Commentary - Genesis 1:1-5

Bird's-eye view

Genesis 1:1-5 is the majestic opening movement of all Scripture and, consequently, all reality. In these five verses, the uncreated, triune God establishes the fundamental grammar of the universe. He creates everything that is not God out of nothing (ex nihilo) by the sheer power of His spoken Word. This is not a scientific textbook in the modern sense, but it is a true and authoritative account of ultimate origins, laying the bedrock for every doctrine that follows. The passage reveals God as transcendent, powerful, and good. It shows the Holy Spirit actively involved in preparing the creation, and it introduces the pattern of God bringing light, order, and goodness into a state of undeveloped chaos. This work of the first day, culminating in the establishment of the day/night cycle, is the foundational act upon which the rest of creation week, and indeed all of redemptive history, will be built.

This is the ultimate presuppositional starting point. You either begin with an eternal, personal God who creates, or you begin with eternal, impersonal matter that somehow organizes itself. There is no third option. Moses, under the inspiration of the Spirit, gives us the only sane place to stand. Everything that follows in the Bible, from the fall of man to the cross of Christ to the new creation, is an outworking of the relationship established here: the absolute distinction between the sovereign Creator and His dependent, yet good, creation.

Outline

Context In Genesis

This passage is the absolute beginning, not just of the book of Genesis, but of the entire created order. It has no preceding context other than the eternal, self-existent life of the Trinity. Everything else in Genesis depends entirely on what is established here. The authority of God to command Adam, to judge the serpent, to call Abraham, and to rule over the nations is grounded in the fact that He is the Creator of all. The value and dignity of man, created in God's image, is established against the backdrop of God speaking the rest of creation into existence. The problem of sin is only a problem because it is rebellion against this rightful Creator and King. The promise of redemption is the promise of this same God acting within His creation to set it right. Without Genesis 1:1, the rest of the Bible is unintelligible. It is the foundation upon which the entire house is built; if you crack this foundation, the whole structure comes down.

Key Issues

In the Beginning, God

There is no more profound statement in all of literature than the opening four words of the Bible. Every false worldview, every bankrupt philosophy, every bit of humanistic folly crashes and breaks upon this rock. Before there was anything, there was God. He is the uncaused Cause, the uncreated Creator. He was not lonely, for He existed in the perfect fellowship of the Trinity. He was not lacking, for He is eternally self-sufficient. He did not create because He needed to, but because He chose to, for His own glory.

This stands in stark contrast to all pagan creation myths. In those stories, the gods are part of the stuff of the universe, born from chaos, and they create through struggle, conflict, or sexual reproduction. The God of the Bible is utterly distinct from and sovereign over His creation. He does not fight a dragon of chaos; He simply speaks, and the universe leaps into existence. This is the fundamental Creator/creature distinction. He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; we are finite, temporal, and changeable. All right thinking about anything begins right here.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This is the grand, summary statement of everything. "In the beginning" places a definitive start date on the universe. Time itself is a created thing. Before this, there was only God's eternity. The word "God" is the Hebrew Elohim, a plural form often used with a singular verb, which gives us our first hint of the Trinity. "Created" is the Hebrew word bara, a word used exclusively of God's creative activity. It signifies a creation out of nothing, not a shaping of pre-existing materials. "The heavens and the earth" is a Hebrew figure of speech called a merism, where two opposites are used to signify the whole. It means "everything," the entire cosmos, all of reality that is not God. This one verse refutes atheism (God exists), polytheism (one God), pantheism (God is distinct from His creation), and materialism (the universe had a beginning).

2 And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

This verse describes the initial state of the raw material God had just created. The phrase "formless and void" is from the Hebrew tohu wa-bohu. This does not mean it was evil or chaotic in a sinful sense. It was simply undeveloped, like a lump of clay on a potter's wheel before he has shaped it, or a blank canvas before the artist has painted. It was unfilled and unformed. The "darkness" was not a malevolent force, but simply the absence of light. Over this primordial, watery globe, we see the third person of the Trinity: "the Spirit of God was hovering." The word for hovering or moving is the same one used in Deuteronomy 32:11 to describe an eagle fluttering over her young. The Holy Spirit is brooding over the creation, protecting it and preparing to fill it with life and beauty at the command of the Father through the Word.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

Here we see the divine method of creation. God speaks, and reality conforms. This is the divine fiat. There is no effort, no struggle. The power is in the Word of God itself. This is a profound pointer to the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1). The first thing God creates within the temporal order is light. Light is essential for life, and this literal creation will later be used throughout the Bible as metaphor for truth, holiness, and God Himself. It is fitting that the very first creative command brings light into darkness, which is a pattern that God will repeat in the work of salvation when He shines in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Cor 4:6).

4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

God is the one who defines what is good. His evaluation is not a subjective opinion; it is the objective standard. When God declares something good, it is good. This is a foundational statement about the goodness of the physical creation, a bulwark against any Gnostic-type heresy that would denigrate the material world. After declaring the light good, God performs the first act of ordering His creation: He "separated" the light from the darkness. The work of creation is not just about making things, but also about ordering them, arranging them, and assigning them their proper place and function. This act of separation establishes a fundamental rhythm for the world.

5 And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

To name something in the ancient world was an act of asserting authority and defining its nature. God names "day" and "night," establishing His lordship over them. He then concludes the account of His first workday with the formula that will be repeated six times: "And there was evening and there was morning." This phrase, coupled with the numbering ("one day," or more literally, "day one"), gives us the clearest possible indication that these are normal, 24-hour days. The Jewish day began at sunset, so the sequence of evening then morning makes perfect sense. Attempts to stretch these days into long geological ages do violence to the plain meaning of the text. God is setting the pattern for man's own rhythm of work and rest, a pattern He will later codify in the Sabbath commandment.

Application

The first chapter of Genesis is intensely practical. First, it tells us where to begin our thinking about everything. We must begin with God. If we start with ourselves, or with random chance, or with impersonal matter, we will end in confusion and despair. But if we begin with the sovereign, good, and all-powerful Creator, we have a foundation for meaning, morality, beauty, and hope.

Second, it teaches us to honor the goodness of the physical world. This world is not a mistake or a prison for our souls. It is God's handiwork, a gift to be received with thanksgiving, stewarded with wisdom, and enjoyed for His glory. Every sunset, every meal, every mountain is a testament to the goodness of our Creator.

Finally, the pattern of creation gives us the pattern of redemption. Just as God brought light from darkness and order from formlessness, so He does in the life of a sinner. He speaks His powerful word into the chaos of our hearts and says, "Let there be light," and we are made a new creation. The God who hovered over the waters is the same God whose Spirit now dwells in us, conforming us to the image of the Son, who is the light of the world. Our confidence in our salvation rests on the same power that spoke the universe into being.