Genesis 1:1: God Created Out of Nothing | Bible Devotional

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” —GENESIS 1:1

For centuries, scientists have been trying to explain the creation of the universe by answering how and when it was created, but they can’t quite get back to the actual point of origin. They tell us they get very close; in fact, to the first one ten million, trillion, trillion, trillionths of a second before creation. 

Hubble discovered in 1929 that the universe is expanding and galaxies are moving away from each other. If it were to go into a reverse process, all the matter in the universe would contract to a mass so infinitesimally compact that it would have no dimensions. It’s called a ‘singularity’, but something happened just before this tiny sliver of a second, and that is “God created”. For the first time, science, in the last 80 years, came to agreement with Genesis 1:1 in that the universe has a single beginning. However, science cannot take us back to the actual instance of creation, because they don’t know what happened with the singularity; that little non-dimensional compression of all the matter in the universe.

There are two options to consider. The first is scientifically inconceivable, but is the affirmation of Scripture. Someone created something out of nothing. Go back to that tiny singularity and it is non-existent. There was nothing there. The second option is that nothing created something out of almost nothing. Which of these two options would seem to be the more reasonable? Science doesn’t know the answer, but there are many people who are committed to the nothingness of the universe. In other words, we came from nothing, are nothing and are going to nothing. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” tells us that the creation of the universe was not a random event. So why does God give this simplistic view of a seemingly endless universe when it has been discovered that earth is just one small planet in one of about 140 billion galaxies? The logical explanation is that the earth, not the universe, is the focus of God’s creation, because He did something unique on this planet – He created people, and that is where His interest and concern lies. The whole Bible is the story of God’s relationship with people. It is not a cosmological story; it’s a relationship story of the interaction between heaven and earth, because it’s the story of the interaction between God and humanity. 

We can bring our scientific questions concerning the “how and when” of creation to the Bible, but will not be satisfied. If we bring our theological and anthropological questions, the “who and why” of creation to the Bible, there we find the answers. 

Dear Father, You are the Alpha and the Omega, and we have our existence because of You. Thank You for Your love for this world and for us. 

How would I explain the creation of the universe as opposed to scientific theory to a non-believer?