Genesis 1:2 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 1:2

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The first stage is here in verse 2, ‘And the earth was without form, and void.’ It had no shape. It appears from the record here to have been a deep fluid water with possibly all the materials needed for the composition of the dry land, and so on, suspended or dissolved in it, but there it was, not in any shape or form. Not a disorganised mess – I think it would be wrong to think that; there is no hint of that in the book of Genesis – but it was ‘without form’. Why did God not bring the world and the earth into being immediately, at a word, shaped with dry land and seas and many features already present? Why were there stages? Doesn’t it detract from the power of God, that it took God six days to bring everything to pass? Of course not. To make the universe and the world in particular and all life forms culminating in or climaxing with mankind, the special creation, which was the object of everything; to make that over six days is beyond all miracles that we could imagine. In a way, it is as good as instantaneous creation, demonstrating the power of God, because it is done over so short a time as six days. So all the necessary power that would be suggested by an instantaneous act of God is there anyway, and yet it is done over six days. First of all there is a formless, shapeless, completely inert mass, without form and void (which simply means empty). There is no energy, there is no movement; you cannot differentiate between any particles or features. There is no character to it and yet it would not be correct to say it was chaos. Why did God start with the formless, inert material, and then demonstrate that he was shaping it? Because in Genesis 1 you see God presenting himself as a craftsman, the great divine craftsman, forming something. He wants us to get a glimpse of him having made something, as a craftsman would. He wants us to wonder at each stage, and marvel at it. If it were all done suddenly, it would just be a marvellous creation and we would not be able to wonder at the creation process. So, stage by stage it comes about. He is the eternal genius, to use human expressions. But nevertheless, there has to be some mechanism which conveys to us his care and his thoughtfulness.But it is in stages most of all because God wants us to see that he fashioned and designed something for man, who was the end-point, the highest point of the six days of creation; it was all prepared for him; it was created with him in mind. The record of creation is saying – the purpose of God was to create an environment for man and man was at the centre of God’s purposes. How awful that mankind should have got to the point where it happily and willingly embraces the theory of evolution, which at the end of the day says, man is nothing special. Man is just an animal. It's all chance and accident, and it isn't even a perfect design at that. When God has revealed to us the care and attention and the planning he put in to this world for the benefit of mankind, the special object of his interest with whom he would relate, choose to relate for all eternity. So you get the stages to communicate the idea of craftsmanship and thought and care and design and intention.‘Darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ The Spirit of God exerted some activity, the Spirit of God was involved and simultaneously, or immediately afterwards, God began to speak the creation into existence. The Holy Spirit imparted some kind of energy to that inert substance and it began to operate and function. Our translators and all subsequently have put Spirit with a capital letter, which is quite obvious in the narrative. We are being introduced to more than one person in the Godhead. We have the Spirit of God, who is somehow one with God, and yet, in a sense we can't understand, able also to act independently. Not strictly, because the members of the Trinity we later learn do everything in perfect and unbreakable harmony, and yet the Spirit is seen here moving separately.

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Should we use the word ‘chaos’ to describe this first state of the world? ‘Chaos’ is a difficult word in the English language. It comes from a Greek word which refers to a great chasm. When our forebears used the word ‘chaos’ to describe the earth while it was without form, they simply meant that it was a lifeless, inert mass. But in the course of time the word ‘chaos’ assumed another meaning which is now virtually its only meaning and that is something disordered and confused; something which is a mess, and a waste. Really we should stop using the term; it is not in the Bible. It was just water, so described, and it was inert, shapeless – a great deep, but it was not disordered. Whatever it would have been like to see (you could not see it, of course, because there was utter darkness at that time). Light had not yet been brought in. It is Greek mythology that starts the world with a kind of disorganised, confused mass. It is the theory of evolution that has got confusion heading things up in the front. Atheists don’t understand that there was nothing, only God; God who was all-in-all. But there was nothing material. It is they that start with something chaotic and disordered, and there has to be a great accident or, in the case of the Greeks, the activities of the gods to make something (and something pretty awful) out of it. But in the Bible there is just material substance created first.

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Genesis 1:2 Commentary and Bible Study