Let us turn to God's Word, turning
to the opening words of Holy Scripture, the first chapter
of the book of Genesis, and reading verses 1 and 2. In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. and the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. We have some years ago considered
the opening chapters of the book of Genesis, but I want this evening
to draw your attention more particularly to what we read here in the second
verse of this opening chapter. and to consider the content of
this verse in a gospel sense speaking as it were of the condition
of the hearts of men man-made of the earth is earthen and the
earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face
of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters There must even in these opening
chapters of Holy Scripture be a certain gospel sense to be
brought out. I'm persuaded of that. Paul reminds
us that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning that we through patience or endurance of the
and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Well what patience
and what comfort can we find in the words that I've read tonight
for our text. And the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. I was drawn to the words recently
re-reading the early part of the memoir and letters of J.C. Philpott the time when he was
greatly exercised ministering in the established church there
just outside of Oxford and yet so troubled by all that he witnessed
that was contrary to the word of God in the Church of England
but not seeing his way clear to secede much in prayer and
in agony of soul and he says on one occasion how his soul
seemed to be like a great deep without form and void or as he
says the original means full of confusion and emptiness before
the word of God said let there be light and I thought well how
that does in some way describe what man's heart is before God
comes by His Spirit and declares that word, let there be light.
Is there not within so much that is nothing more than confusion
and emptiness? So I want really to take up the
gospel sense of the words here in verse 2. But having said that
I feel that first of all it is only right and proper that we
make some remarks with regards to the historical sense, the
literal sense of the words. It is of course describing the
condition of the earth at the very beginning. As we see in
the opening verse in the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. What is its beginning? It's the
beginning of time. When God created all things out
of nothing, God also created time. God is the spirit, eternal. God dwells outside of time. when
the apostle Paul has that remarkable experience that he describes
at the end of 2nd Corinthians he speaks of being caught up
into the third heaven that is the heaven of heavens that is
above the atmosphere around this planet earth the first heavens
that is beyond all of stellar space all the vastness of the
universe he was caught up out of time into eternity and he
saw and heard unspeakable things, unutterable things. He went where God is and God
doesn't dwell in time or in space. God is eternal. But here we have
the beginning. The beginning of time, the creation
of the universe that's what's stated in the opening verse in
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth but then
when we come to the second verse it all centers now on this particular
planet on the earth the account in that sense is geocentric and
there's a reason why it's geocentric it says the earth that is this
planet was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. Why is there immediately this
concentration upon this planet? Because this is the place where
God is going to do the greatest of all his works. Men might want
to go into stellar space and see if they can discover some
form of life somewhere else, but it will all be futile and
in vain. it is this earth that God takes
a particular interest in and so the account centers very much
here upon the earth was here the Lord of life appeared and
sighed and groaned and prayed and feared for all incarnate
God could bear with strength enough and none to spare the
Lord God in the very person of the eternal Son of God came to
this planet to accomplish that great work of the salvation of
sinners. But here we have a description
of the birth at the beginning and how strong the language is
describing it. The condition could be described
by the use of adjectives but rather here we find nouns being
employed and they are striking words that are used. Translated without form and void. The words are very telling words
and the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther who himself was
a Hebraist he was a student of the original Hebrew here and
he speaks of the significance of the words that are rendered
without form and void. The words tohu and Bohu. And Luther says this, greater
significance is in the Hebrew words tohu and bohu than can
be expressed in any other language. In other words, the meaning of
these words as they are in the original the inspired Hebrew
cannot be adequately rendered in any other language. That's
what Luther is saying. They're interesting words. Now,
I read that portion in the book of Jeremiah chapter 4 because
we find the same words being used there by the prophet Jeremiah. You remember the portion that
we read in that fourth chapter. And what does it say? Verse 20. Destruction upon destruction
is cried for the whole land is spoiled. Suddenly are my tents
spoiled and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard
and hear the sound of the trumpet? For my people is foolish, they
have not known me, they are such foolish children. They have not
understanding, they are wise to do evil, but to do good they
have no knowledge. And in these words I beheld the
earth, and lo, it was without form and void. and the heavens and they had
no light. It's almost the same language
as we have there at the beginning of the book of Genesis. Now,
what is being described in that chapter is the terrible judgment
that God visited upon the Jews. The armies of the Babylonians
gathering to the north and coming down and falling upon the little
kingdom of Judah and the destruction. How Jerusalem fell and the temple
destroyed and the people taken away into captivity and all because
of the sins of the people. And it's interesting that the
language that is employed by the Prophet is really the same
words as we have here in our text. Now I'm not saying that what
we have here is a description of a sinful world. It was not
a sinful world at this time. The fall comes later in Genesis
chapter 3. But the significance of the language,
how the language can be taken up later on by the Prophet Jeremiah
to describe something that was quite terrible which was a judgment
from God upon a sinful people. But I want us to look at these
two words that Luther lays such tremendous emphasis upon. This
word tohu translated without form. There again the word is
used in another part of scripture and I do find it helpful at times
to consider the different uses that we find for these words
and it's quite easy in a sense to do that you don't have to
have a great knowledge of the original if you've got an analytical
concordance such as Jung's you can look up the words and see
what the original was and how it might be translated in other
parts of scripture and this particular word Tohu is found in Job chapter
12 and verse 24. And in that verse it's not rendered
without form, it's simply rendered wilderness. Wilderness. It means empty. A wasteland. Not necessarily as the result
of some terrible catastrophe, which was or is the meaning when
we have it there in in Jeremiah chapter 4 because that's the
consequence of the the overthrow of Jerusalem there there was
a terrible battle many battles and then
Jerusalem being like sieged and it was all the consequence of
their sins but the result of all of that was that the land
was like a wasteland. But what we have here is not
necessarily the result of some sort of catastrophe. The very
basic meaning of the word that we have is unformed, without
form. This is the basic meaning as
we have it here at the beginning of scripture. Not put into shape. This is the beginning, the earth
was without form and void. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. Now, there are those who seize upon
this particular verse to promulgate their ideas of an old earth,
old earth theories. And I want to mention a couple
of them. First of all, there is a theory
called the Gap Theory. And it works like this. It says
what we have in verse 1 is prehistory in the beginning. God created
the heaven and the earth. And then the gap comes. Verse
2 is descriptive of a terrible catastrophe that came upon what
God had created in the beginning. Well God had created it, but
now something terrible occurs. In that prehistory there had
been creatures, there had been dinosaurs and all sorts of strange
beasts but then something happened and there was this terrible event
which is being described in the second verse the earth was without
form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and then
after that gap there's a new creation, there's a second creation
when in verse 3 God said let there be light. And there was
light, so the work as it were can begin all over again. Now, that gap theory serves men who want to say that
the earth is of a great age, millions and millions and millions
of years old. and it's a theory that is promulgated
and you're probably aware of this at least some of you are
I'm sure in the Schofield Reference Bible. If you have a Schofield
Bible I remember I suppose I've still got it somewhere at home
I purchased one many many years ago in my early Christian experience
when I was probably about 19 or 20 years old and it's full
of notes explaining various theories, it's a dispensational Bible,
but it's a Bible that has popularized that gap theory. But then, with
regards to those who want to speak of an old earth, there's
not only that theory, how about those who are theistic evolutionists? And there are many people who
say that they are Bible believers, they say they're evangelical
in their faith, And yet they believe in theistic evolution. Now what do they say? They say
that the earth is very old. And they say that what we have
here in these first three verses is really one sentence. When
God began creating the heaven and the earth The earth was without
form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God
said, let there be light, and there was light. And they see
those first three verses as one single sentence in the original,
when God began creating. They say it's a preexistence.
worlds that matter really existed for millions and millions of
years. But what they're doing, they're
forcing the passage to fit their theories. This word Tohu without
form simply means unformed. That's the basic meaning. It
reminds us how God at the beginning made all things out of nothing. That is the truth. Where did
matter come from? Is matter eternal? No, God created
it. God made all things. And he made
everything out of nothing at all. Men might seek to force
and to twist the scripture to fit into their different theories.
but they refused to bow to the authority of the word of God
and really ultimately it is of course a matter of faith through
faith Paul says in Hebrews 11 through faith we understand that
the worlds were made so the things which do appear were not made
of things which are seen it's a matter of faith but those
who who advocate that old earth theory, whatever sort it might
be, that's also with them a matter of faith. No one was present
to witness these things. There's no empirical test that
you can do to prove these things. It's a matter of faith, and through
faith we understand that the worlds were made. Made by whom? Made by God. And here we have
that that is initially unformed. The earth was without form and
void. Now this is the other one. Tohu,
without form. Bohu, void. Now what is this word? Well,
again if we check other parts of scripture if we compare scripture
with scripture and that's the best way to read the word of
God to let the Bible interpret itself that's how we are to understand
any part of God's word we bring the light of one part of scripture
upon another part. Those parts that seem to be dark
and difficult for us to understand sometimes if we see them in the
light of another portion we have the key that unlocks what to
us seems to be dark and difficult. The Bible interprets itself and
you know The basic principle of biblical interpretation is
that we bring the greater light of the New Testament Scriptures
with the coming of the Lord Jesus to bear upon the Old Testament
where we find many passages that are more difficult to understand. We always should read our Bibles
in that way. We read in a sense back from
the New Testament into the Old Testament. Now, with regards
to this word, void, it is also used in the book of Isaiah, in
Isaiah 34 verse 11, and there it is rendered emptiness. Emptiness. Remember what we said at the
beginning, I referred to J.C. Philpot and like Luther, Philpot
was a man who had a classical education, He would read each
day of his life, his Greek New Testament, his Hebrew Old Testament.
And Mr. Philpott says that without form
and void in the original means confusion and emptiness. You
see the meaning of the word Bohu. Emptiness. That was the condition at the
very beginning. When God begins his great work
Here upon the earth it is without form and void. It is confusion, it is emptiness. As one says it is without the
beauty and order that it would afterward receive. And it receives that order of
course as God begins to execute his great work of creation. And God does it all, as we read
here, in six days. But then it goes on. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. There is no light. And there
is no firm body. this expression the face of the
deep is really the same as the face of the waters the spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters upon the face of the
deep it's out of this fluid mass the deep that God works in his
creation and how God works oh it says here how the spirit of
God moved moved upon the face of the waters upon
the face of the deep not brooded some would suggest it's a brooding
as if hatched out of an egg but that's not what is being said
again the word is used in Deuteronomy
32 11 where we read of the eagle who fluttereth over a young,
moveth over a young. It's a lovely imagery that we
have concerning God and the ways of God and the dealings of God
and the care that God takes with regards to his children there
in that verse. Look at the context, verse 9
in Deuteronomy 32, the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob
is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land
and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye, as an eagle, stirreth
up her nest, fluttereth, moveth over her young, spreadeth abroad
her wings. taketh them, beareth them on
her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no
strange God with him. What is the imagery that we have?
Oh, it's God doing a remarkable work, it's the caring of God,
God watching over these things. You see, God's work of creation
is such a special work. As we said, it's order. and it's
ordered over a period of six days. This is how God is set
before us here at the very beginning of scripture. It's not hatching
creation out of an egg as it were, but it's God. God who's so caring, who prepares
everything for that creature that he's going to set in the
midst of his creation. Because it's not until the sixth
day. that God creates the man. All this work of God, it is so
special a work. So remarkable a work. The psalmist
says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit. They are created. The Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. All remember the language of
the Psalms. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He spake, and it
was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. Oh, how God works. He works by
divine fear, God said. Oh, we see it repeatedly here,
God said, let there be light. and there was night. God said
let the dry land appear. God simply speaks. He could have
spoken everything into being in one moment of time. Because God is God. But He is
God and He works in this orderly fashion. And of course when we think of
those words that we referred to in the Psalm, Psalm 33 by
the Word of the Lord, by the breath of His mouth? Can we not
understand the Word of the Lord to have reference more specifically
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God? He is the
Word, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him. And without Him was not
anything made that was made. by the word of the Lord, by the
breath of His mouth, the very word, breath. It's the same words
that use throughout the Old Testament in reference to the Spirit of
God. Sometimes the word is translated as spirit, sometimes it's translated
as wind, sometimes it's translated as breath. It's God the Holy
Spirit. He is also there in that great
work of creation because the work of creation is the work
of God Father, Son and Holy Spirit and He is in the very first word
in the beginning God. Now the Hebrew word for God is
a plural noun. It ends I am. And that's the
plural, we read of the Seraphim. That means many Seraphs. Or the Cherubim. Many Cherubs. I am is the plural ending. And the name for God is Elohim. So God is more than one. Now interestingly, in the Hebrew,
there is also a dual ending. So you have a word that is singular,
one. You have a word that is dual, two. But here we have a
word that is plural. So God is three. God is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. And this is the God who created
the heavens and the earth. Well, we spent more time than
we intended. Speaking of that literal sense,
that historic context, let's come in the second place to what
I said is the gospel understanding, the spiritual interpretation.
And here we see how in this particular verse there is such an emphasis
upon the Spirit. The Spirit of God. we read, moving
upon the face of the waters. And the Holy Spirit is that one
who comes to work in the hearts of sinners. It is the Spirit
who applies salvation. That salvation that was purposed
from all eternity, purposed by God the Father, that salvation
that was accomplished In time, with the coming of God's Son,
when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. But what was purposed by the
Father and procured by the Son is that that is applied and made
real by the Holy Spirit. He is the one who applies salvation.
Now, again I want to emphasize this truth that there was no
sinful disorder in the creation of God. We touched on that gap theory
that says the second verse is describing some terrible catastrophe,
some awful disaster, something that seems to be sinful and destructive.
No, there's nothing of sin anywhere in God's work of creation. It's
all such a perfect work. Remember what we're told when
we come to the end of the chapter. After the six days of creation
God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. and the evening and the morning
were the sixth hour. Behold, it was not just good,
it was very good. And man is part of that good
creation. God had said in verse 26, Let
us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created
man in his own image. In the image of God created him,
male and female, Created He them, and God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth,
and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth. Oh, here is man. He's God's vicegerent. He's in the very place of God.
He's God's representative. He's in the image of God. He's
a good man. There is nothing of sin there. but of course man
is now a foreign creature as we read later in chapter 3
man is disobedient to the commandment of God and partakes of that that
God had forbidden the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil God made man and God made man good but as we said
this morning what has man done Man is unmade himself. All sin is not of God. Sin is
not of God, sin is of man. That man who was made in the
very image of God. And man is so willful in that
act of disobedience. Now, it was Eve who was deceived. She is first in the transgression
as Paul says to Timothy. the serpent so subtle the instrument
of Satan the woman is tempted and she falls in the temptation and she partakes there at verse
6 in chapter 3 when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree to be
desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and
did eat and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did
it. Adam is willful. Adam deliberately
goes against the commandment of God and receives this fruit
from his wife and partakes of it. For the preacher says in
Ecclesiastes, Lo, this only have I found God's made man upright,
but they have sought out many inventions. That's what man has
done. He sought out his inventions, anything to help him to deny God. He doesn't
like the idea of his accountability to God. This is why you see the
theory of evolution serves man so well. There's no creator. There's no one to whom he is
to give an account. These are the inventions of men. who will
deny the truth of God and the word of God. Man, you know, was
made of the earth. That's what we're told. We have the detail there in the
second chapter concerning the manner in which God formed him.
The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living
soul. He's made of the dust, made of
the earth that God breathes into him. And he's not just body,
he has a soul that's come from God and it's in the soul, of
course, that the image of God, the likeness of God is seated. But that earth, that earth that
God takes to form his body was good matter. It was all good
that God did in creation. But now, of course, that very
earth that man is made of is associated with the curse. Remember what God says in chapter
3? Speaking to Adam, verse 17, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, it was willful. cursed is the ground for thy
sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life
thorns also and thistle shall it bring forth to thee and thou
shalt eat the herb of the field in the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it
was thou taken for thus thou art and unto thus shalt thou
return all the very ground out of which man was made is a cursed
ground now. Man is under that awful curse
of God because of his disobedience. He is of the earth. For he that
is of the earth is earthen. He is earthen. What does the
Apostle Paul say concerning the foolish, idolatrous ways of men? There in Philippians 3.19, whose
end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is
in their shame, who mind earthly things. That's man. He minds earthly things. Everything
about him is taken up with the things of the world. The things
of time, the things of sense. He has no thought of God, he
has no thought of the needs of his soul. that the God breathed
into him he's altogether of the earth and God comes and says
love not the world neither the things that are in the world
if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in
him all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the
lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father
but is of the world or what is man you see when we think of
man his life is confusion, his life is emptiness and that's how it took me when
I read those words just the other day of J.C. Philpott concerning what
he considered with regards to the state of his own soul or
the confusion without form, void, darkness
upon the face of the deep confusion and emptiness look at the language
that we have in the psalm in psalm 64 there in psalm 64 trust I have
the right reference verse 6 they search out iniquities they
accomplish a diligent search both the inward thoughts of every
one of them and the heart is deep that's man's heart you see
it's a great deep searching out iniquity making a diligent search
so set so set upon that that is contrary to God is in that
condition where he is alienated from God God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and every imagination of the
thought of his heart was evil continually that's the words that we find
later here in chapter 6 this is just previous to that terrible
judgment that God sends in the universal flood in the days of
Noah God sees the wickedness of man and how the Hebrew is so pregnant If you have a margin
Bible, you'll see the whole imagination. It says the Hebrew signify of
not only the imagination but also the purposes and desires. Every imagination, all the purposes,
all the desires of the man. Every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was evil every day, continually. never-ending. This is man, you see, making
diligent search after that that is iniquity. What comes out of
the heart of men? It's those things, says the Lord
Jesus, that come out of men's hearts that defile them. It's not eating with unwashing
hands. Remember there how the Pharisees
were accusing his disciples that they were not following the rituals
that were required by those hypocrites. How they had to ritually wash
their hands time and time again. But it's not what goes into the
man says the Lord Jesus, it's what comes out of the man. It's
all that wickedness, all that sin that is in the man's heart. and it's here that the Spirit
of God works the Spirit of God moving moving upon the face of
this great deep which is man's sinful heart oh again such remarkable
words we find as you know in the book of Job we were there
this morning in Job's book but there in Job chapter 12 look
at the language at the end of that chapter. He
taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth
and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no
way. They grope in the dark without
light and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. Oh, this is gorgeous. When God
begins to deal with a man there is an effect. The man is made
to feel something of what he is. And he doesn't know how to help
himself, how to save himself. We grope for the wall like the
blind, we grope as if we had no eyes. Says the Prophet Isaiah. Very
similar to the language that we have there at the end of Job
12. The man is made to feel what he is. He is a sinner, totally
deprived. he's so impotent he can do nothing
to help himself he can't save himself he's altogether undone
he's full of unbelief and yet this is where God comes
to do his great work to work upon the hearts of that sinner
and to lift him out of that pit out of that deep mire and to
set his feet upon the rock which is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
a remarkable hymn. I did wonder whether we might
sing it but some of the hymns are more suited to private reading
and meditation than for the public worship of God. But I think of
the language that we have in the hymn 310 with that text at the start at
the top of the hymn creating me a clean heart. Lord, when
thy spirit descends to show the badness of our hearts, Astonished
at the amazing view the soul with horror starts, The dungeon
opening foul as hell its loathsome stench emits, And brooding in
its secret cell some hideous monster sits, Swarms of ill thoughts
their bane diffuse, Proud, envious, false, unclean, And every ransacked
corner shows some unsuspected sin. Our staggering faith gives
way to doubt. Our courage yields to fear. Shocked
at the sight, we straight cry out, Can ever God's dwell here? None less than God's almighty
Son can move such loads of sin. The water from His side must
run to wash this dungeon clean. There's the provision, you see,
that God has made. Oh, He's made that wonderful
provision in that blood and water that flowed from the side of
the Lord Jesus when they pierced his side with the spear to cleanse
that foul heart of all its sin all its filthiness for it was
without form was void full of confusion and emptiness darkness
upon the face of the deep that the Spirit of God comes and moves.
And what does He do? He comes to make known the Lord
Jesus Christ. Or the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
tells us who He came to call. It's not the righteous, it's
sinners. The whole have no need of a physician, He says. But
they that are sick, are we those who are sick? We're sick of our
sins, we're sick of ourselves. O Christ, come to call such sinsick
sinners. He comes not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Let the Lord be pleased to bless
His Word to us. Amen. number 1030. The tune is Daniel
verse 124. Lord, what a wretched, wretched
heart I feel from day to day, vile and unsound in every part. Subdue it, Lord, I pray. Psalm
number 1030.