The Cross in Creation

If you have been reading this blog recently you may have noticed that I've been doing a lot of talking about why one should blog cross-centredly, but haven't really shown you how that looks in practice. Well today will hopefully turn the tide. I want to share with you something revealed by the Holy Spirit this morning as I did my Bible Reading in Genesis*.

God's Word is focused around one story: God's relationship with his people and the climax of this story is Jesus dying on the cross. All the way through the Bible is building up to this great event, and after it the Bible glories in Jesus' work there.

It is no different in Genesis, indeed it is a very good example. We see God make his first promise to defeat Satan (Gen 3:15); saving people from death (Gen 5:24); and choosing a people for himself (Gen 12:1-3);. Yet when we come to Genesis 1 it's very easy to wonder where on earth God's master plan fits in. Surely it's just about creation, nothing to do with God's plan of salvation.

Oh how wrong we are...

The Holy Spirit wrote this book from start to finish, and he knew what he was going to write centuries later. He knew Jesus would come to save his people from sin. As he was giving these words to Moses he was laying down the foundations for the rest of the Bible. Indeed as every great author does, the Spirit used his first chapter to show us about the key character in this epic tale: God. **

I could mention many of the things that the Bible is teaching us, paving the way for the cross here. But I'm just going to mention one. Consider these verses:

"In the beginning, created the heavens and the earth. 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." (Gen 1:1-2 ESV)

Pay attention to the italics part there. It says the earth was "without form and void". Try and think of something now that doesn't have a form. I think you'll struggle. Everything has a form. All substances on Earth (in solid state, liquid state and gas state) have a form. It may not be a solid form, it may be change from second to second, as a liquid or a gas does. But it has some form. Moreover nothing is void. Void, my Concise Oxford Dictionary reliably informs me, is "empty, vacant". The only thing that is void and without form is nothingness. Void is the absence of anything, so the only thing God had was nothing.

Now my understanding of the Big Bang theory is that for it to happen there had to be some basic elements to start with. A few gases collided together, made a big bang and eventually everything existed. Now admittedly it's very difficult to make a universe out of a few gases, but the truth is actually even more amazing. God used void, that is nothingness, to create somethingness. He is so amazing everything came out of nothing.

Fair enough, God is established as an amazing guy. But what does this have to do with the cross?

God tells us in Jeremiah, "...my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are 'wise' - in doing evil! But how to do good they know not." (Jer 4:22, ESV).

Then Jeremiah cries out "I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light" (Jer 4:23, ESV). Yes Israel's sin is hopeless, like the earth without form and void (notice same words as Genesis 1). And let's face it, it is the same with us. We are just like the earth before God came along. There are no raw materials for us to be created with. Everything about us is nothingness in God's terms. We have nothing that can save us. Just like Israel's condition and the world's condition before creation, there is nothing in us.

But don't you remember something? God made something out of void, yes something out of darkness. We are void, we are nothing. We have no way of becoming light, we are dark. But God can do it! He created a world out of nothing, surely he can save us!

Oh yes he can! Indeed he already has. Look at yourself. There is nothing to redeem me. I am the void before creation. Yet God can make something out of me! How does he do this? We learn later that he does it by the cross; Jesus dying for my darkness and giving me his light. Indeed we can say with Paul: "For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone light in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6, ESV).

Yes, even in Genesis 1 the Holy Spirit was writing so that you may know the way to save yourself from where you naturally are. Are you a Christian, a child of the living God? If you are not, you are never going to find him. You are utter darkness. But I have good news for you, God created the world out of nothing. He can make you, a person who is nothing but darkness, be a light for him in this world.

Trembling at his Word
Tim

P.S. Sorry for all the made up words: centredly, nothingness and somethingness. But Shakespeare did it so why can't I?

* When I say revealed by the Holy Spirit I am not speaking of anything beyond the usual processes of my mind. I didn't enter a trance or hear a word from heaven. But I will certainly not ascribe it to myself. It is the Holy Spirit who wrote the Bible (2 Tim 3:16), and it is the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes to understand it (Eph 1:16-18) so I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to make it sound like I figured this out. It was revealed by Him. Praise be to God!

** Again to save you from worry, by comparing this to a story I'm not saying the Bible's tales are made up. No, they are historical fact. Yet not everything in history is included in the Bible, not even everything about Jesus (see John 21:25). The Holy Spirit dictated what would be in the Bible, and so we much pay attention to what he chose to include. Therefore we can talk of him as an author, not telling a made up story, but rather writing an account of events as they truly happened, but selecting them for his ultimate purpose, to show people Jesus.