“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
– English KJV
“בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ”
– Hebrew Text
“re’shiyth bara' elohiym 'eth 'shamayim ‘eth 'erets. ”
– Hebrew Pronunciation
The very first verse of the Bible. This verse consists of merely 10 words, yet these 10 words contain an enormous amount of information.
Out of His infinite wisdom and knowledge God could have chosen any sentence to be the first verse of His Word… God, for some reason, chose this sentence be the opening statement. I believe that there is far more to these words than mere coincidental word placement. God chose these words for a reason and we will probably never be able to grasp the entire reasoning behind it until we meet Him in heaven.
There is a lot of treasures within this verse and I am going to point as many out as I can, however, keeping everything as short as possible while maintaining some form of coherence is a bit of a challenge… So here we go:
The first thing I want to point out is the “coincidence” in this verse regarding the number of words.
In English this verse has 10 words. In Hebrew the same sentence only has 7 words. In the Bible the number 7 represents perfection, and is the sign of God, divine worship, completions, obedience and rest. 7 Seems to be the most occurring of Bible numbers. It is used 562 times (including its derivatives e.g.: seventh, sevens).
The number seven is also the most common in biblical prophecy, occurring 42 times in Daniel and Revelation alone. In Revelation there are seven churches, seven spirits, seven golden candlesticks, seven stars, seven lamps, seven seals, seven horns, seven eyes, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven thousand slain in a great earthquake, seven heads, seven crowns, seven last plagues, seven golden vials, seven mountains and seven kings.
The use of seven words certainly has great importance. God created everything and it is presented in 7 words that indicate completeness. There is obviously a lot more beneath the surface, however we just do not have the time to go into it. It is important to remember that there is nothing mystical or supernatural in these numbers, they are merely the method God uses to express Himself.
“In the beginning…”
These three English words come from the single Hebrew word “re’shiyth”. The word means that whatever follows happened right in the beginning.
So the question we should ask is: The beginning of what?
The answer: The beginning of time.
In the beginning of time…
A question that people often ask is: “What did God do for billions of years before He created the world?”
The problem with that question is that the asker is falsely assuming that God is bound by time like we are. In reality God created time, He is not bound by it.
If your watch tells you that it is 7 o’clock you can be sure that it is not 7 o’clock to God. God is not bound by time.
Another question that people often ask is “How old would we be in heaven?”
Christians have been trying to answer that for centuries, however, most assume that Heaven is bound by time.
Some have said that we will be the same age as when we die. (So if you die at the age of 104, you will be 104 for all eternity…)
Others have said that we will be in our 20’s - when our bodies are supposedly in peak physical potential.
There are also those who say we would be in our early 30’s since that is how old Jesus was when He died…
All these answers assume that “time” is important in Heaven. However, when we die we step out of time to enter into the presence of God. We enter into a phenomenon called “eternity”. Eternity, unlike time, has no beginning and no end. The universe could not have been created sooner since there is no “sooner” or “later” in eternity. Our mortal minds were created for a world bound by time, therefore it is impossible to grasp exactly what eternity is like.
So how old will we be in Heaven? We will not be 20 or 30 or even 104… We will just “be”. Take a moment to just think about it.
“…God…”
There are many words in Hebrew that are translated to God.
Yahweh (or Jehovah) is translated as Lord and has various forms used throughout the Old Testament.
The basic word for God in Hebrew is “El”. This word is typically used in conjunction with an adjective, for example: El Shaddai means Almighty (Shaddai) God (El). El-Nasa means forgiving (Nasa) God (El).
However, sometimes, as is the case with Gen 1:1, the word used is “Elohiym”. The interesting thing regarding this form of “El” is that it is in plural form…
It literally means “Gods”, however the Bible is clear that there is only one God. Therefore this verse literally speaks of a “plural singular deity”…
Here are four common interpretations to this. Three of which are WRONG.
1) These “Gods” refer to God’s angels and these angels created the world.
Status: WRONG
Not a single verse backs this theory, however, there are many which clearly state that God alone created the universe. (Isa 36:16; 44:24; 45:12; Job 9:8 and many more – Yes, turn to these verses and read them! They are awesome!)
2) It merely means “God the Creator” and there is no significance or meaning behind to the plural form.
Status: WRONG
Nothing recorded in the Bible is recorded without purpose. This is a deliberate form of the word “El”, which occurs 2570 times and cannot be ignored. It has been placed there for a reason.
3) Monarchs often described themselves in plural form during medieval times and this verse has been adapted to fit that grammatical form.
Status: WRONG
It is true that some of the medieval monarchs referred to themselves in plural. It is known as “Pluralis Majestatis”. Some kings, queens and popes have referred to themselves in plural form. However, there are two things to remember.
The first is that Genesis was written long before monarchs used Pluralis Majestatis.
Secondly, kings and queens only referred to themselves in plural, they were never referred to in plural by other people. In Gen 1:1 the writer is writing about God, which has nothing to do with kings and queens using pluralis majestatis. Perhaps it is possible to argue that Gen 1:26 is using the plural pronoun, but the word Elohiym has nothing to do with it. It is a flawed argument.
4) The word signifies that there are at least 2 parts of a singular being that created the entire universe, confirming the validity of the Trinity doctrine.
Status: CORRECT
The validity of the Trinity is presented from the very first chapter of the Bible. Although a three-part God-Head is not necessarily implicated in this verse, a plural singular God is hinted at. The rest of the Bible gives more than enough evidence to imply a Trinity.
“…created…”
Hmmmm…
Unfortunately I have decided that I will not be going deeply into this (although I am extremely tempted to do so…). The problem is that once I start on this subject, I don’t stop... Creation vs Evolution will have to be set aside for now…
God CREATED the world. The Hebrew word translated as “created” is “Bara’”, which means “to create”. There is more to this word, though. It also means “to create and ‘feed’”. God created the world and cared (and continues to care) for it. This is the complete opposite of the evolution theory, which is based on a violent history, in which there is no care or love for the world. Evolution does not have a place for God (and those who disagree have obviously not studied the evolution theory thoroughly).
If the evolution theory is true and humans evolved it means that there was death before sin. According to the Scriptures death entered the world because of sin (Romans 5:12). It is not possible to believe the Bible and evolution, they contradict each other.
Let’s move on…
“the heaven and the earth.”
The heaven in this passage is “shamayim”, which is a Hebrew word that means “sky”, although it also indicates space.
Heaven represents space, while earth represents matter and the first part of this verse speaks of time.
An interesting fact about time, space and matter is that neither can exist without the other…
If you had Space and Time, but no Matter, what would you put in it?
If you had Time and Matter, but no Space, where would you put it?
If you had Matter and Space, but no Time, when would you put it?
In our world we need all three of these elements together, however, Heaven (the abode of God) is not like our world.
Time as we understand it does not exist in Heaven. Heaven is outside time and inside Eternity. So if there is no time in Heaven, could we also say that there is no space or matter either? Space and Matter will certainly be different from our human understanding, but the details are far beyond my comprehension…
There is only one way to find out what Heaven is really like and that is by going there. Therefore we need to make sure that we get there…
As I mentioned before, God chose these words for specific reasons. In these seven Hebrew words, God, being a trinity, created a trinity of trinities that encompasses and governs our entire universe:
Time has three elements:
1) Past
2) Present
3) Future
Space has three dimensions:
1) Length
2) Width
3) Breadth
Matter has three forms:
1) Gas
2) Liquid
3) Solid
Everything in our universe is governed and bound by these three elements. In fact, our universe is a trinity of trinities. This is how God decided to express Himself in creation. God gave us clues as to His nature long before it was revealed in Jesus, we were just too blind to see it…
People struggle to understand the Trinity, yet our entire universe is a trinity of trinities. Time, space and matter can have three distinct forms. Past, present and future are all different, yet they are part of time. The same with the others. These are examples God created so that our mortal minds can try to comprehend His unimaginable greatness.
A trinity of trinities, created by God (being the Holy Trinity) in merely 7 words, representing completeness. Only God can write a sentence like this!
If we read the first verse of the Bible with understanding, there is no way that we can sing a song like “How great is our God”, without meaning it!
The bottom line: God created this world and everything in it. This means that God owns it and we better find out what He wants and do it!
