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Is Our Life Without Form and Empty?
It is possible to overstate the place of water within God’s workings, and it is possible to understate it as well. However, an honest approach to scripture shows how intricate water is to God’s involvement in His dealings with His created physical reality. It begins in the beginning.
But before we go there, let’s notice how creation and new creation are such common themes throughout the Bible, including how the flood (i.e., water), the Exodus (i.e., water), and receiving the Promise Land (i.e., water) were all new beginnings, and new creations. Water is even involved in our new creation in baptism. Have you noticed how comparative Genesis 1:2-3 is to our new creation?
“Formless” can also be described as chaos. What God does in Genesis 1 is form or give purpose to His creation. Does being baptized into Jesus give us purpose?
• Colossians 3:1-2 – So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above….Set your mind on things above….
“Void” means empty. Being in Christ means we are filled, the emptiness is gone.
• Colossians 2:9-10 – For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him….
Then Genesis speaks of “surface of the deep” and “surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). There is much water here! Baptism requires much water (John 3:23), but that is only part of the connection of Genesis 1. The idea is the absence of life which is what a burial is, and baptism is a burial.
• Colossians 2:12 – “when you were buried with him in baptism….
But there is hope foreshadowed in Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God was moving”! This foreshadows even the resurrection of Jesus, and our own spiritual new creation which God does in the waters of baptism:
• Romans 1:4 – (Jesus) was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.
• Colossians 2:12 – …in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
What happens first after all this talk in Genesis 1:2 about chaos, emptiness, water, and the Spirit? God speaks, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Light following darkness is new creation.
Genesis 1 is a living parable for our new creation. Notice this other living parable and preaching in Paul:
• Acts 9:18 – At once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized.
• Acts 22:16 – “And now, why are you delaying? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.”
• Acts 26:17-18 – … “I am sending you to them to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”
No wonder Jesus told Nicodemus, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
The entire Bible is water-soaked, and Spirit filled! This is how God begins new beginnings. If you are living without purpose and without direction, Jesus’s new creation is the answer. Let’s begin there, in that beginning.
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