Wonder of the Word Daily, Day 1

In the Beginning (Genesis 1-2)

Transcript

Dannah Gresh: It seems like people are obsessed with origin stories. You hear about origin stories in fiction, telling us how heroes received their abilities. And you hear about origin stories in business, like tales of brilliant inventors working in garages. Well, today Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is going to tell us the ultimate origin story. This story explains everything in the entire universe . . . and it’s 100 percent true!

This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for January 4, 2027. Today we embark on the Wonder of the Word! I’m Dannah Gresh. Here’s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

This year we will hear Nancy teach through the Bible—cover to cover! And get this, women in languages all over the world are joining us! We may be separated by thousands of miles, but we are on the same journey—learning God’s Word together each weekday here in 2027.

If you want to check out a list of all the available languages, visit ReviveOurHearts.com. Here’s Nancy, to tell us the origin story of . . . everything.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I want you to open your Bible. Yes, open your Bible. If you're in a place where you can open your own Bible to the very beginning. You'll see that it's called the book of Genesis. In fact, that's exactly what its name means.

Genesis comes from a Greek word that means “origin, beginning, or source.” It's related to words like: genetic or generation or genealogy. It’s how something got started.

The book of Genesis in the Bible tells us about the beginning of, well, everything:

  • The beginning of the universe, planet Earth
  • The human race, marriage, family, gender, sexuality
  • The beginning of nations and culture
  • The beginning of beauty, goodness and love

Genesis also tells the beginning of sin, sins like:

  • Pride
  • Greed
  • Manipulation
  • Self-centeredness
  • Lust
  • Every form of sexual immorality

Genesis tells us about:

  • The beginning of broken family relationships
  • The beginning of crime
  • The beginning of violence
  • And, yes, the beginning of death

The book of Genesis in your Bible is foundational to the whole rest of the Bible. Now, this book has come under fierce attack for generations. Critics have tried to dismiss it as being fiction or myth. They say it's contradicted by science and history. But the entire Bible, the entire Christian faith, rises, or falls on the truthfulness and the reliability of the book of Genesis.

Now, we could spend an entire year just unpacking this one book. But over these next couple of weeks, I want to focus just on some highlights on the mountain peaks. I want you to see the big picture. I want you to see how this book connects to the whole rest of Scripture. I want you to see how it points us to God's eternal plan to redeem and restore sinners and this fallen broken world.

And I want you to see how this book in the Old Testament points from the very beginning to Jesus, who was there on the first page from the first verse, and has been, and is all the way through. Jesus, who would be sent to earth from heaven, to make salvation possible.

Now, in any good book, the opening and the ending are especially important. The opening sets the stage, establishes the characters, and the plot. And the end tells you how it concludes. So the opening and the closing chapters of your Bible are crucial.

Genesis 1–3 set the stage. They tell us how everything began. And then the last few chapters of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, tell us how everything will end. And in-between, we learn how we get from the beginning to the end.

So, I want to begin our journey through Scripture by shining a spotlight on just the first two chapters of Genesis. We're going to make some observations, and then we're going to talk about the “so what?” Why does this matter? Does it matter? And what difference does it make in our lives?

So as we open to Genesis, would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, as we open Your Word, would You open our eyes? Would You give us fresh wonder, no matter how many or how few times we may have read this Book before? And would You help us to see Jesus, for He is the wonderful living Word of God. We pray in Jesus’ holy name, amen.

So, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God . . .” Now there's an assumption here that there is a God. There's no attempt made to prove or to defend God's existence. We see that at the beginning of time, God, who was eternal, was already there. He was not a passive observer; He was active. Look at verse 1.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

That one verse summarizes what takes place in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. There's no human explanation for what I just read, “God created the heavens and the earth”. There's no human explanation, no scientific explanation, no historical explanation that is adequate. Words fail. Ultimately, this is a matter of faith.

And that's what the New Testament tells us in Hebrews chapter 11.

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen [everything that's visible in this world] was made from things that are not visible.” (v. 3)

Ex nihilo theologians call it: out of nothing. God made this world. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now, verse 2 tells us what the earth was like in the beginning. God created it. What was it like in the beginning? It says:

“Now the earth was formless and empty . . .”

Formless, it had not yet been shaped. Empty, there was no decor. There was no one and nothing living in this world.

“. . . formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths.” (v. 2)

There was no dry land on the earth, deep waters covered the surface of the earth. And those waters were blanketed with thick darkness. The earth, deep waters, and darkness, there was no beauty. There was no life. There was no joy, but something was stirring. Well, actually, Someone was stirring. Look at what it says in verse 2.

“. . . darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” (v. 2)

The Spirit, in Hebrew, ruah. It's a word that can be translated “spirit, or wind, or breath.” The Spirit of God, and where was He? In the darkness, darkness covered the surface of the waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water.

So, in the darkness, the Spirit of God was there. He was there. The third member of the Trinity was hovering; He was moving. And what did He do? He spoke. Verse 3:

“Then God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” (v. 3)

And here we see the explosive, creative power of God's Word, energized by His Spirit, the Word of God, the Spirit of God. Let there be light, and there is light. Psalm 33:6 says it this way:

“The heavens were made by the word of the LORD, and all the stars, by the breath [Guess what that word is? ruah—spirit, wind, breath. The stars were all made by the breath] of his mouth.”

His Word, His Spirit, made all of this. The Word of God which we hold in our hands, sent forth by the Spirit of God, changes everything—His Word, the written Word, and Christ, the living Word. His Word is a lamp. It's a light that shines in the darkness of our hearts. It pierces. It overcomes the darkness of our world. Thank God for His Word, thank God for His Spirit. And that He speaks light into the darkness of our hearts and our world. Verse 3 says:

“God saw that the light was good.”

Now, that's the first of seven times you're going to read that word in chapter 1. And when we get to verse 31, of chapter 1, it says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.” All God has made is good, and apart from God, there is nothing good. Apart from Him, this earth will be formless, empty, and dark. And apart from God, your life is formless, empty, and dark.

God turns by the power of His Word and the power of His Spirit, He turns darkness to light, chaos to order, and emptiness to fullness. Verse 4 goes on to say:

“. . . and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.” (vv. 4–5)

And so, we've just read the summary, the overview, of the first day, the first of six days. And then the first three of those days God formed the world that had been formless: sky and waters, dry land and seas. Over the next three days—days four, five, and six—God filled what He had formed, what had been empty: sun, moon, and stars to light the world, fish in the waters, and birds in the sky, beasts on the land, and finally, the crowning jewel of His creation.

Look down to verse 27 of chapter 1. This is stunning. “God created man in his own image.” He created him in the image of God. “He created them male and female.” This, by the way, is God's idea, not something that social scientists made up. This is God's good idea, God's very good idea, His plan. In verse 28:

“God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

So together, the man and woman in union with each other and with their Creator God were to reflect God's image and God's likeness in the world. They were to represent Him by ruling over creation, making the world an ordered and a productive place. They were to reproduce, to procreate, to multiply, to fill the earth with other image bearers—people in relationship with God, people who reflect and represent Him in our world, and people who reproduce yet more image bearers throughout the whole earth.

So God created this earth to be a holy, glorious home, where He would live with His people, beginning in the Garden of Eden, a place that God made for Adam and Eve to live, to worship Him, and to work.

Now, these two chapters, and we've just touched on the surface of them, but they have massive implications as it relates to God, as it relates to ourselves, and as it relates to our world. There’s no such thing as random chance or accidents. There's no such thing as luck or karma. We did not evolve from amoebas.

The events in our personal lives and the events in our world are not meaningless, but they are purposeful. They are sovereignly ordained and carried out by a good, wise, and loving Creator. No random chance. And as the creator, God is also the owner of everything He has made. He has all the rights of ownership.

If there is no God who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it, including us, then we are free to do anything we want to do. We're free to live any way we want to live. There are no absolutes. There's no right; there's no wrong. We live in a world of chance if there's no Creator God. But there is a Creator. He's the owner and has all the rights of ownership. He gets to tell us what to do. We get to say, “Yes, Lord.”

We see also in these chapters that God is a relational God. There are hints of this. For example, in Genesis 1:26:

“God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”

Those are plural pronouns. We have here the first hint of the Trinity: one God, three persons. You see, God is in relationship within the Godhead, but God made mankind to be in relationship in His image and His likeness, to be in relationship as He is in relationship with Him and relationship with others.

We see in these chapters that God created the most intimate human relationship—marriage between a man and a woman—as a means that God ordained a filling the earth with more inhabitants who would know God, love Him, and display His glory.

We see in these chapters that mankind . . . You have to be careful how you say that today, because you can be so politically incorrect—humankind—but whatever you get, there's man in there because God created man. He called man—male and female—made mankind—male and female. Mankind is the apex of God's creation. It is different, infinitely different and higher than the animals.

Imago dei is the term that theologians sometimes use to speak of the image of God imprinted on mankind, on human beings. That tells us that human life is valuable. It's precious. It also tells us that we are not God. We are made in His likeness or in His image, but we are not God. Only God is God.

When it comes to our view of humanity, we tend to get it wrong in one of two directions. First, there's a tendency to deify mankind, to elevate humans to the place that only God holds, to elevate humans to be their own gods. This philosophy says you are the center of your universe, and God exists to do whatever you want Him to do, whatever you think He should do. It deifies man.

But there's another view of mankind that's equally dangerous, and that is diminishing the worth and the value of mankind to treat human beings as trash, as meaningless. The English author and philosopher John Gray wrote,

“Man is only one of many species, and not obviously worth preserving. . . . Human life has no more meaning than that of slime mould [sic].”

Well, I'm so glad that John Gray is flatly wrong. God gives us our worth. He tells us who we are. And Genesis 1–2 shows us the right-sized view of human life: not deifying us to the place of God and not diminishing us lower than what God created us to be. Yes, we are small compared to God in this vast universe He created. Yes, we are utterly dependent on Him for every breath that we take. But yes, we have great significance in His creation.

That's the theme of a psalm written by David, Psalm 8, “When I observe your heavens . . .” and by the way, this is a good thing to do. We get so busy, and we have so many city lights, we just don't take time. We don't often have the space to observe what God has made. David said:

“When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man, that you look after him? “You made him a little less than God, and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.” (vv. 3–6)

This passage, as does all of Scripture, reminds us that God is supreme. God alone is God. God alone is worthy of our worship. But it also tells us that God places great value on your life, great value on my life, great value on your mate’s life. Each of your children, even the two-year-old for whom no textbook was ever written, God places great value on that child's life. And each person—that hard to work with officemate, that hard to live with roommate—God places great value on human life.

Psalm 8 tells us that He created us, He cares for us, and He has crowned us above the rest of creation. Why? So we could flaunt how wonderful we are? No! So that we might represent Him and His rule in this world.

We also see in these two chapters that God is always at work in the world. Robert and I love verbs. In fact, sometimes at night as we're going to sleep we will say, “Did you remember that verb today?” I know this is probably what you do when you go to bed at night . . . not. But we love verbs. I love reading the verbs in Genesis 1–2. These are verbs that have God as their subject. Listen to them.

Six times we read, “God created.” Four times we read, “God made.” And in this context, those two words are almost interchangeable—God created / God made. We read in verse 2 of chapter 1, “the Spirit of God was hovering.” Ten times we read, “God said.” He spoke the world into existence. Then He communicated; He revealed Himself to mankind. Seven times we read, “God saw.” God is not an absentee landlord over His creation. He sees everything that is going on in this earth. He saw what He had made. He saw what was happening on the earth.

We read in verse 4 of chapter 1, “God separated.” God made distinctions throughout the creation account: distinctions between light and darkness, between night and day, between waters and land, between male and female. God made distinctions. That's His prerogative as the creator and the owner.

We see that “God called.” He named what He had created. He called the light, the light. He called the day, the day. He called the night, the night. God has the right to decide what the name is of each thing that He has created. God called.

Chapter 2, verse 2 tells us God completed His work and much more about that through the Scripture. In verse 2 of chapter 2, “God rested.” He rested. We'll talk more about that as we get walking through the Scripture.

Chapter 2, verse 7 says, “God formed the man [another good verb] out of the dust from the ground.” God formed.

Chapter 2, verse 7, “[God] breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the man He had made from the dust of the ground.” God breathed the breath of life. God is the source of all life. We have no life apart from God. Another verb, chapter 2, verse 9, God “caused to grow” out of the ground every tree.

And then twice we read, “God placed.” In chapter 1, verse 17, “God placed the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky, to provide light on the earth.” God put them there, each one in its place. And then chapter 2, verse 8 says, “God planted a garden in Eden,” another verb, “and there he placed the man he had formed.” God made the environment. He made the world. He created it. Then He placed each thing, each person, each aspect of His creation in the place He wanted them to be.

And then I love this: “God blessed.” It’s one of the greatest verbs in all of Scripture—God blessed. Three times we read it in these two chapters. He blessed animals. He blessed the man and the woman. And He blessed the seventh day, the Sabbath, the day on which He rested. So God is always acting, always moving, declaring, making, forming, breathing, hovering, planting, placing, seeing, saying, and blessing, and so much more. God is always active at work in our world.

As we think about the condition of the world at the beginning (you may think, that sounds a little bit like my world at the moment): dark, empty, formless, murky. Maybe it's due to circumstances outside of you, or maybe it's due to things going on in your own heart. But I want to tell you, God's Spirit is present. Just as He hovered over the darkness of that watery depth covering the surface of the earth, just as He spoke, just as He moved, God's Spirit is present and active where you are. He's at work breathing life into places that are empty, void of life, making barren places thrive, doing the impossible, filling, energizing, transforming, and so much more. What cause for hope and joy that should give each of us!

Well, a couple more observations and “so what?” about all of this. We see the witness of creation. The creation we've just read a little bit about declares the power of God, and declares the person of God. It declares the glory of God to the whole world. We read about this in Romans 1:20. It says:

“[God's] invisible attributes [the aspects of a God that you cannot see], that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”

We see the witness of creation declaring the power and the glory of God. And then we see Jesus in creation. Yes, He is right there on the first page. It says, “The Spirit of God was hovering.” You say, “Well, Jesus’ name isn't in there. How do you know He's there?” Well, we go to the rest of Scripture. We put it together with Genesis 1 and it becomes so evident. For example, in the Gospel of John in the New Testament, John chapter 1, “In the beginning . . .” Same three words that begin Genesis 1.

“In the beginning was [what?] the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

So what does that mean? Well, the next sentence tells us that the Word is not a what, not a something, but a who.

“He [the Word] was with God . . . in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness.” (vv. 2–5)

As we read the first part of Genesis 1, we were reading about Jesus. Colossians 1 says it this way in verse 16:

“For everything was created by him [by Jesus], in heaven, and on earth . . . all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things [before the beginning He was], and by him all things hold together. (vv. 16–17)

Creation points us to Jesus and points us to the gospel. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:

“For God who said, “Let light shine out of the darkness,” [God who spoke and there was light in the darkness, that same God] has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory [Where do we see it?] in the face of Jesus Christ.” (v. 6)

Creation points us to Him and to His gospel.

Well, throughout these first two chapters of Genesis, there are many wonderful words and themes that can be traced through all of Scripture: God, heavens, Spirit, light, water, rivers, fruit, food, blessing, goodness, life, holy, free, helper, rest. Those are just a few of the wonderful words we see that become threads throughout the Scripture.

But when we get to chapter 2, there are also a few words that give the first hint of something going awry. They are a foreshadow of what will follow in chapter 3, which we'll look at in the next session. For example, in chapter 2, verse 9, we read about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good . . . Well, we've seen that word, but here's a new word, good and evil. What's that about?

In chapter 2, verse 17, we read the first and only prohibition God gave to the man and woman: “You must not eat from [that tree], for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

We've read about life, but now we're reading about death. Chapter 2, verse 18, God says, “It is not good.” We've read a lot about goodness, about very good, but now God says something is not good: “for the man to be alone”. That seems to run contrary to what else we're reading in these chapters.

Then chapter 2, verse 25: “Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.”

Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it's a good thing that they were naked and felt no shame, as they were clothed with the glory of God. But when you see the word “shame,” you realize there's a potential for something else to happen, just around the corner.

In fact, the world and its inhabitants, as we come to the end of chapter 2 and get ready to transition to the next chapter, are about to change dramatically. But I want you to remember that none of this caught God by surprise. None of it caught Him off guard and go, “Oops, that's not what I meant to do. Oops, that's not what I thought they were going to do.” There was none of that.

Before any of those things came to be—shame, evil, death, aloneness—God had already in eternity past made a provision. He had already put a plan in place. That's what we're going to look at next.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will be right back to pray. Do you know what you and I should do? We should take some time to step outside and savor the wonders of God’s creation wherever we are.

And would you thank the Creator for also being your Savior? Jesus was the agent of creation, but he became flesh to make us new creations.

Well, our journey to study the whole Bible this year has begun. Do you know some people who should be on the journey with us? Would you send them a link to this teaching? Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com. You’ll find the teaching in multiple languages and you can send your friends a link. Don’t keep this teaching to yourself. Again, visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Like just Nancy, said tomorrow we will pick back up in Genesis and discover the provision God made when humans first sinned. Please be back, for the Wonder of the Word, here on Revive Our Hearts!

Now, Nancy’s back to close our time in prayer.

If you’re familiar with the book of Genesis, you know that the perfect paradise of Eden didn’t last long for Adam and Eve. Things pretty quickly turned dark because of their own choices. Still, there were what Nancy calls “glimpses of grace” even in the midst of the horror introduced by their fall. Nancy will show us some tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Now, here’s Nancy to pray.

Nancy: Oh Lord, thank You for the wonder, the awe, of who You are and what You have been doing in this world from the very beginning. You're amazing, God. Our hearts are grateful. Our hearts are filled with joy. We pray that You would give us the response of trust and obedience, for You are our God, You are our Creator. We acknowledge and worship You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB unless otherwise noted.