GENESIS ONE

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(Genesis 1:1)

There is no more majestic opening line than this first verse in Genesis. It encapsulates the mysteries of Elohim, of time, and of the origins of matter and space, and it reveals the transcendence of Elohim who caused all things to come into being.

There are many words used to describe God in the Hebrew language: Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai, El Shaddai, and so on. But here, at the very beginning of His self-revelation, God chooses to reveal Himself as Elohim, the plural God who is One, a God who is outside the realms of time and space, a God who is infinitely more immense and complex than our finite minds can comprehend.

The subject of this sentence, Elohim, is plural; yet the verb “created” that expresses His actions is singular. A plural God who acts as One.

Is there any other created being in the heavens or on the earth who is completely one, yet uniquely three at the same time? We have no pattern for this, nothing in the universe that is comparable to Elohim.

Revealing God’s Essence

The Bible is God’s progressive self-revelation—an unfolding of His essence, His perfection, His beauty, His wisdom, His authority and power, His otherness. He is above all things, yet at the same time in all things. He is supreme above all.

And here, at the very beginning of His written Word, He chooses to reveal certain key aspects of His uniqueness.

First, He reveals Himself as Creator of Everything. There is absolutely nothing that existed before God. God is the only being or substance that has no origin, that has always been. Only God. Unique in His existence.

Second, He is above and beyond time. “In the beginning, God created…”

The beginning of what?

The beginning of what is recorded in Scripture. The beginning of our known history. The beginning of time as we know it. God existed before time itself. But time and the passage of time as we know it was created by Elohim on the first day of creation.

The beginning of space. The beginning of all the principles of physics and chemistry. Molecules cannot exist without space. Matter cannot exist without space. And Elohim is both Creator and Sovereign over it all.

Elohim

There is a reason why the word Elohim is used in this verse to describe God as Creator, and that is because each one of the persons of the Trinity were present and active during Creation.

God the Father is the Ultimate Initiator:

“For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him” (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Jesus Christ is the Active Agent:

“[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”(Colossians 1:15-17).

And the Holy Spirit was present and active during creation:

“The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

At the very beginning of His self-revelation, God chose that we would see Him as the everlasting Elohim who is plural yet One, as the One who holds all creative power, as the One who is infinitely above and beyond time and space, atoms and molecules, and everything that the universe contains.

He is the majestic One who has always existed and will always exist, and He holds all things together. If He withdrew His hand, the physical bonds of our atoms would break asunder, and the universe as we know it would collapse back into nothingness.

He is Elohim and there is no one like Him.

© Christine Fisher
March 2026