1

Genesis 1:1
- Recap Last week
- Tonight we will look into the questions of
o "Is there a god?"
o "Who created God?"
o "Who is God?"
o All of these Questions will be looked at in the first verse of
the Bible
You will see a pattern as I show the ABC's of Genesis
1:1
#1 AUTHORITY Is there a god
- Genesis 1:1
o here in verse 1 of the Bible, God proclaims His existence
o I will not spend much time here, because last weeks sermon
summarized it pretty well
laws of science and logic could not be true without an
all knowing, eternal being known as God
o Note that God does not defend His existence
there is no "here is the proof that I exist"
o God is the ultimate authority
if God appealed to logic/science to defend His
existence, then He would be saying that those things
are greater than Him
so, God simply allows the greatest thing existing,
His Words, to proclaim that He exists
ILLUSTRATION: How do you know that Michelangelo, the famous
artist was a real?
o
o
o
o

History books?
People talk about him?
We can see his artwork?
Has anyone alive ever seen Him?

- Now consider, when people question the existence of God

o History books, the Bible
o People talk about Him?
o His creation?
o Has anyone alive ever seen God?
- Why is it, that people have no problem taking the existence of
Michelangelo upon faith and trust, but they will not place the same
faith and trust in God, who is better documented in History and
with His artwork being everything around us?
- I'm not saying that I do not seek the evidence to better see that
God exists
o because I continually study His Word, read books, study
creation
o BUT, where I am left with questions, I simply have FAITH
that what the Bible says is TRUE and that GOD's revelation
of Himself to mankind is TRUE
- God is the ultimate authority, I praise Him that He did not appeal to
anything other than His WORDs to Declare His existence
o if so, I would be worshipping someone other than God

ILLUSTRATION: Did you know that God was a baseball fan? How do
we know this?
#1 AUTHORITY
#2 BEGINNING Who created God?
- Genesis 1:1
- "Beginning"
o this is the starting point for EVERYTHING
we will go on in later weeks to look at the 6 days of
creation
But before Genesis 1:1 none of the creation around us
existed
- "God Created"
o For God to create "in the Beginning", He had to exist before
the Beginning
Many people ask these questions, "Who created
God?" and "Where did God come from?"
these questions rely upon the existence of time
for someone to ask, "who created God" or
"where did God come from" it implies that there
was a time before God existed
for there to be time before God existed, time
needed to be "a thing" before God

- Time
o our minds think that time is eternal, meaning that it always
was and always will be
but if that is true, then the Bible is not true
o But, according to Genesis 1:1, God created in the Beginning
time did not exist until Genesis 1:1
in fact, the 1st DAY ever is noted in Genesis 1:5
the whole word "BEGINNING" implies that that was the
start
o So, if God existed before Genesis 1:1, then He had nothing
to cause Him
o God simply WAS in existence
God is ABSOLUTE meaning that He exists
independently, without being in relation to any other
thing
- Also, we need to ask the question, "if someone/something created
God, would that person/thing not be GOD and God not be God?"
o a creator is always greater than the creation
o therefore, if something/someone created God, that
person/thing should be the object of our worship
- Before Time began, God was

- Before anything else WAS, GOD WAS

o that is why when God speaks to Moses through a burning
bush in Genesis 3, Moses asks what he should say when
people ask what God's name is, God says "I AM WHO I AM"
this word "I AM" is from the Hebrew word "Hinay"
meaning to be
God can say His name is I AM because God
always has been
#1 AUTHORITY
#2 BEGINNING
#3 COOPERATIVE Who is God?
- Genesis 1:1
- "In the beginning, GOD"
o In the limited amount of time we have, I absolutely cannot
properly begin to tell you who God is
but we will unpack a little of who God is right now
- El Oheem
o Hebrew Word for God used here in Genesis 1:1
o it has 2 meanings: God (Yaweh) or gods (pagan gods)
context determines which is to be used
o El Oheem is a plural word that is why it can mean gods
but how can it mean GOD?

- Bara (created)
o this word is only used in reference to GOD creating
throughout the old testament
o it is a SINGULAR verb
- So why does the Bible use a plural NOUN (El Oheem) with a
singular VERB (Bara)
- The question we need to answer is, "in the very first verse of the
Bible, is there a grammatical error, OR is this on purpose?"
- I believe, and many others believe, that it is obviously on purpose
o El Oheem, being plural, describes GOD whether people
today notice it or not
o God, in His divine understanding, not only declared His
existence in the first verse of the Bible, but also tells us
something about Himself
The Bible does not describe a Unitarian God, meaning
One God, One Person
The Bible, throughout scripture, describes a
TRINITARIAN God, meaning ONE GOD, THREE
PERSONS
God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit

- Even in the creation of all creation, God can be seen in 3 persons

o Creation is attributed to all 3 Persons of God
o The Father - Acts 4:24 "And when they heard it, they lifted
their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who
made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything
in them,"
o The Son John 1:1-3 " In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He
was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made
through him, and without him was not any thing made that
was made."
o The Spirit - When you send forth your Spirit,[a] they are
created, and you renew the face of the ground."
also seen in Genesis 1:2
- God, COOPERATIVELY created in the Beginning
- Now many will question, saying that Christianity is now
"polytheistic"
o but we have 1 God, who exists in 3 persons
o In a quick summary that I can explain in another message,
all 3 persons of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit are
HOMOOUIOS (latin), meaning ONE SUBSTANCE
there is no differentiation between them not one is
greater than another or more God than another, they
ARE GOD
the means that makes God 3 persons though, is their
roles and means of relating to one another

- ILLUSTRATION: VERY QUICKLY

o if I believe mankind is created in God's image, a subject to
talk about later in this series, then I have to see that MEN
and WOMEN are EQUAL
we are both created in the image of God
we are both HOMOOUIOS, same substance
But Men and Women are different in our ROLES and in
the way we RELATE to one another
- Father, Son, Spirit: they are EQUALLY GOD
- A TRINITARIAN God is necessary
o 1 John 4:8 "Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love."
o A unitarian God cannot be love
because a unitarian God could not love until something
was created
o Within the Trinity, God has ETERNALLY LOVED
the Father loves the Son and the Spirit
the Spirit loves the Father and the Son
The Son loves the Father and the Spirit

- one last question, Why did God create in the Beginning?

o we saw already that God existed before anything else WAS
o SO, God does not NEED anything
o BUT, before time began, God decided that He wanted to
create creation, why? Because He knew He would create
mankind IN HIS IMAGE and that He desired to share the
Love that God has within the TRINITY with mankind
o God, knowing everything, knew that mankind would sin, and
before the BEGINNING, God planned for The Son to
complete God's love to mankind through His death being the
payment to forgive our sins.
o John 3:16 "For God so loved the world,[a] that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life." WAS PLANNED before Genesis 1:1