This video is the first in a series where I’m going to show you Genesis 1 as you may never have read it before.
I’d like to show you the story of creation through the eyes of the New Testament.
In doing so, the other as we have always read Genesis 1 still remains.
Nothing changes about that.
Genesis 1 shows us how the heavens and the earth and all that is in them came about.
The Word of God however is a living Word.
It has many deep layers that give multiple deep insights.
I, for myself, see the Bible as a giant onion.
The top layer shows the meaning of the story that is immediately visible to the person reading it. However, when you dig deeper into what God wants to tell us with the Bible story, you peel off a layer of the onion, as it were, and come to deeper insights.
This applies to every story in the Bible, including the story of creation.
The top layer of the story shows us how God creates the heavens and the earth and how He then crowns it with a sun, moon, stars, trees, plants, animals, and finally, man.
When we, however, study the Bible more deeply in relationship with the Holy Spirit and ask God to open our spiritual eyes, sooner or later we will be allowed to peel off a layer of the onion and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of the story.
In a deeper layer, Genesis 1 shows us the creation of the new heavens and the new earth.
The creation story tells the process of spiritual growth.
It tells the story of the change from the old man to the new man.
In the top layer of the onion, the story is about all of creation, but in a deeper layer, the story is about you.
In that layer it tells you where your origins are, your roots.
It tells you about your true identity and how to find it.
Let’s just start at the beginning.
Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
There is a deep mystery in this first sentence in the Bible.
Paul helps us peel a layer off the onion to gain a deeper understanding of the mysteries of God.
He writes:
Colossians 1:16 (NIV)
For in Him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through Him and for Him.
Do you hear what Paul is saying here?
In Christ all things are created!
Jesus Himself says it too:
Revelation 1:8 + 21:6 + 22:13
I am the Beginning and the End.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In Christ God created the heavens and the earth.
Now you may have noticed that instead of “In Him all things were created,” some other Bible translations have chosen to translate “Through Him all things were created“.
However, that choice is directly disproved in the same verse.
In the second part of the sentence Paul says that everything is created by Christ.
He uses a different word there than in the first half of the sentence.
So he is saying something different there.
It would also be strange for him to say the same thing twice in one sentence.
The word by, in the second half of the sentence, is the Greek word dia.
Strongs explains us this is a primary preposition indicating the channel of an act.
1223 δια ‘dia
A primary preposition indicating the channel of an act
So Paul is saying here: through Christ all things were created.
Christ made everything.
In the first part of the sentence, however, he does not use the word dia, but the word en.
Strongs tells us this word en means the following:
1722 εν en
A primary preposition indicating a position in place, time or state
Therefore, the correct translation is: in Him everything was created, everything in heaven and on earth.
It indicates a place and not an act as in the second part of the verse.
Therefore, the Greek word en is used both with “in Him everything was created“, and with “everything in heaven and on earth“.
It both denotes a position in place.
Paul tells us that everything was made in Christ, by Christ and for Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!
Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
At first glance, the story in Genesis 1 tells us how heaven and earth came to be.
But God, in His love and omnipotence, shows us in that same story where our true identity lies: which is in Christ.
In Christ you are a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth.
How this new creation comes about in Christ, we can read in the rest of the creation story.
This is what the next video is all about.
