Genesis 1:3-5
Categories: Bible Study LessonsOne cannot be sure as to the first questions that the children of Israel might have had about God, but surely the manner in which God created the heavens and the earth would have come up at the campfires with the pillar of fire in view. The absolute power of the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt is emphasized here. He had brought down the most powerful nation in the world, had forced the ejection of His people into the wilderness as He had commanded and had impressed them to the core at Mt. Sinai but perhaps the Israelites had no idea that their God was so powerful as this. “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” Such a statement defies imagination and yet Moses says that God simply spoke into being light and from that came into being a most fundamental part of our universe, the existence of darkness and light. God used means only available to Him in creating this universe. He asked no one’s permission, used no pre-existing material and exerted no physical strength in the creation of “heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them” (Exodus 20:11).
God is presented here as a God who is able. Able to have created this universe in which we live from nothing, to simply call it into being. Able to form this earth into the perfect home for man. And so, able to answer prayer (Matthew 7:11), able to save (1 Tim. 1:1), able to build a home for us (2 Corinthians 5:1), able to resurrect the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18), able to maintain our heavenly home for eternity (1 Peter 1:4).