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The parallels between Genesis 1 and John 1 are obvious. Genesis 1 reads:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

John 1 reads:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3)

These parallels convey the idea that God is “verbal” by His very nature, and He communicated the universe into existence. Indeed, the creation story as it unfolds in Genesis bears this out:

• And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (gen. 1:3)
• And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” (Gen. 1:6)
• And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” (Gen. 1:9)
• Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation…. (Gen 1:11)
• And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night….” (Gen. 1:14-15)
• And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” (Gen. 1:20)
• And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds…” (Gen. 1:24)
• Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness….” (Gen. 1:26)

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that a plural pronoun is used for God in Genesis 1:26. To be verbal by nature, communicative by His very essence, God must have relationship within Himself. In John 1, we read that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, and then John goes further to say this:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)

Of course, he is talking about Jesus – God who became like us, the creatures He created in His own image. Of God and Jesus, John said,

“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God….” (John 1:11-12)

God the Father, loved Jesus, God the Son (the Word), “before the foundation [creation] of the world”. (john 17:24) and Jesus introduced God, the Holy Spirit, when he told His disciples that He was going to be leaving them, and He was going to send them a Helper, an Advocate, a Comforter – the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7) – who would guide them into all truth. (John 16:13)

God the Father, God the Son (or Word) and God the Holy Spirit is the concept of the Trinity. The Trinity may seem like a purely New Testament idea, but its roots are in Genesis. When God “said”, who was He speaking to? When we read that God made man “in our image”, to whom does the plural refer?  In the New Testament, we get a more complete picture of a God who is tripartite, having relationship inherently within Himself.

Thus, when God made man, He said it isn’t good the man should be alone. (Genesis 2:18) Why? Because we are made in God’s image. We are like God, who has relationship within Himself. God is a communicator, and He made us for communication.

God spoke the universe and all created reality into existence. Over and over again, we read that “God said”, and His creation came to be. Then finally, in verse 28, after God created man in his own image, we read as follows:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28)

After the creating was done, accomplished by the Word God spoke, God turns to mankind, male and female, “and He said to them….!” Implicit in that statement is the truth that God made us to be communicators like Him and to be able to receive His communication

This God, the creator of the universe and everything that exists, who spoke everything into being that exists, this God created one creature in His own image. Because they were made in His image, He was able to speak to them, and they were able to understand.

When this God became flesh and dwelt among His creation, “to all [who received] him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”. Remarkable, is it not! We are created like God so that God can speak to us, and we can understand him, and thereby we have the ability and the opportunity to enter into relationship with God!

And we see a progression: from God, the Creator (timeless, spaceless and immaterial) speaking to mankind in the beginning; to God who became flesh, dwelling with people, speaking to people in their own element, in the flesh, face to face; to God the Holy Spirit who is able to dwell within us and speak to us from within us – the Eternal Communicator.

God said, and God still says. God says:

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelations 3:20)