“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light” (Genesis 1:1–3).

Michelangelo is one of my favorite artists. He is, of course, well known for painting the ceiling and altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. These two works encompassed more than 10 years of his life, during which he painted over 600 figures. The iconic images from this chapel such as The Creation of Adam and The Last Judgment are indelibly etched in many of our minds. But as an artist, Michelangelo did not consider himself to be as much a painter as a sculptor. Marble was the medium in which he loved to work. He viewed sculpting as the art of taking away the excess stone to reveal the beauty he could visualize inside the marble slab. And his passion for that beauty enabled him to reach inside the stone and bring figures to life, figures such as David and Moses. Even after nearly 500 years, these works are considered unequaled in their perfection. My personal favorite is The Pietà, a statue of the grieving Mary holding her crucified son in her lap. Her head bows forward over His lifeless body as it hangs in the caress of her loving arms. In silence, the sculpture speaks as Mary gazes upon Christ. Michelangelo is able to convey Mary’s compassion and sorrow as she holds in death the Son she once held at her breast. The Pietà is a beautiful display of Michelangelo’s creative genius.

As we open the first page of the Bible, we encounter the ultimate creative genius in the person of God. Michelangelo, and all artists, create from existing materials. They use marble, paint and canvas, wood or sound, then they bring something beautiful into existence out of those materials. But God created the beauty of this cosmos from nothing. By the power of His word and will, all things came into being; “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). God created everything that exists. And the beauty which is found in God’s creativity enables and feeds our own creative passions.

Over a period of six days God brings the universe and all that is in it into existence. But as we read the opening verses penned by Moses, we notice a strangeness to the way God begins His creation. Moses tells us “God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:1–2). The original state of creation, it is suggested, was somehow imperfect (or lacking); it was void and dark and formless. Then, over a process of time, God brings the creation into the fullness of its beauty. Once He completes that process, He pronounces that His creation is “very good.”

“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Why would God initially bring His creation into existence in a formless and void state? Why would He then, from the chaos of that formlessness, mold His creation into its perfection? Couldn’t God have created the finished work in a moment? And if He could, why didn’t He? Questions such as these may stretch the limit of healthy speculation. We can have many questions God may not answer. But Moses does tell us creation was a process instead of an instantaneous act. He portrays God as an artist at work, laboring over His created work to bring a masterpiece into existence. And by doing this, He displayed God’s glory. Just as the work of an artist reflects something about the character and attributes of that artist, this masterpiece of creation reflects the beauty, the power, the goodness and the order of the one who made it.

God begins with bringing the elements of the universe into existence, but in a raw state. And out of that chaos of this raw state He brings divine beauty to His creation. He separates the land from the sea and the sky. He causes vegetation to sprout from the soil, and animal life to appear in the air, the sea, and the land. He even forms Adam from the dust of the ground and molds him into God’s own image. By creating in this way, God demonstrates His unlimited power and wisdom. He demonstrates His goodness as He acknowledges the goodness of what was accomplished on each day of creation. And as Moses stresses the point that God begins all this work with the initial chaos of formlessness, God demonstrates that He, as the great Creator, is the one who brings order out of chaos.

This world is called the cosmos, a term which means “the bringing about of beauty through order.” We are familiar with this word when we see it as the root of a word like cosmetics, or cosmetology: A woman accents the beauty and order of her face by using cosmetics. To consider the universe as the cosmos is to recognize an orderly beauty to its existence, as opposed to chaos, which has no order or form. When Moses describes the initial state of creation as chaos instead of cosmos, he is giving us a picture of the elements of this world apart from God’s divine presence. Just as the block of stone apart from the presence of the sculptor has no order or form, the darkness of the original creation, apart from God immersing Himself in it, has no order or form.

Then God said “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), and in this first command God, like a master stone cutter, brings the beauty of His presence into the chaos. For the light God speaks of in this verse is not a created light. It is the light of God Himself: “For God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The created light of celestial bodies does not take place until the fourth day, (Genesis 1:16–19) and by those lights God established the orderliness of time. But the light of the first day is the true light of the life and beauty of God. Apart from God’s presence there is only darkness and chaos. With God’s presence there is cosmos.

This truth becomes very relevant for us when we realize that as a result of our fall into sin our world has become corrupted and has lost the beauty and order it once possessed. It has entered a spiritual chaos and darkness. It is only God, and the entrance of the light of God into this despoiled world that can bring restoration to that chaos.

As John begins his gospel of Jesus, he uses Genesis language to harken us back to the chaos of creation: “In the beginning” (John 1:1). And he speaks of Jesus as the light entering a world of darkness: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5). By making this Genesis connection, John enlightens us to a fuller understanding of Jesus’ mission. God once again was entering a dark world with His power and beauty, not to create out of nothing as He did the first time, but to re-create out of our fallenness. Just as God brought His presence into the darkness to bring about creation, Christ entered the darkness and chaos of the Fall to bring about a new creation. God’s work of bringing the cosmos out of chaos parallels God’s even greater work of bringing redemption out of sin. For, as a result of our fall, not only has the world become corrupted, but we have become corrupted and lost the beauty we once possessed. God’s work of redemption is to make us, and the world, beautiful again through the beauty of Christ.

Michelangelo was able to sculpt figures from a block of stone which seemed to exude the light of life. God sculpts life itself back into His dying creation through the light of Christ. That light is beautiful. Behold the glory of it!

For God, who said “let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 4:6).