Genesis 1.1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
(from New International Version)

The book of Genesis concerns the descendants of Adam and Eve.

"In the beginning" points to a moment in time. Some believe that it was at that point that time itself began. This belief would be reasonable seeing how time, mass, energy, velocity, etc are all closely intertwined.

One translation of 1 Cor 2.7 reads,
".. we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began."
(from New International Version)

The same Bible version has 2 Tim 1.9,
"..... This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,"

Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History Of Time" page 8, "As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. ... he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe."

We could speculate that just as man was made in God's image, so physical time is somehow a subset of something like "spiritual time".

We know that at this point in time spirit beings already existed.

Job 38:7
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
(from New International Version)

We know also that Jesus existed at that time.

John 1:1-2
"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning."
(from New International Version)

Jesus was not only there he was actually responsible for the creation..

John 1:3
"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."
(from New International Version)

Jesus caused the Old Testament scriptures to be written. Little did the actual recorders imagine that God was more than one person, in fact the Father and the Word. Where "God" is written one can understand it as "God Family". [We do plan an article on this]
"created" here in the Hebrew is conjugated (i.e. formed) in the singular, whereas the word for "God" is "Elohim" which is plural.

According to Vine's Expository Dictionary, the Hebrew word for "created" ".... is of profound theological significance, since it has only God as its subject. .....The verb expresses creation out of nothing"
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)

God has given man the gifts of observation, measurement, and deduction. Men skilled in this area have deduced that creation began from a very small dense mass which exploded.

Stephen Hawking states, page 50, "However, one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem. So in the end our work became generally accepted and nowadays nearly everyone asumes that the universe started with a big bang singularity." [A "singularity" is an event which does not obey the known laws.]

[ This author's question: if one contracts the universe into the scientists' "small dense mass", why not continue with the exercise and consider it all beginning from an infinitely small point ? One could not say, "a infinitely small point in space" because space did not yet exist. That point would be the interface between spirit power and the restricted creation that we inhabit.]

When did all this happen? Physicists now (2006) calculate the event as having taken place 10 billion years ago. [Gen 1:2 by the way occurs at a time very much closer to our's.]

Paul speaking -

2 Cor 12:2
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven.
(from New International Version)

Paul was referring to where God is - where he has his throne in heaven.

Following on logically from Paul's writing, the first heaven would be our atmosphere with its clouds and strong gravitational pull. The second heaven would be the stars, the universe of galaxies extending thousands of light years away.

It would therefore be the first and second heavens being created in Gen 1:1.

The end of the heavens

Depending on the amount of mass in the universe, and the speed at which it may be expanding, it could be that the expansion will reverse, and the universe will collapse back upon itself. Hawking states that this would not happen for another ten thousand million years. "This", he says, page 46, "should not unduly worry us" !

Events could unfold much quicker than that however.

Matt 24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
(from New International Version)

2 Peter 3:10
. . . The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
(from New International Version)

Heb 1:10-12
10 . . . and the heavens are the work of your hands.
11 They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
12 You will roll them up like a robe;
like a garment they will be changed.
(from New International Version) (highlight was mine)

Rev 21:1
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, . . 
(from New International Version)

... and God (a family), filled with love, will continue to patiently plan and work for the ages to come. Who is able to prevent or interrupt him, or keep him from what he has purposed in his heart?