Sounds More Like a Space of Grace
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1: 1-2).
As of late, I’ve read various authors commenting about this passage and was puzzled by liberties taken by them. What were their comments that sort of bugged me? They kept referring to things as chaotic or chaotic nothingness.
Frankly, it puzzled me. It puzzled me because as far as I know, we have a God of order and anything that is disordered pretty much comes from man trying to play God. As I pondered this, I wondered. If God is a God of order, how could there be chaotic nothingness? After all, He had a blank slate from which to create and if that’s the case, wouldn’t one rather call it a space of grace from which to begin the process?
Now I’m not trying to be the expert here, but am trying to be a more gentle in describing how this all began in the eyes of the Beholder. As He was beholding, then He was holding. In Colossians 1:17 it’s quite clear. “And he is before all things, and in Him all thing hold together.”
If He was before all things, then those things were, from the beginning, His and in perfect peaceful union with how He wanted them to be. The chaos began once man was created vying for the throne upon which God sat and sits. Remember how the angels fell? Well there you go. If the angels who were close at hand could fall, how much more tender must we cling to His ways over our own in the space of grace given to us this side of the veil.
Another author in question put it this way. “Suddenly, the universe went from a place of loneliness to a place filled with life and relationship.” And again, my breath caught as I pondered his words. Was the universe a lonely place? It all sounded rather peaceful before the world was made. Can you imagine? The quiet—which He calls us to—was truly a place of quiet. Seems to me from the little I know, He created us out of love because He desired to share with us eternal life—from the beginning.
I don’t pretend to know much, but of this I am sure. We can’t put words into God’s Word and change the meaning just to make it a good story for those listening in and it may not only mislead, but misdirect.
God reveals who He is throughout scripture. However, we cannot make things up out of nothingness—only He can do that. We may cross reference and make sure what we are reading is within the context of what He meant, but we cannot claim it to mean anything other than what He meant. We must relook, and rethink what we are teaching or we might end up redirecting others down a path that misrepresents.
When one passes on the baton of faith, it is from the perspective of those who have gone before us. It’s not grabbing it in order to run with the wind and rewind the historical context of what He meant it to be. He makes things new not by rewriting that which He’s written, but by transforming minds and hearts to line up with His ways over our own.
As one wise young man told me years ago—“If I’m thinking up something new for the very first time in over 2,000 years, pretty sure it’s been thought of before and already hammered out by the church fathers who have gone before us.” Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us, Lord, so that we may line up our will with Thy will in all that we say, in all that we do and in all that we write. Amen.
