Before Creation

Children often have the best questions and one that mine frequently asked was about God’s existence and activity prior to creation. If God existed before creation, then where was He? What was He doing? How long was He doing it? They often imagined Him enveloped in a black nothingness as they struggled with all the might of their inquisitive and yet finite minds. The answers I provided steered them away from the limits of their imagination to truths we can affirm from Scripture. God has always been. He has always been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has always been happy. And He has never been lonely, nor has He needed anything. And, at some point in the distant past, He chose to create a world to show His glory and share Himself with His people.

So, there is much we can affirm about God before He first spoke the words, “Let there be . . .” To my pleasure, I discovered some of these references to eternity past in the KJV Reese Chronological Study Bible. Let’s keep reading to learn more about God’s existence prior to the creation of the world.

Eternity Past

Man in his finite being cannot comprehend the ways of an infinite God. In some areas where the Bible is silent, we will have to wait until eternity future to get many answers. Many scholars believe that Satan was cast out of heaven causing a perfect earth to become void and chaotic and thus causing havoc on some kind of pre-Adamic creation, with God then renovating the earth and preparing it for man as we know him some 6,000 years ago. Others believe Satan did not come to earth until Genesis 3 when sin entered the world.

A. The Pre-Existent Christ

John 1:1–2

1 IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

Interesting Fact: The term “God” occurs 4,379 times in the KJV.

Not only does the Bible affirm the existence of the Word prior to creation, it affirms that the Word was the Creator. John 1:3 states, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” His preeminence and role in creation is also stressed in Colossians. Paul says, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and in him all things consist” (Col. 1:16–17).

B. Pre-Creation

1. Declaration

Psalm 90:2

2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Psalm 90 is about the permanence of God and the impermanence of man. Man is temporary, fleeting, marked by rebellion and the futility of work. But God is eternal. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the sustainer and consumer of man.

2. Wisdom Precedes Creation

Proverbs 8:22–23

22 The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

In this passage, wisdom is the personified ideal for the ancient Israelite. Wisdom’s existence and presence with God prior to creation is intended to show how valuable and necessary wisdom is. It is, in fact, the very tool God used to create and fashion the world as He did. Most see in this description of wisdom a reference to the preexistence of Christ, the wisdom of God (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30).

3. Origin of Creation

Genesis 1:1

1 IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Interesting Theory: Many believe that God created a mature earth some 6,000 years ago and that He created a mature Adam (Late Earth Theory). Others believe that millions of years passed between Ge 1:1 and Ge 1:2 (Gap Theory first proposed by Thomas Chalmers in 1814), but the Hebrew syntax leaves no room for this view. Both theories attempt to explain the Ice Age, dinosaur fossils, mountain ranges, ocean troughs, earth rifts, tectonic plates, and huge lakes of animal and vegetable matter, crouched deep in the earth, called petroleum. Secular historians incorporate macroevolution into this “gap.”

God the Creator: Hebrew Elohim, “The Mighty God”; God’s general name or official title

4. Creation for Habitation

Isaiah 45:18

18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Genesis 2:4

4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

God’s purpose in creation not just to manifest His power, glory, and invisible attributes (cf. Rom. 1:19–20), but to fill His creation. Or, rather, to have His creation fill His creation. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. 1:27–28a).

Now read the rest of the Bible from creation to new creation with the KJV Reese Chronological Study Bible

Most of these notes were taken from the KJV Reese Chronological Study Bible. You can see how this resource looks in our app in this blog post. Or follow the link below to learn more about the KJV Reese Chronological Study Bible in our store.

Comments: What other passages in the Bible elaborate on God’s existence prior to creation? How does this help us have a firmer grasp on our finite existence and his infiniteness?