Genesis 2 - The Spirit of God

God's word is from Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 to 2. Let us listen attentively to the Word of God.

 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Amen.

 

Summary of Last Time & Purpose of Creation

God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. The heavens and the earth here refer to the sky and the land. And, as we examined last time, He created that sky and land, the invisible world and the visible world, all creation. The statement that He created everything is a declaration that within this entire universe and world, only God is God alone. There are no other gods. Both the visible and the invisible, all this creation, originates from God.  

 

And the final path this creation of God is heading towards, the Bible expresses it as "unification". Ephesians 1:10 speaks thus: "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ." This word "unify" means to gather into one with Jesus Christ as the head. So, it means that Jesus becomes the head, and He rules this entire universe and world completely and perfectly. Since this is a New Testament scripture, it naturally has aspects different from the words in Genesis. This is because it already presupposes human fallenness and shows God initiating a new creation. This humanity and world, which were in chaos and cut off from God, become reconciled within Christ because of Him.

Reconciled with God, they meet God again, and with the Lord as head, for the glory of God, they live according to God's will. This is precisely what it means for Jesus Christ to rule over all of us. The accomplishment of this is what we call salvation, or new creation. Clearly, the old creation, the creation of Genesis we are discussing now, is a creation where sin does not appear, but the purpose of that creation is no different. That all creation glorifies God, and all creation enters into God's perfect dominion—this is the very purpose of creation. You must remember this well. Because when we get to chapter 2, when the section on rest comes up, we will deal with this part again very importantly.  

 

Connection between Verses 1 & 2: Beginning of the Visible World

So, if you look at verse 2, it says the earth was formless and empty, right? Therefore, the word "earth," as mentioned in the previous verse, refers to that visible world. So, from that point, God began to create the visible world, and it is showing precisely that record. Therefore, are Genesis 1:2 and 1:1 related or not? They are related. Verse 1 and verse 2 are not separate; rather, verse 2 takes the visible and invisible worlds from verse 1 and shows how, among them, the visible world was created like this.  

 

Process of Creation: Chaos, Void, Darkness, Water

And that chaos and void describe the state the earth was in, and the darkness and water there speak of some existing entity. Until that time, light had not yet been created through words like "Let it come into being, appear, be." How about thinking like this. God is omniscient and omnipotent, right? Then, just from the beginning, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Let there be light!" That sounds cool too, right? How natural is that? But because verse 2 is inserted next in the Bible, we come to understand that the Bible is conveying quite significant content here. If you read Genesis, the creation account is not like what we might think, "Ta-da!" and light appears, "Ta-da!" and the sea appears, continuously "Ta-da!" and the sky appears, "Ta-da!" and the land emerges. There is some kind of step God ordained. It has a process. There is darkness, there is water, that water is divided—He goes through such processes. He doesn't do it all in one day. The Bible expresses it as six days. Was it because it was difficult for God to do all this in one day? That's not it. Therefore, there is a very important message contained within this. That is precisely the point that this creation involves a certain process.  

 

Chaos and Darkness are Not Materials for Creation

Then, we might think. "Ah! So God first made the materials to create the heavens and the earth... He first made some substance, and from that substance, He made this world we can see!" Like this... But that is wrong, everyone! The first thing God created was "light," wasn't it? Did light come from darkness? No. Did light come from the gloom? Or did light come from water? No! Light is completely different. Therefore, the formless and empty earth, the darkness, and the water that appeared initially absolutely do not refer to materials for creation. Rather, they are part of what is becoming creation. This tells another important story.  

 

Limitations and Dangers of Scientific Interpretation

Hearing the creation story, we have always thought, where did all these numerous substances come from? Where did those animals come from, where did this nature come from—we consider the origin very important. Consequently, naturally, we began to read the Bible differently in each era. We came to understand the Bible differently according to the amount of knowledge possessed in each era. In other words, the reason our way of reading the Bible keeps changing as we advance scientifically is because we frequently adopt the attitude of trying to interpret the Bible using that science. While this attitude is not necessarily bad, such scientific Bible reading can often cause us to miss the original meaning the Bible intends to convey. Because the Bible was not written for scientists to read and understand it. It is absolutely not a book written for scientists to read and discover science within it. Through the upcoming Genesis sermons, as we examine these daily creation accounts day by day, I will introduce the processes in detail. But from the moment attempts arose to read and understand the content of this creation through science, theories attempting to explain them scientifically also emerged. Thus, it became easy for you too to adopt this approach in your understanding of the Bible.  

 

Introduction to the Gap Theory

Reading this creation account, we first encounter this question. Although the Bible clearly states the world was created in 6 days, we learn, as taught in school or claimed by numerous scientists appearing on news or TV, that this universe was built over at least 13 to 14 billion years, and the Earth also took about 3.5 to 4 billion years to roughly form the shape of the Earth we live on now. Then, naturally, the question arises: which one is correct? Is it 6 days or tens, hundreds of billions of years? So this gap becomes a very big obstacle when reading the Bible. Like us reading the Bible now, readers in the past had similar feelings. Since the late 19th century, when geology began to develop, this became a very important issue. To explain this incomprehensibly large gap between 6 days and hundreds of billions of years, people came up with the following interpretation. "Genesis 1:1 says God created the heavens and the earth, and then it says the earth became formless and empty, so isn't there clearly a completely different period of rupture in between? There was an 'original' creation when He first created the heavens and the earth, and then there was the process where the earth became chaos and void," they explained.  

 

This argument began to gain fame after 1814, when Rev. Thomas Chalmers, a theology professor, presented this theory in a lecture at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Seeing the many geological studies of that time, he developed a desire to make Genesis more understandable to more people, and he proposed this theory as a solution to the questions about the creation account in Genesis 1, which was also very difficult for him. According to this theory, first, "Genesis 1:1 is the original creation, and afterwards, God's angel fell and became Satan, and as a result of God's judgment on that fallen angel, the earth, initially created good, could not remain in that state and became formless and empty," it says. Sounds plausible, right? One of the reasons I introduce this claim is to help you understand his intentions and thoughts in trying to comprehend and explain creation. And this is not a vanished theory but still exists in various forms today. Because the earth was in a world of chaos and darkness, and He said, "Let there be light again," a second creation took place. After the original creation, a second creation follows.  

 

However, unfortunately, as this interpretation deepens, it develops into interpretations like this. "Satan, the fallen angel, made this world so miserable now, and as judgment for this, God created this earth to completely annihilate them, Jesus came to destroy that Satan, and humans were created as beings to help Jesus destroy Satan." This is a claim very similar to the teachings of a certain heretical doctrine. So, the earth becomes something created because of Satan, and Jesus came to destroy Satan. Of course, destroying Satan is correct, but God's purpose, the purpose of Jesus coming to this earth, is not that. As we well know, He came to save us. But it gets interpreted wrongly in that way. Of course, to explain the theory more deeply, numerous other theories are continuously brought in. That is, enormous stories begin to be inserted between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. For example, there is the claim that "At that time, He created humans who had souls and bodies but no spirit, so countless humans already existed then, and they were all ultimately destined to die, and only Adam was a human born with a spirit." The claim is that there was a second creation.  

 

This theory was extremely popular at the time. And it influenced many people. This content also became very famous in America, and around that time, in 1876, Rev. G. H. Pember wrote a book called 'Earth's Earliest Ages.' And through this work, the content began to spread even more. However, the decisive trigger for its spread in America was the famous Scofield Reference Bible. The Scofield Bible is a commentary Bible distributed by Dr. Scofield, who added brief annotations to the biblical text. It became so famous that almost all Christians bought this book. What is noteworthy is that this very Bible is the one that performed the dispensationalist biblical interpretation we know well. In the interpretation of Genesis as well, as quoted above, there is a large rupture between verses 1 and 2, expressing that rupture as a Gap, which led to it being called the Gap Theory. This Gap Theory subsequently spread very widely, and based on this theory, people came to think that there was the destruction of the first creation due to Satan's judgment, followed by a second creation for humans. The reason this theory could become very popular among Christians with conservative and fundamentalist tendencies was that through this theory, one could insert a very long period between Genesis 1:1 and 2 without abandoning the six-day creation. After the first creation ended in 1:1, billions of years passed, and then He created the earth again in 6 days. Therefore, the numerous fossils or various discovered traces of long history spoken of in geological circles could be interpreted as being included in Genesis without any problem based on this theory. Although not exactly the same, the stance of accepting as fact that many geological upheavals or fossils occurred by explaining the time gap between creation accounts in this way is surprisingly found in various places. For example, C.S. Lewis and Rev. Arthur Pink also partially accepted this Gap Theory, and there is also M. R. De Haan, famous for the book "Law Or Grace." He too accepted the Gap Theory in Genesis. Because it doesn't significantly conflict with our understanding of the 6-day creation and allows acceptance of the long Earth time spoken of in geology or science, they accepted it without much difficulty.  

 

Problems with the Gap Theory

It's certainly not the case that they accepted the theory simply because it was popular and plausible, thinking that the time gap explained by the Gap Theory wasn't too bad for explaining the creation in Genesis, which is hard to reconcile with scientific or geological evidence. They continuously tried to find biblical evidence. For example, translating the chaos and void of the text "the earth was formless and empty" not with the 'be' verb indicating state, but by adding the meaning of 'become' to explain a change, translating it as "the earth became chaotic, became void." And by translating it that way, they explained that the first creation completely fell into chaos and void because of Satan. Also, in understanding other various Bible verses, for example, Jeremiah 4 or Isaiah, which we know well, they interpreted the difficult passages appearing in these Bible verses naturally as two creations through this Gap Theory's method of time division, showing that this method allows for an easier explanation of the Bible and God's creation ministry. It could explain Satan's fall, and also the long time spoken of by geology.  

 

Nevertheless, this Gap Theory still couldn't explain all the creation accounts recorded in the Bible very smoothly. First, the most important thing is that nowhere in the Bible can a verse be found supporting the idea that God created the world twice. If you look at Exodus 20, it clearly states this. "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day." What does it say? It clearly says "in six days," and that creation evidently refers to the "original" creation we know. If God had created twice, He would have said something like, "On the sixth day of My second creation..." or "I accomplished these things that I did not do during the first creation..." But instead, He speaks so clearly referring only to the "original" creation, which must have become one of the considerably difficult problems for proponents of the Gap Theory to understand. So, trying to forcibly interpret it as two creations with a time gap led to inserting things not found in the Bible between verse 1 and verse 2. Everyone, do you know when Satan fell? We cannot know that precisely. From the Bible, we can know that Satan fell from being an angel, but it's very difficult to know when that was, yet they solved it. It was right between the first and second creations. But if this content could be found in the Bible, it would be easy for us to accept, but it's not. So, this kind of creation interpretation became increasingly difficult. For example, the content of God's judgment on Satan does not appear. And the judged Satan was destroyed, but how other satans came to be on this earth again after the destruction—various problems like these made Bible understanding more complicated. Why did death arise causing so many creatures to die? Was it because of Satan's sin, not our human sin, that those creatures died? ...In this way, the task of imagining and inferring too many things not stated by the Bible occurred. Naturally, the question arises: is this biblical?  

 

Another important and decisive point I think is this. If you look at the latter part of verse 2 in the text, it says, "and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." But the word "hovering," as we will examine again later, means "to flutter," like an eagle hovering over its young to protect them. This word is not frequently used in the Bible. In the Bible, that word is used to mean protecting and preserving something. Now, if we accept the Gap Theory's biblical interpretation as it is, the chaos and void are now the result of judgment. They should be quickly changed, not protected and preserved. But the statement that the Spirit of God is protecting and preserving them over the waters is incomprehensible. So, although the proponents of this theory, or those who tried hard to explain and understand it, were not without faith, or were not asserting something entirely strange or nonsensical, their claims nevertheless fail to resolve even the problems of geology. For example, if you say that many fossils were formed because God judged, then all creatures must have died, and you have to explain that they were buried in the earth, resulting in the various fossils we have now. Then how long must God's judgment have lasted? He must have judged for hundreds of millions of years. Because the fossils of all dead creatures are found in different layers, the geological layers... they wouldn't all die at once. Since each layer has a time difference, it means He judged for such a long time, which is utterly difficult to accept. Another point harder to accept is that while believers might find such claims understandable, the theory is actually completely unpersuasive to scientists. Consequently, as you and I see, those trying to explain this theory keep adding various claims to this interpretation. That's how the famous term Lucifer's Flood came about. That is, the flood that destroyed Satan with water occurred in that era, and that's why such geological layers formed—they ended up providing explanations like this.  

 

Conclusion of Gap Theory & Reconfirmation of Verses 1 & 2

However, as we examined last week, considering the sentence structure and all grammatical aspects, verses 1 and 2 are connected sentences, not separated. And it's not talking about the judgment of the fallen Satan intervening within it. In this respect, despite much effort, the Gap Theory is very difficult to accept as it is.  

 

Purpose of the Creation Process: Gradual Revelation

Then we have more questions. Why did God explain the creation account by inserting these various processes, making it cumbersome or hard to understand? Couldn't He just say, "I created!", or "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, let there be everything, the end!" Doing so would be simple and certain, but why didn't He, and instead explained these seemingly complex processes? If you look at the process of the first three days, first, on what appears to be the first day, He says, "Let there be light." What is that light contrasted with? It's contrasted with darkness, right? So God gave them names. He called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." He even gave them names. It's very important content, contrasting the darkness. Next, He divided the waters into two, making the sky and the sea. He divided the waters above from the waters below, right? Then where were those waters? It's the content from the preceding verse. He divides those very waters. In other words, change and progress are included in these processes. That process, meaning, it started with darkness but light emerged; it started with water but sky, sea, and land emerged.  

Now, everyone! For our understanding here, although a slightly more complex explanation is needed, let's skip ahead and think about the end of creation. That is, the end of all creation, it appears not only in Genesis but also in the content of Revelation, right? If you look at Revelation, is there darkness or not? It becomes completely light! Is there sea or not? He says, "There was no longer any sea," and expresses this as "a new heaven and a new earth." Then is there absolutely no water? No, doesn't the water of life flow? Therefore, from this beginning, we can see that this creation is undergoing processes towards the purpose God intends to achieve. Therefore, the reason for creating over 6 days is precisely because there is a message God wants to show us through this process, and He wants to make us aware of it.  

 

Relationship between Genesis and Science/Evolution

Don't misunderstand; since I'm talking about processes now, does that mean I'm talking about evolution? Can evolution also be explained then? You might think that. Let me say again, Genesis has absolutely no interest in evolution, evolutionism, or explaining creation through science, or anything like that. Because if this were that kind of book, wouldn't it have been written for scientists? Does that mean Genesis is all some kind of symbol or myth? Not that either. It is clear fact. It is based on fact, but the language used to explain these things to us has absolutely nothing to do with the language explaining whether this is evolution or not, as we keep asking. Nowhere in the Bible is there ever an attempt to explain creation scientifically or to express the many facts we know scientifically. Many people want to find such things. How nice it would have been if gravity had been explained in the Bible. How nice it would have been if Newton's law of universal gravitation had been explained in the Bible. However, do all the descriptions of scripture found in the Bible fail to acknowledge universal gravitation or scientific laws as facts? No, that's not the case. Facts are facts, but the way of expressing those facts is different from science.  

 

Characteristics of Biblical Language: Phenomenological, Literary Language

Let's think about it like this. The expressions in the Bible are so common-sensical, literary, and also meant for us humans, that very different and diverse methods of description appear. For example, let's assume I acted like this this morning. I woke up this morning and took a walk, feeling the morning breeze very pleasantly. You all understand these words, right? Now, what are the facts presented here? The wind blew. And I took a walk. However, these expressions use a completely different descriptive method than scientific expression. Scientifically, it should be expressed like this. 'This morning, I moved my position by moving my feet 154 steps, using the muscles and bones in my calves and thighs, fighting against the gravity pulling me down and resisting the weight of the air pressing heavily on my body, on a path where an east wind, generated by the influence of the pressure trough between the northern high pressure and the southern low pressure, was blowing at a speed of 10 miles per hour.' This is the scientifically accurate expression. However, the Bible has never spoken in this manner. That is to say, it is not writing scientific papers or articles. For example, is the statement "The sun rose in the east" true? Strictly speaking, it is not. Conversely, the Earth revolved around the Sun. However, the statement that the sun rose in the east can also be true.  

 

Principle of Biblical Interpretation: Fact and Mode of Expression

Now you probably grasp the point I am trying to make. The Bible's main purpose is not just to state facts. In the way it expresses those facts, it clearly enables us to discover not only the truth we believe in but also something uniquely expressed by the Bible according to God's purpose. Therefore, if we take only the scientific theories we have discovered so far and try to understand the Word by applying them to the Bible, significant strain is bound to arise. Is the creation of heaven and earth in the Bible a fact or not? Of course, it is a fact! God created, that is also a fact. Anyone who denies this is not a believer. Believers can understand all of it, and also know that it is naturally fact. However, when describing the content of that creation in the Bible, it wasn't expressed simply. Revelation is not something God explained like in a science journal to make facts easily understandable; rather, it is a book written with a certain purpose, to enable us to understand it.  

 

Considering the Bible's Multiple Audiences

Because the purpose of recording the Bible is such, within the Bible's content, God has always considered us. At the time of the Exodus, when the Bible was first composed and God delivered it to Moses, the state and situation of the Israelites were very important considerations. Then, does only that exist? No, it doesn't! The Bible was always written considering all those who would read this book afterwards and become God's people. It truly is an amazing book. Although it is true that the Bible was primarily written for Moses and the Israelites of that time. However, we are also included among the readers God planned for. When Jesus prayed in John 17, He clearly said so, didn't He? Verse 20, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message." Not only that, but also in various other biblical expressions, right? It says, "you and your descendants." Similarly, this Genesis was also recorded for us today. So God edited the facts.  

 

The Bible: Edited and Interpreted Revelation

If God had truly intended to write down everything that happened in Genesis, could it possibly be expressed fully in this writing? It's impossible. Even Jesus's three-year public ministry couldn't be fully recorded, so it was condensed. Therefore, God edited the important content among all those facts. So, the facts recorded in the Bible are the parts necessary for us and that we need to understand. Then, God Himself interprets it for us. So that we can understand. So He recorded the content He personally interpreted for us, and that is precisely revelation. Therefore, when we hear that revelation, we should not try to understand it using only the simple knowledge we possess.  

 

The Right Relationship Between Science and Faith

Trying to understand the mystery of creation by thinking and researching scientifically is a very good attitude. It is something I also hope for, and think is important, that God opens our eyes through general revelation, so that with more knowledge, we understand a little more of the amazing mysteries of God found in Genesis. It is something continuously needed in the future as well. However, trying to create doctrines from Genesis based on scientific facts is extremely dangerous. The possibility of being wrong is very high. This approach will become one of the errors not only many great believers in the past fell into, but also one we can fall into. The reason is that we are people who are bound to have errors. In the past, everyone thought the sun revolved around the earth. Scientists of that time thought so too, and many believers believed so based on the Bible. They thought, as the Bible tells, the world was created with humans and the earth at the center. However, we who live today have come to accept it as perfectly natural that this is not true. Genesis was written without any consideration for geocentrism or heliocentrism. It has absolutely no interest in which of the two is correct. Just as it was wrong to judge the Bible based on previous scientific theories, we must always remember that if we try to unconditionally explain the creation account and Genesis using evolutionism and such scientific theories today, we can also fall into mistaken errors.  

 

Finding the True Message of Genesis

Nevertheless, since Genesis speaks truth, and explains those truths to us uniquely according to God's intention and will, we seek what Genesis intends to tell us from this perspective of understanding. Think about Israel in the wilderness. When God gave Genesis to the people of Israel in the wilderness through Moses, what did God want to give them through the story of Genesis? The wilderness is a land where nothing can live. The words chaos and void also mean a land difficult for living creatures to inhabit. Astronomers or chemists might come out and understand the Bible like this. 'Ah, the universe was born from chaos, also called 'khaos', so the Bible, which speaks of the world being created through chaos and void, is indeed a scientific book,' they might say. However, that is completely different from what the Bible intends. Because the word "chaos" mentioned in the Bible actually signifies a place difficult for humans to live, or difficult for living creatures to inhabit. So rather than trying to prove the Bible is scientific by finding points of agreement using scientific theories, it is more appropriate to find where the true facts spoken by the Bible lie, and what the Bible truly intends to say.  

 

Parallel between Exodus Process and Creation Process

Let's look at Israel's case again. When they were walking through darkness, God was present as fire, protecting and guiding them. With light and warmth, He shone upon them in that cold darkness. When they suffered under the scorching sun at hot midday, God shielded them from the heat with His pillar of cloud, and He guided them so they could rest within it. Water came from the rock and saved them, He made them cross the sea as on dry land, and He let them eat bread from heaven that came down. That is the method and process by which God created Israel. He did not instantly rescue Israel from Egypt and instantly place them in the land of Canaan. There is a process. But the Bible describes that entire process as precisely the process of creation. This is creation. The process of God's creation is clearly revealed throughout the Exodus.  

 

New Testament People and the New Creation

What about you and me? For the people of the new covenant, this is even clearer. Because chaos and void are words much more familiar to us. This is because they express our place of sin much better. To us in that chaos and void, He shone light, and He made the new heaven and new earth take root within us. We too were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and unlike the old creation, we received salvation from sin. And more fundamentally, we are heading towards God's completed kingdom. We have been transferred to the kingdom of light. Therefore, in the end, we will live in that kingdom full of light, and the Bible explains that we will live by the river of the water of life, eating the fruit of the tree of life.  

 

Core of the Creation Process: The Spirit of God

And the most important fact we need to know today is this. What was present throughout this entire process of creation? It was precisely the Spirit of God who was there. The Bible clearly reveals this point. As mentioned earlier, this is the most crucial part of the framework of creation. Whenever a passage explaining creation appears in the Bible, this Holy Spirit God appears without fail. When the flood began, and when the flood ended, in all the events of the flood, the "Ruach" (H7307), expressed as wind, precisely the Holy Spirit, appears. During the Red Sea incident in Exodus, what blows? Wind blows. And when the wind blows, as the Israelites cross between the Red Sea waters and emerge anew from the water, born as a new people, in that new creation, the work of the Holy Spirit God is recorded. When Jesus Christ, as you know, was baptized by John the Baptist to begin His public ministry, what happens when He comes up out of the water? The Holy Spirit appears there like a dove. That precisely speaks of God's work of creation.  

 

Meaning of "Hovering" (Merachephet): Protection and Presence

As mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, the meaning of the word "hovering" is "to flutter," meaning just as an eagle circles around its nest, fluttering over its young, spreading its wings to cover and receive the young, as the mother eagle cares for and protects her own chicks, this verse itself, by using the image of this word "flutter," clearly reveals how God created the world. In the midst of chaos and void, God does not abandon this created world; rather, He protects and keeps it. It means He is showing through the Holy Spirit God that He is the King of this world, He governs these things, and He is always present. It's not about creating good things out of bad things; rather, He is explaining even that as part of God's creation.  

 

Reconfirming the Biblical Meaning of Chaos and Void

The chaos and void appearing in Isaiah 24 or Jeremiah 4 signify wasteland, a place uninhabitable by humans and where even birds cannot dwell. Of course, Isaiah does mention owls are there. Why did He say that? Because the nation cannot stand firm and people have all vanished, that's why He says only owls dwell there. It means it became like a forest. This is why we cannot apply scientific discoveries and explain the universe as chaos. We don't know how science will develop in the future, but just as Newton's law of universal gravitation was slightly modified and supplemented later by Einstein's theory of relativity, the thermodynamic law of entropy, stating the universe proceeds towards chaos, is also a theory discovered by humans, so nobody knows if it might not be that perfect. We don't know what will happen. But the Bible here is not trying to say that; rather, to Israel in the wilderness, He says, "I am with you," "My Spirit is with you in this place like chaos and void, wasteland." These are not my words; the prophet Isaiah himself says this in the book of Isaiah. "When you passed through the sea, and when God's work of creation occurred, God's Spirit was with you." This is the work of the Holy Spirit found in the Old Testament. It appears as clearly as the stories in the New Testament.  

 

Comfort Provided by the Spirit's Presence to Israel

Then, for the people of Israel, for this nation suffering in the wilderness, what would be the most important good news? Think about it, everyone. Right now, there's no water, nothing to eat, they don't know what to do, and they can't even trust the leader guiding them. What would be the most important thing at that time? The God who is with us, the God who completely defeated Egypt with ten plagues, "That God is with us," "He hovers over the surface of this chaos." How amazing and wondrous it must have been.  

 

Comfort Provided by the Spirit's Presence to Us Today

What about us now? Broken down by sin, shaken daily by the temptations of sin, always troubled by our immature appearance, constantly struggling because of my inadequacy to even discern right from wrong properly. In this situation where the power of sin and death feels so great even to us who think we are living with new life, God speaks to us. "You are still in the midst of creation, and I am hovering over your waters!" Everyone, how about it? Although you confess daily, "The Holy Spirit is present," "The Holy Spirit is with us," "I rely on the Holy Spirit," are you convinced that it's real? It's not that the Holy Spirit appears because you confessed, "The Holy Spirit is present!" Rather, even before you realized all that, at the very time when you were struggling, gasping for breath, blocked by the power of sin in your life, in that place that looks like chaos and void, the Spirit of God is working together with you. He is hovering over you, protecting you.  

 

Purpose of Creation: Habitation, Not Chaos (Isaiah 45:18)

When speaking of creation in Isaiah 45:18, the prophet says this. "For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—he says: 'I am the Lord, and there is no other.'" In other words, He is saying that creation does not end in chaos, but God is carrying out a creation that moves towards a kingdom where God and we dwell together forever.  

 

Conclusion: Living a Life Experiencing Creation in the Holy Spirit

That is why God requires a period of 6 days for His creation, for a simple task that could end in one day. And He speaks thus: "All this will be experienced in your lives through day and night. You will experience in your life another creation where evening comes and morning follows." Darkness will eventually lead to light. Water will eventually end with a new heaven and a new earth. This is the mystery of creation. Then we are convinced. It is precisely the Holy Spirit God. Because we know He will create me today as well. Creation is not just about the events of elapsed time, whether thousands or millions of years. 4000 years ago, for Abraham, this event of creation was Abram's event. 3500 years ago, it was the event of the Israelites. It was precisely the event of the Israelites during the Exodus. 3000 years ago, it was David's event. And 2000 years ago, it was Jesus' event. What about today? It is precisely our event. This creation, this amazing thing happening in the Lord, is God's event happening to us. Therefore, everyone! In the Holy Spirit, in the work of the Holy Spirit, today, and tomorrow when evening passes and morning comes, welcome the Lord's event of creation in the power of the Holy Spirit!  

 

Closing Prayer

Loving Lord, perhaps more than the encouragement and comfort You give us, we seem to want to satisfy our own intellectual desires. We want to know much, but let us reflect once more whether the reason for wanting to know is my satisfaction or the desire to know God. And if that God is our satisfaction, Lord, let us not neglect this precious life of mine where the Holy Spirit God's work of creation is taking place. Help us realize again today how we, whom God is with and creating anew, should live and what we should look towards. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ! Amen!