IN THE BEGINNING: CHRIST REVEALED
A reflection on Christ in Genesis 1-2
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). With those sacred words, the curtain of eternity is drawn back. Creation bursts into being, not as a random display of power, but as the unfolding of a Person. For hidden within the opening verse stands Christ Himself, the eternal Word through whom all things were made. Before the eyes of man could behold Him, He was already there—the Wisdom of God, the voice that spoke light into darkness and order into chaos.
John later testified, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…all things were made through Him” (John 1:1, 3). The One who would one day hang upon a cross first hung the stars in their places. The same hands that would bear the marks of nails were the hands that shaped the galaxies. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6). Creation itself was His first sermon, a testimony of His glory, a mirror of His majesty.
When God said, “Let there be light,” He was not only commanding the sun to shine. He was revealing the coming of His Son, “the true Light which gives light to every man” (John 1:9). The light that pierced the first darkness was a shadow of the greater Light that would one day pierce the darkness of the human heart. Jesus would later say, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). What began in Genesis was fulfilled in Him. The first dawn whispered His name.
The Spirit, too, was there, moving over the face of the deep (Genesis 1:2). The same Spirit now moves over the hearts of men, breathing life where death has reigned. Just as He brought form out of emptiness and light out of void, so He brings new creation through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). The breath that gave life to Adam still breathes through the gospel, awakening the soul to know its Maker.
When God formed man from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), it was more than an act of creation. It was a prophecy. For one day the Second Adam would come, not from dust but from heaven. Adam received life. Christ is the Life (John 14:6). Where Adam fell in a garden, Jesus stood faithful in another. In Gethsemane He knelt and prayed, “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). The first man brought death by disobedience. The second brought life by surrender.
And from Adam’s side came Eve, his bride, formed while he slept (Genesis 2:21–23). How tenderly that moment points to Calvary. As Adam slept, a bride was brought forth. As Christ slept the sleep of death, His side was opened, and out flowed blood and water—the purchase of His Bride, the Church (John 19:34). Paul would later say, “This is a great mystery…but I speak concerning Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5:32). She was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. And so are we, joined to Christ by grace, one spirit with the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:17).
Even the seventh day rests in His shadow. When God finished His work of creation, He rested (Genesis 2:2). When Jesus finished His work of redemption, He too rested, seated at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 10:12). The work was complete. The same peace that filled Eden now fills the believer’s heart. “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9). In Him, we cease from striving. In Him, we find our Sabbath.
From the first verse of Scripture, Christ is present. He is the Word that speaks, the Light that shines, the Breath that gives life, the Image of the invisible God. The Bible is His story—from Genesis to Revelation, from creation to new creation. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). To read Genesis without seeing Jesus is to gaze at a sunrise and miss the sun itself.
When we picture the beauty of Eden—the trees, the rivers, the voice of God walking with man in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8)—we catch a glimpse of what was lost through sin. Yet in Christ, we see what is being restored. He is not only the Creator of all things. He is the Redeemer of all things. In Him, paradise is regained. In Him, communion is restored. In Him, we find the beginning we long for and the home our hearts remember.
May we never read Genesis again as mere history, but as holy revelation—the unveiling of Jesus, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). He is the first Word and the final Word, the One through whom all things were made and through whom all things will be made new.
Lord Jesus, You were there in the beginning. You are here even now. Open my eyes to see You in every page of Your Word—in every dawn, every promise, every whisper of creation. Let the light that shone at the first shine again in me. Teach me to rest in the finished work of Your hands, and to walk in the beauty of Your presence. For You are my beginning and my end, my Creator and my Redeemer. Amen.
Bryan Dewayne Dunaway
