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“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). In the Hebrew, in the beginning is the first word,33 created is the second word, and God is the third word. This third word tells us why the issue of creation from nothing is important. “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:8). God created and formed everything that exists. He had no help and needed no help. To attribute any of His creation to some supposedly preexisting material, to time and chance, or to “natural” causes is to idolatrously set something else on the same level as God.
Starting with just the first three Hebrew words in the Holy Bible we have established four foundational truths that deeply affect our understanding not only of Genesis 1 and 2, but much of Scripture:
The creation account is a simple unified narrative. Genesis 1:1 is an integral part of that narrative.
God created the heavens and the earth in unfinished form in the beginning of the first day of creation.
God created everything ex nihilo, out of nothing. He also made other things out of materials that He had created from nothing.
God alone is the sole Creator of this universe. He had no help from any outside “natural law” or anything else.
33In common with many other languages, Hebrew often uses one word where more than one word is needed in English. It does this by adding various letters and groups of letters to a root word, resulting in a complex single word. English does this to a limited extent; for example, we add -ed to a word to make it past tense.
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