Hey, welcome to the Methodist Voice.
The purpose of our time together is to grow in the knowledge of God revealed in the pages
of scripture.
2 Corinthians chapter 3 tells us that when we contemplate the God revealed in scripture,
it transforms us into His image.
The transformation beautifies our minds and hearts and we then beautify the world together.
We think that's time well spent.
Thanks for joining us.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Hello everyone.
Thanks for joining us again on the Methodist Voice where we will be covering Genesis chapter
1 verse 1.
We are covering the topic of God today.
In the book of Genesis in the Hebrew writings, God is reintroducing Himself to humanity through
the scriptures.
And so we're going to be going through the book of Genesis chapters 1 through 11 to discuss
some of the unusual descriptions of history and the picture that it paints, the supernatural
worldview that it establishes.
God is a supernatural God.
We need a supernatural worldview to have a relationship with this God.
And He's reintroducing Himself through the pages of scripture.
We're going to start in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.
We're just going to read a part of the verse because it is telling us that there is a being
behind everything that exists that is going to begin disclosing Himself through the pages
of scripture.
Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 says, in the beginning, God created.
Genesis arrives on the landscape of human history, introducing the idea of a pre-existent,
uncreated God.
Now, there are many creation accounts in the ancient Near East.
So Genesis is not unique in that respect, but it is distinct in introducing God as a
pre-existent, uncreated, transcendent being.
Whether or not Genesis is derivative of ancient Near Eastern accounts is immaterial to our
discussion.
Who cares?
Genesis is providing us with the correct interpretation of real historical events, perhaps recorded
elsewhere, in a similar mythological storytelling way.
It's the beginning of God's disclosure to us of who God is, what God is like, and it
serves as the beginning of God's instructions on how human beings are to relate to Him,
again, as distinct from the other ancient Near Eastern accounts, which may have covered
the same events because they're real events.
But Genesis is giving us a distinct picture of God, a distinct interpretation of these
events, which is trustworthy and reliable and truthful.
Genesis 1.1 is the beginning of God taking the initiative to disclose Himself to humanity
in a specific and clear way.
God had always been revealed through creation in general for people of good conscience and
reason.
You know, Romans 1.20 talks about that.
When looking at the cosmos, there has to be something out there that's responsible for
not only creating it all, but properly ordering it or organizing it as well.
And to say otherwise, it just makes a person an idiot.
And that's what the scripture says.
The fool says in his heart, there is no God.
So only a complete idiot thinks that everything that exists just popped out of nowhere and
began randomly organizing itself over billions of years into what we see today.
That's ridiculous.
So through the scriptures, we see God recorded as acting in history, as well as God revealing
Himself in unique ways to certain individuals.
God begins revealing Himself with a greater measure, again, of reliable specificity, not
found anywhere else.
So scripture is unique.
Everything else reveals God like the Bible.
So the information is not unique.
It's the interpretation and the God presented through the information that's unique.
Genesis 1.1 is the beginning of God revealing Himself to His creation, to His creation.
While it's debatable whether or not Genesis 1.1 intends to communicate creation ex nihilo
or creation out of nothing, God created everything out of nothing, that idea.
That is the majority interpretation all the way from third century BC to 10th century
AD.
And so that does give the idea a lot of merit.
And whether or not Genesis 1.1 teaches creation out of nothing or whether or not modern interpreters
agree that Genesis teaches creation out of nothing, the most important criteria is that
scripture in other places does affirm the idea of God creating everything out of nothing.
So you've got Proverbs 8.22 which says, The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His
work, the first of His acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth when there were
no depths.
I was brought forth when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth.
Before He had made the earth with its fields, or the first dust of the world, when He established
the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep.
Of course that's talking about wisdom, speaking about wisdom in a metaphorical way.
But the idea that before anything God with His wisdom pre-existed is clearly taught in
scripture.
We find it in the New Testament in John chapter 1 verse 1, In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God, and the word was God, He was in the beginning with God.
By Him all things were created.
So the idea of creation ex nihilo, whether or not it's explicitly taught here in Genesis
or that's the intent is debatable, but in the broad corpus of scripture it is not.
Only scripture teaches God creating something out of nothing.
So this is an important point to ponder because while everything that exists is created, including
time itself, an important point, this God revealed to us in Genesis 1,1 to all of humanity,
to all of history in Genesis 1,1 and throughout the rest of the pages of scripture.
Only in the eternal person of Jesus Christ, the God who's revealed, remains the only uncreated
being or thing for that matter in existence.
So the only thing that is pre-existent, pre-time, pre-matter, pre-material world, pre-space
and without cause is God Himself.
God has no beginning and therefore no first cause.
As He revealed to Moses in the divine name at the burning bush, God simply is, I am who
I am.
God simply is, always has been, always will be.
That makes God unlike anything else that exists.
And that in comparison with the other accounts in the ancient near East is distinct and unique.
That information, Jesus Christ is God revealing to us what we need to know about how to relate
to God as a human being.
It's very important.
Jesus Christ is the ultimate self-disclosure of God.
But remember scripture instructs us that Jesus laid aside, Philippians chapter 2, all live
as Godly qualities and humbled himself to become a human being.
So in telling us that, we can deduce that scripture doesn't tell us everything there
is to know about Jesus, much less God Himself.
It simply tells us what we need to know about Jesus in order to be properly related to God.
So most of what we, most of what there is to know about both God and Jesus is ultimately
unknowable to our finite minds.
Think about that.
Most of what we know about both God Himself and Jesus Christ, we are not capable of comprehending.
Jesus Christ is an accurate revelation of God, but he cannot be described as a complete
revelation of God.
There is more.
And that more remains largely shrouded in darkness and mystery.
For what Jesus demonstrates for us is a complete picture of what being a human being in God's
image looks like.
And we're all to strive to become copies of that image through the energy we receive
by participating in God's plan of salvation, which is the body of Christ, the church.
So in regards to the ultimate unknowableness of God, I want to talk about that a little
bit because it's an important component in understanding what faith is all about.
So here's some quotes from the early church fathers and I want to, I want to read one
scripture.
It's first Corinthians chapter 13 verse nine.
It says, for we know in part, we know, but we know in part and we prophesy in part.
In other words, we get a little piece of the picture, but not the whole picture.
And that little piece doesn't tell us everything we need to know about the big picture.
It's just a little piece.
Verse 10.
But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
Now this talking about the resurrection from the dead.
When God begins the process of new creation that is properly ordered and aligned correctly
in every facet.
So that word perfect is a little misleading.
It's usually, it's usually translated in a way into the English in a way that kind of
shades the meaning.
It just means properly ordered, properly situated, correct.
When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
I thought like a child.
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly.
We don't see a correct image.
We're looking at things through foggy lenses.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known.
That does not mean we're going to know everything there is to know about God.
It means when we look at God, we're going to see him correctly and we're going to be
able to understand him without making errors.
Doesn't mean we have comprehensive knowledge of everything there is to know about God.
It means we are seeing correctly and what we're seeing is without errors, unlike right
now.
So what we're about to hear from the early church fathers is actually quite deep and
important to understand because it gives us a great deal of humility around how we think
about God and it helps us to understand what the most important component of relating to
God is all about and that is faith.
So here's what Clement of Alexandria said.
He lived from 150 to 215 AD.
He was an early proponent of what is called apophatic theology.
That is we can know God by eliminating false statements.
We can most accurately know God by eliminating false statements.
So he holds that God is unknowable, although God's unknowability concerns only his essence,
not his energies or powers.
So what he's saying is we can know about God through his acts in history, through our
experience of him in this life, through what is recorded in the pages of scripture, but
at his essence, God is so profoundly infinite and big, he's ultimately unknowable.
Here's what Tertullian said, lived from 155 to 240.
That which is infinite is knowable only to itself.
He is presented to our minds in his transcendent greatness as at once known and unknown.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, 313 to 386 in his catechetical homilies states, for we explain
not what God is, but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning him.
For in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge.
Augustine of Hippo said this, 354 to 430, if you understand something, it is not God.
John of Damascus, 675 to 749 said this, he employed negative theology when he wrote that
positive statements about God reveal not the nature, but the things around the nature.
Again, that refers back to the energies or powers or the activities of God.
Those things are knowable, God himself is not.
And then lastly, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most perfect to which we can attain in this
life in our knowledge of God is that he transcends all that can be conceived by us.
Now why is that important?
Because the unknowableness of God embracing that is ultimately why faith plays the critical
role in relating to God.
We can't know with any certainty what or who we are relating to.
That's just being honest.
It's simply impossible for our limited minds to grasp the vastness and complexity and the
holiness of God, the God that's going to be revealed in scripture.
Every person is required to trust what they don't know for sure in order to relate to
an ultimately unknowable God.
You're never going to have all of your questions answered before you're asked to hand your
trust and submit your life to this God, which ultimately cannot be known.
That is why faith will always be the key ingredient in a relationship with this God that's going
to be revealed to us.
And scripture is going to reveal as we go through Genesis one through 11, some pretty
remarkable claims.
It's going to be hard for a lot of people to accept some of the things that are written
there, but we lay hold of them by faith.
And the more we look at those things and ponder them and contemplate them, the more they become
a reality in our inner man, the more we're able to see the wisdom that's presented there.
Here's what John Wesley said.
Faith is to the invisible world, what senses are to the visible world.
So faith is the spiritual organ by which we can acquire knowledge of God.
By faith, we encounter and perceive through the contemplation of God and scripture, the
one who is ultimately incomprehensible, but consistent contemplation gradually expands
our capacity for what scripture calls the knowledge of God.
Faith trusts that God's revelation of himself in history is true.
It's reliable.
It's worthy of our trust.
It's also worthy of our devoted attention.
Faith is the doorway to an experiential knowledge of God that emerges out of making the choice.
It's what faith is, making the choice to trust God's appointed means of self-disclosure,
the scriptures.
It's a knowledge that can only be acquired at God's initiative.
So God always takes the first step in a relationship with human beings.
But then once he does that, that knowledge can only be expanded by our consistent grace
enabled human effort.
That knowledge is described in scripture as treasure and it's worth obtaining at any price.
Let's close with reading a passage from Proverbs chapter two, starting in verse one.
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear
attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.
Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek
it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear
of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
That's my prayer for us as we end this podcast.
Holy Spirit, we thank you for the powers and the energies, what we as Methodists call grace
that you impart to acquire the knowledge of an ultimately unknowable God.
I can never know God fully, but I can know him more than I did yesterday.
I can understand the scriptures more than I did a year ago.
Your power, your energy makes that possible.
We thank you that you make that available to us as we go throughout this series and
that we find the knowledge of God together.
That's my prayer in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thanks for joining us again today.
We'll see you next time when we continue with Genesis chapter one.
God Blessings.