Genesis 101
Lesson Six

Genesis 1:2b

"And darkness"

"And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep"

As we saw from the first part of verse two, when God created the heaven and the earth, in the beginning, He did not created it with any form or with any habitation.  At this point darkness is upon His creation and it is covered with water. We know that the phrase "the face of the deep" refers to water covering the earth because the very next portion of the verse says "...the face of the waters."

In Psalms 104:5 and 6 we read,

"Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. 

Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.

Here again we can see that "the deep" refers to the "water" that was on the earth. We also learn that the water covered all the mountains. This would indicate why it is called "deep".

Now, upon the face of this deep waters that covered the earth, we see the Spirit of God moving. Here, the word "Spirit" literally means "wind, breath". Figuratively, in means "spirit, life". In John 4:24 we read, "God is spirit...". So, when we read that "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep", what we are really reading it that God Himself moved upon His creation.

John 6:63 tells us, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth". "Quickeneth" means "to make alive, give life". In fact, without the spirit, there is no life because God is the author of life.

On Job 33:4 we read, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. In this verse, "Spirit" and "breath" are two different words that mean the same thing... God.

Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.."

One thing to remember here is that any time you see the phrase, “the spirit of God” in Scripture, it literally means, “Spirit God”.  God does not separate Himself from His Spirit, and then sit around heaven waiting for His Spirit to do something.  God is spirit, and when “the spirit of God” is doing something, it is God Himself doing it.

What does all this mean?  It means that God, who is Spirit, is the author of all life. Life does not "just happen", nor did it develop over millions of years. When God moves, life lives. As we look at John chapter one, we see that Jesus is God, it is He who is moving upon the waters, and it is He who is creating everything.

The word "moved" literally means, "to brood" as a hen would brood upon her eggs to hatch them. What we see is the very living force of God, moving upon, and broods over, His creation. 

In closing the study on these first two verses, we see that, in the beginning of time as we know it, Jesus Christ Himself, who is God, spoke into existence from absolutely nothing, one heaven and one Earth. We also see that this creation originally had not been shaped, or had been destroyed, and at this point God had not added anything to it. In fact, it was completely dark and a deep body of water covered the whole earth. But then, the very life force of God moved upon, and started to brood over, His creation.