What would you tell a child who asks, “What was there before God made the world?” Or you might wonder, “Did anything exist before God made the world? If so, what was it?” Scripture doesn’t give us a lot of detail about what the supernatural realm is like, but it does reference some of the beings that live there.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
Elohim
We immediately see the supernatural claims of scripture in the first few words of the Bible. There is no attempt to explain or justify the statement. The author assumes an audience that believes in the supernatural. The claim of the Bible is that God, a supernatural being, actually created the world and everything in it.
In the beginning God…. The Hebrew word for God is transliterated as elohim. In Hebrew it is written אֱלֹהִים. A transliterated word takes the pronunciation of a word in one language and presents it in another language according to the sound of the word in the original language. Elohim sounds like “hello” without the “h” at the beginning and “heem” at the end – elohim.
Elohim in the Old Testament is actually a more generic term for a divine being, an intelligent supernatural being. The biblical writers refer to a half-dozen different entities with the word elohim. (Heiser, The Unseen Realm)
- Yahweh, the God of Israel (this occurs thousands of times in the OT)
- The members of Yahweh’s council (Psa. 82:1, 6)
- Gods and goddesses of other nations (Judg. 11:24; 1 Kgs. 11:33)
- Angels or the Angel of Yahweh (Gen. 35:7 with Gen. 32:22-32 as the background)
- Demons (Deut. 32.17)
- And even the disembodied spirit of Samuel (1 Sam. 28:13)
Various versions of the Bible translate elohim in 1 Sam. 28:13 differently. The English Standard Version translates it as “a god”, the NKJV “a spirit”, the NASB “a divine being”, and the NIV as “a ghostly figure.”
The important thing to remember is that Biblical writers always understood Yahweh as the God that presides over all gods, the one true God, the supreme being in the heavens, and in the Genesis account as Creator God.
Questions to Consider
- How do you think the physical world, or what we see around us, came to be?
- Exodus 20:3 reads, “You shall have no other gods before me.” How have you heard the word “gods” in this verse explained in the past? Was it explained as “no idols” before God? Or maybe the “god” was “anything that you value” more than God? How do you think the ancient Israelite thought about this phrase “no other gods”?
- If I were to say to you, “Satan, your adversary, will try to lie to you. He will say the supernatural is irrelevant or that it doesn’t exist.” What would your response be?
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