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and somewhere, a sequel, an end, a harvest. God created the heaven and the earth with
an object, and His purpose may be expressed thus:
In beginning God was ALL. Heaven and earth sprang into being at His command.
But God is not merely Almighty, He is essentially "Love". Creation therefore moved
forward to the "Image", in Whose likeness Adam was created. Adam however did not
obey mechanically, as do the sun, moon and stars, and so the long discipline of sorrow
accompanies the advent of man, leading irrevocably down to the "unspeakable" Gift of
Love, and, at long last, up to the willing submission of a new creation.
We therefore complete our exhibition of the implication of Gen. 1: 1 as follows:
In the beginning God was ALL, but when the end comes, God will be ALL IN ALL.
two vastly different things. He is indeed One that "declares the end from the beginning",
and worketh all things according to the counsel of His Own will.
#3.
Before the overthrow, and Since the ages times. Gen. 1: 2.
pp. 46 - 49
Although there is no statement as to time in Gen. 1: 2, upon examining other parts of
Scripture we shall learn that a most important time period is associated with it:
"And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep" (Gen. 1: 2).
"And", the translation of the Hebrew vav, is also translated by the adversative "but"
(Gen. 2: 6).
"Without form and void", cannot refer to the original state of creation, first of all
because, elsewhere, God Himself says that He did not create the world in that condition
and, secondly, because the word bara, "create", denotes "to cut" or "carve". This
meaning is reflected in the Greek word kosmos, "world", which is once translated
"adorning" (I Pet. 3: 3) and, with kosmeo, "adorn", "garnish" and "trim". The verb
"was", in the phrase "The earth was without form and void", translates the preterite of
hayah, "To be, exist, become, come to pass". The word is translated "became" in
Gen. 2: 7, "and man became a living soul", and this translation is true, for it is
self-evident that until he "breathed" man was not a living soul. Similarly we translated
Gen. 1: 2, "But the earth became without form and void". The words translated "without
form and void" are the Hebrew words tohu and bohu. Tohu occurs twenty times in the
O.T., and is translated "without form", "waste", "vain", "vanity", "nothing", "in a
wilderness", "the empty place", "confusion" and "a thing of nought". Bohu occurs but
three times, and is translated either "void" or "emptiness". While certain conclusions
could be drawn from the words themselves and their roots, we have a safer and more