Exegetical Meditations (1)

Nine times in the opening chapter of Genesis we read the words: God said. (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 29)

During one of those nine times, God tells the land to produce vegetation (Genesis 1:11). During another one of those nine times, God gives his creation (mankind and animals) every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it for food (Genesis 1:29).

Out of the nine occurrences of God said there are seven of them in which it wasn’t a command for action but a command of creation.

One of the more remarkable things about the creation account is how God’s creation comes about. You and I might expect God to have worked with an already existing base of material in order to fashion the heavens, the earth, and everything on the earth because this is how we create. In every creation made by mankind, we have started with something to make something. We started with stone to make a wheel, we started with wood to make a house, and we started with sand to make glass.

There does not exist one thing in the history of humanity that has been created that was not created out of something already in existence. This, however, is not how God created.

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)

Before God created light, there was none.

“Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation…’ ” (Genesis 1:11a)

Before God created vegetation, there was none.

What’s maybe even more striking, is how the New Testament, Hebrews in particular, speaks of God’s creation not from something that was already there, but from nothing. In Hebrews we read, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

This God who created the universe, and everything contained therein, did so by speaking it into existence. And what he created through his speech was not made from something that was already there.