Jimmy Akin - The Bible is a Catholic Book

The Word of God Before the Bible

In the Beginning Was the Word

How the world began is a question people everywhere ask. Its a human universal.

Pagan cultures thought the world was made by their gods and goddesses. Some myths claimed that the gods reproduced sexually to make the elements of the world. Others held that there was a fierce battle among the gods, and the world was formed from the corpses of the losers. Mankind was then created as a slave race to relieve the gods of drudgery.

The book of Genesis set the record straight: The world was not produced by a multitude of finite gods. It was the creation of a single, great Godone supreme and supremely good Being who is behind everything.

Because of his infinite, unlimited power, he didnt need to use anything to make the world, as the pagans thought. He didnt need to mate with a goddess. He didnt need to battle other gods and make the world from their corpses. He simply spoke , and the elements of the world sprang into existence: God said, Let there be light; and there was light (Gen. 1:3).

God made a good world, and to crown his creation, he made mannot to relieve him of drudgery but to serve as his representative, ruling over creation:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen. 1:2728, 31).

Through the ages, God continued to speak. Even when man fell into sin, he sent the prophets to correct him and call him back to communion with his Creator. Eventually, he sent his Son, Jesus, to redeem mankind and to proclaim his definitive word to us:

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our Fathers by the prophets; but in these Last Days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world (Heb. 1:12).

The Gospel of John reveals more about Gods Son and how the world was made:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1:13).

This reveals that JesusGods Sonwas the Word he spoke when he created the world and everything in it. When God said, Let there be light, it was through Jesus that this happened.

Because Jesus was there in the beginningone of the uncreated, divine Persons of the Trinityhe is the original and supreme Word of God. All of Gods other words are shadows of him.

This is important to remember, because some today use the phrase word of God as if it just meant the Bible. Although the Bible is important, the word of God is not confined to or only found in it. First and foremost, Jesus Christ himself is the Word of God, and there are other expressions of it, only some of which are found in Scripture.

The Spirit of God

The Father and the Son are two of the divine Persons of the Holy Trinity, but what about the thirdthe Holy Spirit?

Theologians tell us that every time God performs an action in the world, all three Persons play a role. For example, to save mankind, God the Father sent the Son to redeem us, and he and the Son together send the Holy Spirit to draw us back to him and bring his grace into our lives. Consequently, its no surprise that we find the Spirit of God also took part in the creation of the world:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:12).

In the biblical languages, the word for spirit is the same as the word for breath , so Scripture indicates that God created by both his word and his spirit, or breath: