bible. There is no fiction or fable here.

Jesus believed in the historicity of these verses when he taught on divorce, attributing these verses to Moses (Matt. 19:4-8; Mark 13:19) where Jesus refers to creation.

Paul obviously believed in a literal Adam and Eve, created by God, fallen in sin (1 Tim. 2:13–14; 2 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 5:12–14).

Peter believed in the historicity of the flood (1 Pet. 3:20).

Challenge to believe

You cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ and His teaching through the apostles and at the same time reject the historicity of the early chapters (or here, verses) of Genesis.

To believe these statements about the creation of the world out of nothing is to be a believer in the Word of God. And to disbelieve is to be an unbeliever in the word or God.

Friends, God has given us His Word to give us confidence in Him that will hold through the most difficult times.

Can you see, even if wavy, a reflection of the gospel in these early verses?

Gospel connection

This creator God was Jesus Christ, the Son of God

John 1:1 will sound like Gen 1:1

John 1:3 sounds like Col 1:15-16

This says a lot about you. You were created for God…not for yourself.

Jesus is right here with the Spirit and the Father.

Gen 1:2 pictures your life

You too were born in darkness - spiritual darkness

In sin

Your life was a barren wasteland

You must become a new creation

God did not leave you a barren wasteland

Hovered over you…convicted you…called you…drew you…made you to be a new creation.

And just like we will soon see when God creates light, the light of God’s illumination came pouring forth from God and lit up your soul.

Closing Prayer

Communion

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Barrett, Matthew. 2019. None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books: A Division of Baker Publishing Group.), 48.

Lawson, Steven J., The Big Beginning (Genesis 1:1-2), https://trinitybibledallas.org/sermonspage/2021/5/16/genesis-11-2-the-big-beginning-dr-steven-j-lawson.

Poythress, Vern S. 2019. Interpreting Eden: A Guide to Faithfully Reading and Understanding Genesis 1–3. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Ross, Allen P. 1998. Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Waltke, Bruce K., and Cathi J. Fredricks. 2001. Genesis: A Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Wenham, Gordon J. 1987. Genesis 1–15. Vol. 1. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word, Incorporated.