The Grapevine
Setting the Record Straight - Part 2
by Jack Northart
  
There are two ways to gain knowledge, two sources. One source is the five senses, called natural knowledge. All scientific knowledge comes by way of the five senses. These five senses are the only avenue, the only means by which a true scientific man can gain information. These senses can become impaired, and are not always accurate.  Thus, a man needs more than just the five senses if he is ever going to be completely knowledgeable of the truth of life. That is why there has to be, and is, another source of knowledge.
  The other type of knowledge is revelation from God.  This may be received by God's Word.  Revelation knowledge is what holy men of God gave as they were inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit. (2Peter1:21) The five senses man, the scientific man cannot know God or the things of God by his five sense, for God is Spirit. (John 4:24)  Revelation knowledge is essential if the senses knowledge man is ever to be a complete man, knowing truth and not just facts.

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This verse could be a chapter all by itself. It is like a diamond that sparkles in the light. It puts the beauty of our God right at the beginning of every Bible.  It gives us the start of how and when the heavens and earth were created… that being, WHO, (God), WHEN, (In the Beginning), HOW, (Created the heavens and the earth.)  How long ago was that?  It was in the beginning.  How many years ago? It doesn't tell us. But it does emphasize that it was IN THE BEGINNING.
  
Now let's look at something else in Isaiah about this universe that God created in the beginning.

Isaiah 45:18
For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain.

The three words at the end of this verse are two words in the Hebrew, tohu bohu. Which means "without form and void".  The same words are used in Jeremiah 4:23 "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void." (tohu bohu).   

Now let's look at Genesis 1:2.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
  
I have highlighted the first use of the word WAS in this verse, because it really should be translated, BECAME.  God didn't create it that way, it became without form and void as stated in the verse in Isaiah that we just read.
  
In the beginning, In Genesis 1:1 God created the heavens and earth perfectly.  It was not without form and void. Isaiah tells more about how it became without form and void. 
  
In the beginning, sometime before Genesis 1:2, God created angels, spirit beings.  When He created these angels, He put all the angels under three heads, or archangels: Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer. But celestial strife ensued, with Lucifer and a third of the angels of heaven trying to usurp the throne of God.  Consequently, these spirit beings were dispelled from heaven and became known as the fallen angels, the enemies of God. (see Ezekiel 28:15, Revelation 12:7-9)
  
Whatever happened between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, was of such a cataclysmic nature that a perfectly created earth became tohu bohu.  When Lucifer rebelled in heaven, the whole creation rocked to and fro.  Romans 8 says that even until today the "whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain…"
  
Genesis 1:2 begins the record of God's putting His creation in order after the first heaven and earth were overthrown.  "…and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The word "moved" is also the word, "brooded".  God was sitting on the situation which was ready to crack out like a chick bursts out of an eggshell. What does God bring about after His brooding? Vs 3 tells us…."And God said,  Let there be light; and there was light."   It does not say, "And God created light." Why?  Because whatever light is composed of already existed. God had created it in the beginning, and now it simply needed to be put together.  He simply spoke it into being.
  
The key words to watch in Genesis are the words, "formed", "made" and "created".  Each has a distinct meaning and tells us so much about what was happening to put this earth back together again.  The word "formed", is the Hebrew word, yatsar, which is to "fashion out of something already in existence." And Genesis says that God formed man out of the dust of the ground. Man's body is composed of the same elements that are in the dust of the earth. (Gen3:19).
  
The word "made", is in the Hebrew asah, "a substance required of which the thing made consists." [We will come back to the part of man that was made in another edition of The Grapevine.]
  
The Hebrew word for "created" is bara, which means "to bring something into existence which never existed in any form before." Only God can create anything. Man can produce, but not create. These are all very distinct words and need to be studied closely in Genesis to get the truth about how God formed, made and created man, animals, and the heavens and the earth.
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