Genesis 1:2 Commentary
Verse 2: The creation here appears in its state of chaos and confusion. The jarring elements yet un-separated, the earth an unformed mass, the deep spread over it, while darkness wrapped in swaddling bands the new-born embryo. But He, who could produce the materials, can as easily arrange them in beauty, order, and comely proportion. The Spirit of the Lord, not the material wind that was not yet produced, but the eternal Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters; impregnating them, as it were, with the principles of life and activity, as the hen broods over her nest.
Such as appeared the material world before the Spirit of God quickened the lifeless lump; such is now the spiritual world, till the same divine power interposes. 1. The soul of man, by sin, is become a heap of confusion; as dead to God, and as incapable of producing any fruits of holiness, as the unformed chaos to produce trees of flowers. 2. Darkness covers it: we have neither the faculty of vision to descry, nor light to illuminate spiritual objects. We know nothing of ourselves, our God, our Savior, our proper work, or happiness, as we ought to know. 3. The whole world, which now lieth in wickedness, presents to the enlightened mind, a lively image of this original confusion and emptiness. Darkness surrounds it, no beauty appears, God is forgotten, the jarring elements of corrupt nature breed wild uproar, and universal desolation seems diffused around. The heart that hath been taught its true rest, daily cries after that new heaven and new earth, where only real joy is to be found. 4. As incapable as this chaos was of forming itself into order; as impossible as it was for this darkness to produce the light, or kindle up the sun, so impossible is it for man, by any powers or ability of his own, to restore his fallen soul to the likeness and image of God, or to produce one beam of heavenly light, or spark of spiritual life. 5. It is the office of the Spirit of God (and his power only can effect it), to produce light and order in the dark and chaotic soul. There must be as evident a demonstration of his divine agency upon the heart, as here appeared on the great deep. If a man has not experience this, it had been food for him he had never been born. 6. However, our mortal bodies be dissolved in earth, fire, water, air, He who first moved upon the face of the waters, can by the same energy recall the scattered particles of our dust, and from the dissipated and disjointed atoms raise up a glorious body, bright as the sun when it shineth in its strength.
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