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Hey, welcome to the Methodist Voice.

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The purpose of our time together is to grow in the knowledge of God revealed in the pages

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of scripture.

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2 Corinthians chapter 3 tells us that when we contemplate the God revealed in scripture,

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it transforms us into His image.

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The transformation beautifies our minds and hearts and we then beautify the world together.

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We think that's time well spent.

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Thanks for joining us.

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I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

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Hello everyone.

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Thanks for joining us again on the Methodist Voice where we will be covering Genesis chapter

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1 verse 1.

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We are covering the topic of God today.

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In the book of Genesis in the Hebrew writings, God is reintroducing Himself to humanity through

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the scriptures.

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And so we're going to be going through the book of Genesis chapters 1 through 11 to discuss

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some of the unusual descriptions of history and the picture that it paints, the supernatural

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worldview that it establishes.

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God is a supernatural God.

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We need a supernatural worldview to have a relationship with this God.

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And He's reintroducing Himself through the pages of scripture.

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We're going to start in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.

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We're just going to read a part of the verse because it is telling us that there is a being

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behind everything that exists that is going to begin disclosing Himself through the pages

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of scripture.

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Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 says, in the beginning, God created.

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Genesis arrives on the landscape of human history, introducing the idea of a pre-existent,

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uncreated God.

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Now, there are many creation accounts in the ancient Near East.

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So Genesis is not unique in that respect, but it is distinct in introducing God as a

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pre-existent, uncreated, transcendent being.

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Whether or not Genesis is derivative of ancient Near Eastern accounts is immaterial to our

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discussion.

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Who cares?

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Genesis is providing us with the correct interpretation of real historical events, perhaps recorded

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elsewhere, in a similar mythological storytelling way.

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It's the beginning of God's disclosure to us of who God is, what God is like, and it

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serves as the beginning of God's instructions on how human beings are to relate to Him,

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again, as distinct from the other ancient Near Eastern accounts, which may have covered

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the same events because they're real events.

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But Genesis is giving us a distinct picture of God, a distinct interpretation of these

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events, which is trustworthy and reliable and truthful.

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Genesis 1.1 is the beginning of God taking the initiative to disclose Himself to humanity

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in a specific and clear way.

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God had always been revealed through creation in general for people of good conscience and

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reason.

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You know, Romans 1.20 talks about that.

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When looking at the cosmos, there has to be something out there that's responsible for

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not only creating it all, but properly ordering it or organizing it as well.

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And to say otherwise, it just makes a person an idiot.

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And that's what the scripture says.

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The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

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So only a complete idiot thinks that everything that exists just popped out of nowhere and

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began randomly organizing itself over billions of years into what we see today.

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That's ridiculous.

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So through the scriptures, we see God recorded as acting in history, as well as God revealing

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Himself in unique ways to certain individuals.

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God begins revealing Himself with a greater measure, again, of reliable specificity, not

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found anywhere else.

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So scripture is unique.

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Everything else reveals God like the Bible.

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So the information is not unique.

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It's the interpretation and the God presented through the information that's unique.

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Genesis 1.1 is the beginning of God revealing Himself to His creation, to His creation.

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While it's debatable whether or not Genesis 1.1 intends to communicate creation ex nihilo

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or creation out of nothing, God created everything out of nothing, that idea.

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That is the majority interpretation all the way from third century BC to 10th century

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AD.

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And so that does give the idea a lot of merit.

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And whether or not Genesis 1.1 teaches creation out of nothing or whether or not modern interpreters

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agree that Genesis teaches creation out of nothing, the most important criteria is that

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scripture in other places does affirm the idea of God creating everything out of nothing.

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So you've got Proverbs 8.22 which says, The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His

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work, the first of His acts of old.

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Ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth when there were

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no depths.

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I was brought forth when there were no springs abounding with water.

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Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills I was brought forth.

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Before He had made the earth with its fields, or the first dust of the world, when He established

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the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep.

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Of course that's talking about wisdom, speaking about wisdom in a metaphorical way.

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But the idea that before anything God with His wisdom pre-existed is clearly taught in

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scripture.

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We find it in the New Testament in John chapter 1 verse 1, In the beginning was the word,

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and the word was with God, and the word was God, He was in the beginning with God.

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By Him all things were created.

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So the idea of creation ex nihilo, whether or not it's explicitly taught here in Genesis

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or that's the intent is debatable, but in the broad corpus of scripture it is not.

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Only scripture teaches God creating something out of nothing.

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So this is an important point to ponder because while everything that exists is created, including

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time itself, an important point, this God revealed to us in Genesis 1,1 to all of humanity,

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to all of history in Genesis 1,1 and throughout the rest of the pages of scripture.

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Only in the eternal person of Jesus Christ, the God who's revealed, remains the only uncreated

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being or thing for that matter in existence.

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So the only thing that is pre-existent, pre-time, pre-matter, pre-material world, pre-space

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and without cause is God Himself.

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God has no beginning and therefore no first cause.

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As He revealed to Moses in the divine name at the burning bush, God simply is, I am who

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I am.

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God simply is, always has been, always will be.

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That makes God unlike anything else that exists.

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And that in comparison with the other accounts in the ancient near East is distinct and unique.

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That information, Jesus Christ is God revealing to us what we need to know about how to relate

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to God as a human being.

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It's very important.

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Jesus Christ is the ultimate self-disclosure of God.

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But remember scripture instructs us that Jesus laid aside, Philippians chapter 2, all live

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as Godly qualities and humbled himself to become a human being.

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So in telling us that, we can deduce that scripture doesn't tell us everything there

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is to know about Jesus, much less God Himself.

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It simply tells us what we need to know about Jesus in order to be properly related to God.

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So most of what we, most of what there is to know about both God and Jesus is ultimately

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unknowable to our finite minds.

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Think about that.

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Most of what we know about both God Himself and Jesus Christ, we are not capable of comprehending.

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Jesus Christ is an accurate revelation of God, but he cannot be described as a complete

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revelation of God.

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There is more.

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And that more remains largely shrouded in darkness and mystery.

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For what Jesus demonstrates for us is a complete picture of what being a human being in God's

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image looks like.

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And we're all to strive to become copies of that image through the energy we receive

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by participating in God's plan of salvation, which is the body of Christ, the church.

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So in regards to the ultimate unknowableness of God, I want to talk about that a little

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bit because it's an important component in understanding what faith is all about.

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So here's some quotes from the early church fathers and I want to, I want to read one

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scripture.

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It's first Corinthians chapter 13 verse nine.

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It says, for we know in part, we know, but we know in part and we prophesy in part.

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In other words, we get a little piece of the picture, but not the whole picture.

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And that little piece doesn't tell us everything we need to know about the big picture.

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It's just a little piece.

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Verse 10.

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But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

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Now this talking about the resurrection from the dead.

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When God begins the process of new creation that is properly ordered and aligned correctly

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in every facet.

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So that word perfect is a little misleading.

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It's usually, it's usually translated in a way into the English in a way that kind of

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shades the meaning.

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It just means properly ordered, properly situated, correct.

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When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

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When I was a child, I spoke like a child.

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I thought like a child.

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I reasoned like a child.

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When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

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For now we see in a mirror dimly.

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We don't see a correct image.

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We're looking at things through foggy lenses.

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For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

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Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known.

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That does not mean we're going to know everything there is to know about God.

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It means when we look at God, we're going to see him correctly and we're going to be

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able to understand him without making errors.

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Doesn't mean we have comprehensive knowledge of everything there is to know about God.

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It means we are seeing correctly and what we're seeing is without errors, unlike right

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now.

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So what we're about to hear from the early church fathers is actually quite deep and

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important to understand because it gives us a great deal of humility around how we think

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about God and it helps us to understand what the most important component of relating to

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God is all about and that is faith.

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So here's what Clement of Alexandria said.

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He lived from 150 to 215 AD.

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He was an early proponent of what is called apophatic theology.

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That is we can know God by eliminating false statements.

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We can most accurately know God by eliminating false statements.

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So he holds that God is unknowable, although God's unknowability concerns only his essence,

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not his energies or powers.

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So what he's saying is we can know about God through his acts in history, through our

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experience of him in this life, through what is recorded in the pages of scripture, but

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at his essence, God is so profoundly infinite and big, he's ultimately unknowable.

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Here's what Tertullian said, lived from 155 to 240.

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That which is infinite is knowable only to itself.

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He is presented to our minds in his transcendent greatness as at once known and unknown.

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Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, 313 to 386 in his catechetical homilies states, for we explain

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not what God is, but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning him.

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For in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge.

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Augustine of Hippo said this, 354 to 430, if you understand something, it is not God.

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John of Damascus, 675 to 749 said this, he employed negative theology when he wrote that

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positive statements about God reveal not the nature, but the things around the nature.

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Again, that refers back to the energies or powers or the activities of God.

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Those things are knowable, God himself is not.

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And then lastly, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most perfect to which we can attain in this

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life in our knowledge of God is that he transcends all that can be conceived by us.

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Now why is that important?

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Because the unknowableness of God embracing that is ultimately why faith plays the critical

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role in relating to God.

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We can't know with any certainty what or who we are relating to.

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That's just being honest.

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It's simply impossible for our limited minds to grasp the vastness and complexity and the

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holiness of God, the God that's going to be revealed in scripture.

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Every person is required to trust what they don't know for sure in order to relate to

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an ultimately unknowable God.

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You're never going to have all of your questions answered before you're asked to hand your

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trust and submit your life to this God, which ultimately cannot be known.

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That is why faith will always be the key ingredient in a relationship with this God that's going

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to be revealed to us.

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And scripture is going to reveal as we go through Genesis one through 11, some pretty

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remarkable claims.

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It's going to be hard for a lot of people to accept some of the things that are written

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there, but we lay hold of them by faith.

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And the more we look at those things and ponder them and contemplate them, the more they become

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a reality in our inner man, the more we're able to see the wisdom that's presented there.

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Here's what John Wesley said.

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Faith is to the invisible world, what senses are to the visible world.

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So faith is the spiritual organ by which we can acquire knowledge of God.

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By faith, we encounter and perceive through the contemplation of God and scripture, the

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one who is ultimately incomprehensible, but consistent contemplation gradually expands

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our capacity for what scripture calls the knowledge of God.

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Faith trusts that God's revelation of himself in history is true.

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It's reliable.

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It's worthy of our trust.

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It's also worthy of our devoted attention.

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Faith is the doorway to an experiential knowledge of God that emerges out of making the choice.

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It's what faith is, making the choice to trust God's appointed means of self-disclosure,

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the scriptures.

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It's a knowledge that can only be acquired at God's initiative.

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So God always takes the first step in a relationship with human beings.

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But then once he does that, that knowledge can only be expanded by our consistent grace

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enabled human effort.

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That knowledge is described in scripture as treasure and it's worth obtaining at any price.

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Let's close with reading a passage from Proverbs chapter two, starting in verse one.

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My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear

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attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.

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Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek

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it like silver and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear

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of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

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That's my prayer for us as we end this podcast.

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Holy Spirit, we thank you for the powers and the energies, what we as Methodists call grace

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that you impart to acquire the knowledge of an ultimately unknowable God.

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I can never know God fully, but I can know him more than I did yesterday.

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I can understand the scriptures more than I did a year ago.

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Your power, your energy makes that possible.

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We thank you that you make that available to us as we go throughout this series and

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that we find the knowledge of God together.

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That's my prayer in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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Thanks for joining us again today.

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We'll see you next time when we continue with Genesis chapter one.

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God Blessings.