I recently gave a seminar at my high school. I’m going to reproduce it as a series here. A couple of necessary comments: 1) I only used sparse notes for the seminar, so I’m going to do my best to write this as a “transcript” of the talk. 2) Most of this content is influenced directly from the work of Theopolis: James Jordan, Peter Leithart, and Alistair Roberts. A more in-depth video series on the topic can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZVU5W7G_m6iEHqj4k-1N7MYajT21CJCs
Picking Up Where We Left Off in Part 1
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:2-3)
Stopping at the Trinity Exhibit
There is one little note to be made that I can’t pass up. The large majority of scholars, Christian and non-, do not believe you can find the Trinity in Genesis 1. Some especially conservative scholars point to Genesis 1:26 as the first time there is a hint at the idea of a triune God: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make.” But a very small minority of us believe you can see even greater evidence for the Trinity as early as Genesis 1:3.
In Trinitarian theology, the Son of God is also called the Word of God (John 1:1).
The word “Spirit” in Hebrew can also be translated as “wind” or “breath.”
The Creator, the one who speaks in Genesis 1:3, is the Father.
You have the Father speaking word(s) in Genesis 1:3, and while we also see the Spirit clearly hovering above the waters, we also see Him in the fact that it takes wind/air/breath to get a word out.
And so, there is Speaker, Word, and Breath in Genesis 1:3—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You don’t have to be convinced of that for the rest of this talk to make any sense, but I think it’s pretty cool. Ok, I’ll give you one more piece of evidence on that front.
God’s proper name is Yahweh. Yahweh means something like “I Am” or “I exist” and comes from the being verb in Hebrew that means “to be” (Exodus 3:14). God is the one who is, was, and will be (Revelation 1:8).
The first word that God speaks in Genesis 1:3, which is translated “Let there be” in English is only one word in Hebrew: “Ye-hi.” Ye-hi is the imperative form of the verb “to be.”
And so, God’s first word in the Bible is a form of his own name, speaking “the Word,” who is God.
Or not. You decide.
Day 1
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:2-5)
We open up the account of the physical creation after God has made the initial “stuff” of the world. It has no form; it’s all filled with darkness and deep water. Yet, the Spirit of God flutters above, a symbol of hope for better things. I say “flutters” because there is only one other time the Hebrew word translated “hovering” in the verse above is used in the Bible, and it is Deuteronomy 32:11. That verse describes God hovering/fluttering over Israel, protecting them like an eagle protects its young. It’s a bird word. Funny how the Spirit is associated with a bird, huh? I wonder if we see that anywhere else? Wink wink.1
Then, we have God creating light. What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean that God creates the sun. The sun is not created until day 4. Then what could it be?
Theologian Meredith Kline is popular for arguing in his book Images of the Spirit that this is the creation of the physical representation of the glory of God. Think about it. Light, along with anything that we can see, is a physical/material creation. But God is Spirit; therefore, He is invisible to us (1 Timothy 1:17), so here we have Him creating His shining glory-presence to be seen, eventually, by humanity.
Then God sets apart the light from the darkness, creating and naming day and night and establishing the pattern of evening and morning. Kline makes a deeper point that God led Israel through the wilderness with his glory-presence as a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21), light and dark. Many times God fills the tabernacle or temple with his presence, the Old Testament declares that it becomes filled with smoke/cloud. Kline’s speculation is that the creation of light and darkness was happening by the Spirit that was over the waters forming the pillar of cloud and fire, which was the first regulator of day and night on the first three days before the creation of the sun and moon.
Well, we have finished Day 1, and we have not quite got into much symbolism at all yet, but laying this foundation is important to get where we want to go. We can go ahead and fill in the first element of a popular table though:
Things get a bit crazy in the next post with the creation of the firmament. What could it possibly mean that the firmament separates the waters below from the waters above? Waters above?
The answer is Matthew 3:16.