Grace Defeats Our Chaos

It is easy and unfortunately tempting to rush through the early chapters of the Genesis account, especially the creation narratives, and fail to see or hear anything fresh or new that might be helpful in our spiritual journey. Far too often we read this text and handle it as the greatest weapon in our formidable arsenal to confront the Darwinian lie and evolutionary folly. But a fresh reading yields some powerful truth that we would do well to consider.

First to be noticed is the theme of chaos that leaps at us in the opening lines. An earth….formless and void….literally chaotic, without meaning, futile, and lacking purpose. Chaotic that is until the spirit hovered and God began to speak. Then purpose emerged. The plants were to yield seed, the trees bear fruit, and the sun and moon were to shed light at just the appropriate time. Oh, how much different the Spirit and Word make to our hopeless, chaotic, and futile circumstances. Order emerges out of chaos when God acts!

Second, one cannot help but notice the special place humanity has in God’s creative work. All else was created by the spoken Word but man came as a result of Divine intentionality (let us make man), Divine action (He formed the dust of the earth), and Divine unction (He breathed into him the breath of life). Humanity however, was given a unique purpose to serve. Stewardship over the earth, leadership over creation, and submission to the Divine mandate made up the purpose of humanity.

Thirdly, it was the questioning of Divine order and the subsequent breach of that order that brought again the chaos, imbalance, and futility that God had previously countered. The chaos was recognized by Adam and Eve and experienced metaphorically in the shame of their nakedness and in the reality of nature out of control. But God would act again….this time, by means of a sacrifice. Coats of skin from animals innocently slaughtered would cover their shame and a promise of Divine reversal would become the hope of our first ancestors and every human being since that day.

And so today….our choices and disobedience still bring chaos, fruitlessness, futility, and shame. Every time we dare breach the Divine order the results are the same….chaos. And far too often we repeat that same disobedience over and over. But God has acted in the sacrifice of His Son. If we confess our sin (breach of the Divine order), He is faithful and just; and the blood, not of some sacrificial animal, but of the innocent and perfect Lamb of God, once again covers us and the Word of His promise that, though it doesn’t yet appear, one day we will be like Him still comforts us and gives us hope!