2. Who is God? - Part I
Chapter One
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you.”
1 John 1:1–3
Throughout the history of biblical interpretation, the opening chapter in Genesis has been a continual source of controversy. I remember how disappointing it was to me during my academic training that while studying the very first words of the Christian scriptures I encountered a cacophony of confusion rather than an open doorway to God. After years of reading one opinion after another, I eventually gave up seeking clarity about the Creation story, concluding that its true meaning was lost behind the veil of antiquity, and all that remained was manufactured speculation.
But now, as I sought to know the One who was before the beginning, Genesis was exactly where I chose to begin. I entered the stillness of my heart and waited until the spiritual reality of Creation unfolded before me. From the sanctuary of my soul, I saw a vision so grand that all the academic arguments about a literal history or sophisticated allegory simply faded into irrelevance. I encountered indescribable glory, where the Creator spoke with the might of a conquerer, the wisdom of a sage, and the precision of a master poet.
A Vision of the Beginning
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and the darkness was upon the face of the Deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.1
At the very beginning, before the first day had dawned, I beheld an endless black sea. The dark waters churned restlessly beneath me. While I stared into this primordial “Deep,” a tall black wave rose out of the sea like a serpent and lunged toward me. A flash of fear coursed through my body, and I quickly pulled back.
Above the black, I beheld a brilliant white sky that seemed to continually expand outward. I turned toward the whiteness, longing to know it more intimately. As I entered into the brilliance, I felt suspended by the light that shone all around me. I held my breath, completely awe-struck. This is God, I thought to myself.
After a time that I wished would never end, I saw a luminous mist appear from within the brilliant whiteness of God. Swirling and swaying, as if dancing to some dreamlike sonata, the soft white mist slowly gathered near the blackness below. It settled above the surface of the dark waters like a glistening fog on a cool autumn night.
While watching the gathering mist, I beheld a brilliant beam of light burst forth from God. The light was pure gold in color and moved like an arrow, striking the mist and driving it deep into the darkness below. The endless Deep now contained a wound, like a gaping pit in the sea of black, out of which shone a golden radiance that the darkness could not extinguish.
As I marveled at the golden pit within the Deep, a new and different light suddenly came forth from the whiteness above. Something that looked like a cloud of glittering white light proceeded slowly toward the separation within the Deep, as if it were being carried by a gentle wind. Steadily and unwaveringly, the cloud of white advanced until it touched the golden wound. At that moment, an explosion of light shook my body and momentarily blinded my spiritual eyes.
Following the blast, I could see that where the golden radiance had previously been, there was now a sphere halfway submerged within the dark waters. The sphere was completely transparent, like an orb of delicate glass. Beneath the crystal-clear shell I could see nothing, for it was hollow. Instantly I knew that this sphere, appearing as a dome (or a “firmament”) rising halfway above the Deep, was what God had called “Heaven.”2
The next moment, a luminous mist—exactly like the swirling and swaying mist I had seen “moving over the face of the waters”—came forth from the whiteness and drifted down toward the hollow sphere. Like a dense fog, the soft white mist completely enveloped the sphere. Then, as if entering through an unseen door, the mist poured into the orb of Heaven and spread out, filling the entire expanse. I watched the mist gradually converge in the middle of the sphere and form a luminous ball. Looking upon that luminous sphere within the sphere, I realized that the mist had become the Earth balanced within the center of Heaven.
As the subsequent events of Creation unfolded, I saw the same process occur: all vegetation, the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, and all creatures that moved upon the face of the Earth were created by the luminous mist coalescing into form.
Reflecting on the Vision
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not Thou that didst cut Chaos in pieces, that didst pierce the Dragon? Was it not Thou that didst dry up the sea, the waters of the great Deep?3
I spent over two years returning to my vision of Creation and reflecting on what it meant. It seemed to me that contained within those images was inexhaustible wisdom, if only I could interpret them accurately.
The golden light that wounded the blackness was like an arrow “that didst pierce the Dragon,” separating the darkness into two. I thought it significant that the golden light did not strike alone, for the soft white mist covered the face of the Deep before the golden light was spoken. I wondered if the mist laid a foundation that allowed the light to penetrate the darkness below, such that without the mist the movement of the light would not be possible. Perhaps, I thought to myself, there is a relationship between the golden light and the luminous mist, where the joining of the two was essential before the Deep could be separated.
The glittering cloud of pure white was distinct from the luminous mist and golden light in both appearance and movement, yet there seemed to be a synergistic relationship among the three. The instant the cloud touched the golden radiance that shone from the separation in the Deep, an explosion occurred, and the hollow sphere of Heaven was formed. I wondered if the combination of the mist and the golden light had laid another foundation that prepared the way for the march of the cloud of white.
The glassy sphere of Heaven showed up in a different way than the three lights I had observed. The luminous mist, the golden light, and the cloud of glittering white had mysteriously sprung forth from the expansive whiteness of God, as if they had already existed and were now appearing for some purpose. The sphere, on the other hand, seemed to be something brand new that was fashioned before my eyes. Based on these observations, I concluded that it was the coming together of all three Divine lights that made possible the creation of something brand new.
Then the progression of Creation seemed to start over again, now within the sphere of Heaven. Mirroring its prior movements, the luminous mist sprang forth from the whiteness and moved toward the Deep, except that this time it entered the glassy orb and coalesced into the shape of the Earth and everything therein. Remarkably, the foundation that had previously prepared the way for the golden and brilliant white lights was now being fashioned as our physical Earth.
So I wondered, what are the three lights that were spoken out of the expansive whiteness of God? And why was Heaven created out of the combination of all three lights, while the Earth was composed of the mist alone? And what does it mean that the glorious act of Creation, which gave birth to everything we can perceive with our physical senses, occurred within the waters of the monstrous Deep? This book is my attempt to answer these questions, and I began with the lights themselves.
Genesis 1:1–4
Genesis 1:8
Isaiah 51:9–10; I translated the Hebrew word “Rahab” as “Chaos.”