Brent's Bible Studies
Genesis 1 - Creation
Hi guys, I’d like to show you some really cool stuff in Genesis 1. It’s amazing how much is in this first chapter, which lays the foundation for the entire Bible. It begins by naming the three core elements of physics. While it describes the beginning of history, it also lays out a prophecy of the seven thousand years of this universe.
The creation account
First, let’s read through its account of Creation.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
2The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the water.
3Then God said, “Let there be light!” So there was light. 4God saw the light was good. So God separated the light from the darkness. 5God named the light day, and the darkness he named night. There was evening, then morning—the first day.
6Then God said, “Let there be a horizon in the middle of the water in order to separate the water.” 7So God made the horizon and separated the water above and below the horizon. And so it was. 8God named [what was above] the horizon sky. There was evening, then morning—a second day.
9Then God said, “Let the water under the sky come together in one area, and let the dry land appear.” And so it was. 10God named the dry land earth. The water which came together he named sea. God saw that it was good. 11Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: plants bearing seeds, each according to its own type, and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds, each according to its own type.” And so it was. 12The earth produced vegetation: plants bearing seeds, each according to its own type, and trees bearing fruit with seeds, each according to its own type. God saw that they were good. 13There was evening, then morning—a third day.
14Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night. They will be signs and will mark religious festivals, days, and years. 15They will be lights in the sky to shine on the earth.” And so it was. 16God made the two bright lights: the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17God put them in the sky to give light to the earth, 18to dominate the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 19There was evening, then morning—a fourth day.
20Then God said, “Let the water swarm with swimming creatures, and let birds fly through the sky over the earth.” 21So God created the large sea creatures, every type of creature that swims around in the water and every type of flying bird. God saw that they were good. 22God blessed them and said, “Be fertile, increase in number, fill the sea, and let there be many birds on the earth.” 23There was evening, then morning—a fifth day.
24Then God said, “Let the earth produce every type of living creature: every type of domestic animal, crawling animal, and wild animal.” And so it was. 25God made every type of wild animal, every type of domestic animal, and every type of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw that they were good.
26Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness. Let them rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the domestic animals all over the earth, and all the animals that crawl on the earth.”
27So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.
28God blessed them and said, “Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master. Rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that crawl on the earth.”
29God said, “I have given you every plant with seeds on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds. This will be your food. 30I have given all green plants as food to every land animal, every bird in the sky, and every animal that crawls on the earth—every living, breathing animal.” And so it was.
31And God saw everything that he had made and that it was very good. There was evening, then morning—the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1 Heaven and earth and everything in them were finished. 2By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. On the seventh day he stopped the work he had been doing. 3Then God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on that day he stopped all his work of creation.
The big picture
So, let’s look at some details.
It’s really interesting to look at the big picture and compare the days and recurring phrases.
Each day is evening and morning. That is, from sunset to sunset. If you think about it, it’s weird that we start the day at midnight. We take it for granted, but when you don’t have clocks, it’s hard to measure. It’s much easier to begin the day at sunset or sunrise. Since creation began with darkness, nighttime precedes the daytime.
Sunday is the day that God created light. And it’s the day that Jesus rose from the dead, which is why churches usually meet to worship on Sunday.
Saturday is the day God rested from creating stuff, and he commanded Israel to rest in the same way. I’ve personally found great strength adopting this as a day of rest, particularly when I’m so busy doing God’s work on Sundays.
God spoke on the first six days; twice on the third, and three times on the sixth.
“And so it was” happened every day but Thursday.
Every day was good. Friday was “very good”, but God never said that Monday‘s good – interesting…
Since the six days of creation, history has unfolded over the past 6,000 years.
This is a problem for evolution, which makes up a different story. Many believe that evolution proves the Bible is wrong. Evolution begins with the assumption that God who describes himself in the Bible does not exist. I know this is wrong since God’s my most intimate friend. I’ve written a book called “Why I believe the Bible is true” with numerous references debunking evolutionary claims and showing how observational science and history fit the Bible.
Many theologians who don’t understand Creation Science bow to the science gods and try to fit the Bible into the evolutionary timeline. They insert unnatural gaps between verses 1&3 or impose the meaning of “eon” on the word day. The biggest problem is that they’re failing to recognize the evidence of Noah’s flood. Museums all around the world proudly display the fossilized remains of creatures that were buried by massive mud flows like occur during a flood. According to the Bible’s genealogies, the flood was around 2260BC. These theories require that there was death, disease and thorns, before God used them to judge Adam and Eve when they sinned around 4000BC.
If the days of creation are really eons of millions of years, God created vegetation millions of years before pollinating insects and we’d have millions of years of nighttime followed by millions of years of daytime. Evolution asserts that fish evolved to land animals who evolved to birds. But God created fish and birds on day 5, millions of years before land animals on day 6.
Then God created the Sun and Moon on day 4 – after filling the earth with vegetation. But where did the light come from?
Commentary
Let’s go through the account verse by verse and see what we can find.
Day 1 – Separation of light and dark
1In the beginning God created heaven and earth.
The Bible begins by describing the three core elements of physics: time, space and matter. This was the beginning of the physical universe.
2The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the water.
In verse 2, we see the first hint of the Holy Spirit being an independent individual. Throughout the Bible, God is described as residing in Heaven, but here we see his Spirit hovering over the formlessness or chaos of creation.
3Then God said, “Let there be light!” So there was light.
When God said Let there be light, the original Hebrew literally translates as “light be” or “light exist”. At this simple command, there was light.
John explains this at the start of his gospel.
John 1:1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was already with God in the beginning. 3Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him. 4He was the source of life, and that life was the light for humanity.
John 1:14 The Word became human and lived among us. We saw his glory. It was the glory that the Father shares with his only Son, a glory full of kindness and truth.
Along with God the Father in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, Jesus is the Word that existed before creation. Through whose power all things were created.
So, in these first three verses of the Bible, we see the trinity of time, space, and matter of the physical universe and the Trinity of God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Word that proceeded from God, which is Jesus.
4God saw the light was good. So God separated the light from the darkness. 5God named the light day, and the darkness he named night.
“God seeing the light was good” implies that the darkness is not good. Physicists measure light as waves and photons. Darkness is nothing but the absence of light.
Throughout the Bible, righteousness is represented as light and wickedness as darkness.
Paganism teaches that the light and darkness are equal such as Taoism’s yin and yang.
But darkness has no power in itself – it’s just the absence of light or goodness.
Getting back to John, he says
John 1:5The light shines in the dark, and the dark has never extinguished it.
There was evening, then morning the first day.
So, that was the first day - ever.
Day 2 – Separation of the heavens and the ocean
6Then God said, “Let there be a horizon in the middle of the water in order to separate the water.” 7So God made the horizon and separated the water above and below the horizon. And so it was. 8God named [what was above] the horizon sky.
Instead of the horizon, the old King James Bible uses the word firmament. This strange word implies something substantial, rather than the horizon, which is merely a visual separation. Some think that God created an ice canopy over the Earth, which broke during Noah’s flood. There’s a sense of the waters above being the heavens beyond the edge of the universe, or the firmament is the expanse of the universe.
The word sky is often translated as heavens, which could mean the sky, the universe, or where God lives.
In Biblical prophecy, the ocean represents the multitude of people across the world. So, this reflects a separation between people and angels, or between the natural and the supernatural.
There was evening, then morning a second day
So, that was the second day.
Day 3 – Separation of ocean and land
9Then God said, “Let the water under the sky come together in one area, and let the dry land appear.” And so it was. 10God named the dry land earth. The water which came together he named sea. God saw that it was good.
If we were to flatten the surface of the Earth, the land would be 245 meters under water. I find it weird that God gathered the waters together. It makes more sense to me to gather the land together and let the ocean run off like at the end of Noah’s flood. Scientists talk of an ancient super continent called Pangea, which is consistent to the waters being in one place and the land in another. The continents we know today formed during catastrophe of Noah’s flood.
In Biblical prophecy, land represents Israel – the Nation that God chose to serve him and give birth to the savior.
11Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: plants bearing seeds, each according to its own type, and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds, each according to its own type.” And so it was.
When God created vegetation, we see the biological law of Biogenesis: that life only comes from life, of the same kind.
12The earth produced vegetation: plants bearing seeds, each according to its own type, and trees bearing fruit with seeds, each according to its own type. God saw that they were good.
After centuries, scientists still can’t reproduce the raw amino acids for life, let alone create a “simple cell” from base chemicals.
The definition of a species is a group of creatures that can interbreed continuously. Different biological families cannot interbreed such as cats and dogs.
Seeds represent the beginning of something. Jesus related his burial to a seed being buried in the Earth. His resurrection has produced a huge harvest of believers who love God with all their heart all around the world. Jesus as the seed had reproduced many people like him.
John 12:23 Jesus replied to them, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24I can guarantee this truth: A single grain of wheat doesn’t produce anything unless it is planted in the ground and dies. If it dies, it will produce a lot of grain.
13There was evening, then morning—a third day.
So, that was the third day.
Day 4 – Fill the heavens with lights
14Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate the day from the night. They will be signs and will mark religious festivals, days, and years. 15They will be lights in the sky to shine on the earth.” And so it was.
God created the Sun, Moon and stars, not just to provide light and make the sky pretty, but to serve as a calendar.
For sailors, they show the way to where they needed to go.
Astrology recognizes 12 constellations that mark the months. Paganism has corrupted the original Jewish astrology, which tells the story of the gospel.
Across the world, cultures have built Stonehenges to measure the seasons by observing the position of the setting sun from a particular point.
- On the spring and autumn equinoxes, days and nights are equally 12 hours long, on the 21st of March and September.
- On the summer and winter solstices, we have the longest and shortest day, on the 21st of June and December.
These giant calendars were critical for knowing when to plant crops for a successful harvest. People would meet there to celebrate the seasons. Unfortunately, these events devolved into pagan orgies.
The Jewish festivals follow the spring and autumn equinoxes, although they diverged from their original solar calendar to appease the Greek occupation’s lunar calendar.
16God made the two bright lights: the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17God put them in the sky to give light to the earth, 18to dominate the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
When talking of the Sun and the Moon, usually, the words “greater” and “lesser” are used instead of larger and smaller. From a visual perspective, they’re the same size, which makes a solar eclipse particularly spectacular, when the Moon covers the Sun. Sometimes, when the Moon is slightly closer, we see a circle of light from the Sun around it.
The words “greater” and “lesser” also convey the intensity of light. While the Sun is a gigantic nuclear explosion, the Moon produces no light of its own, but reflects the light of the Sun. That’s why it appears to change shape as it orbits the Earth as it cycles through the invisible new moon, waxing through a crescent to a full moon, then waning through a crescent to a new cycle.
As Christians, Jesus says we are the light to the world.
Matthew 5:14 “You are light for the world. A city cannot be hidden when it is located on a hill.
Just as the Moon has no light of its own, but reflects the light of the Sun, we have no righteousness of our own, but reflect Jesus’ righteousness.
Where did the light come from before the Sun Moon and stars were created?
Where God separated light from darkness on day one, he created the natural sources of light on day four.
So where did the light come from on day one?
John 8:12 Jesus spoke to the Pharisees again. He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will have a life filled with light and will never live in the dark.”
In the new creation, the new Jerusalem will be lit by the brightness of God. And Jesus, the lamb who was sacrificed for our sin, will its lamp.
Revelation 21:22 I did not see any temple in it [the new Jerusalem], because the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its temple. 23The city doesn’t need any sun or moon to give it light because the glory of God gave it light. The lamb was its lamp.
This implies that Jesus was the light of creation from day one. Although that sort of implies that he created himself. I think it’s more that he became a part of the creation right from day one and has been with us ever since.
19There was evening, then morning—a fourth day.
So, that was the fourth day.
Day 5 – Fill the ocean and sky with life
20Then God said, “Let the water swarm with swimming creatures, and let birds fly through the sky over the earth.” 21So God created the large sea creatures, every type of creature that swims around in the water and every type of flying bird.
Where God separated the ocean and sky on day 2, on day five, he filled them with life.
Again, we see the law of biogenesis, where life comes from life, of its own kind. Note that the word “creature” is related to the word creation.
On this day God created swimming and flying dinosaurs too – “great sea creatures” aren’t just whales. Their remains were buried in Noah’s flood, which were preserved as the fossils our museums proudly display while telling as very different tale. They continued after the flood but have faded into legends such as the Loch Ness monster.
God saw that they were good. 22God blessed them and said, “Be fertile, increase in number, fill the sea, and let there be many birds on the earth.”
God has blessed all living creatures.
23There was evening, then morning—a fifth day.
So, that was the fifth day.
Day 6 – Fill the land with life
24Then God said, “Let the earth produce every type of living creature: every type of domestic animal, crawling animal, and wild animal.” And so it was. 25God made every type of wild animal, every type of domestic animal, and every type of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw that they were good.
Where God separated the ocean and land on day three, on day six, he filled them with life.
Again, different kinds who reproduce their own kind. This includes the land dinosaurs, which were hunted to extinction by dragon slayers who have since faded into legend, although Mkale Mbembe is rumored to still prowl African jungles.
26Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness. Let them rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the domestic animals all over the earth, and all the animals that crawl on the earth.”
27So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.
When God says, “Let us make humans in our image”, the word “us” sticks out. To avoid supporting the Trinity, some claim it’s the royal “we”. But the King isn’t speaking personally, but as the present representative of the monarchy. Others claim that God’s talking with the angels, but scriptures make no claim of angels participating in creation, except shouting for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid in Job 38:4, 7.
Just as God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, people are created as individuals who become one.
Genesis 2:24 That is why a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh.
God created humans in his image. Just as God is three individuals, a man and a woman come together to become one – a unity in diversity – two very differently individuals who are so intimately related, they are one entity in many regards.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one person may be overpowered by another, two people can resist one opponent. A triple-braided rope is not easily broken.
We become a complete trinity when we include God in our relationship.
When Jesus was asked a trick question about paying taxes,
Mark 12:16 They brought a coin. He said to them, “Whose image and name is this?” They told him, “The emperor’s.” 17Jesus said to them, “Give the emperor what belongs to the emperor, and give God what belongs to God.” They were surprised at his reply.
God created humans in his image. Jesus taught that just as we must pay taxes, we must give to God that which bears his image – that is ourselves.
28God blessed them and said, “Be fertile, increase in number, fill the earth, and be its master. Rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that crawl on the earth.”
This is the first commandment God gave us: make lots of babies, who will make families, who will fill the earth, and manage it and keep it in order. However, because of our selfishness and greed, we’ve pillaged the Earth and not managed it well, which is why it’s such a right mess now.
In a response to this mess, instead of embracing our responsibility to manage it, people are preaching pagan ideas of worshipping Mother Earth by sacrificing people and leaving nature to manage itself.
29God said, “I have given you every plant with seeds on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds. This will be your food. 30I have given all green plants as food to every land animal, every bird in the sky, and every animal that crawls on the earth—every living, breathing animal.” And so it was.
Originally, God gave us plants to eat. There were no carnivores, because there was no death. This all began after the fall.
31And God saw everything that he had made and that it was very good.
Now that God had created people, it wasn’t just good. It was very good.
There was evening, then morning—the sixth day.
So, that was the sixth day.
Creation as prophecy
The first three days are about God separating the chaos to bring order. Over the next three days, God filled what he’d separated – in the same order.
2 Peter 3:8 One day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Some people use this verse to support the idea that the days of creation could be eons. It’s fair to use this verse to say that time is meaningless for God as he exists beyond the constraints of the natural universe.
However, this points to a prophecy in creation. It’s been 6,000 years and we’re expecting Jesus to return soon to reign for another thousand.
The story of creation describes God’s plan for the duration of this universe in 1,000-year days.
In biblical prophecy, Light = Righteousness, Water = The Nations, and Land = Israel
- During the first thousand years, God separated rebellious angels from Heaven when Satan rebelled
- In the second millennia, he separated the righteous from the unrighteous at Noah’s flood
- In the third millennia, he separated Israel from other nations
- In the fourth millennia, he filled Heaven with believers; as Jesus released them from the underworld while he was down there.
- In the fifth millennia, he filled the nations with believers
- In the sixth millennia, he’s now filling Israel with believers as they begin to recognize their Messiah
- In the seventh millennia, all creation will rest as Jesus rules for the last thousand-year day
Just as creation is the beginning of history, this universe is just the beginning of eternity.
Day 7 - The Sabbath day of rest
Genesis 2:1 Heaven and earth and everything in them were finished. 2By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. On the seventh day he stopped the work he had been doing. 3Then God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as holy, because on that day he stopped all his work of creation.
The Sabbath day of rest reminds us of the final thousand years, when Jesus will dwell on Earth, beginning with the wedding supper of the Lamb.
Just as Passover remembers the exodus from Egypt, it looks forward to Jesus’ sacrifice that was fulfilled on that festival.
We remember that with communion, which also looks forward to Jesus’ return.
Epilogue
So that’s my thoughts on Genesis 1’s account of creation.
I pray God would richly bless you as you seek him and seek to understand his Word.
Shalom.
- Brent
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