Genesis 1:1 states – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
One writer has said, “The only proper way to interpret Genesis 1 is not to ‘interpret’ it at all. That is, we accept the fact that it was meant to say exactly what it says.”
Many so-called experts would like us to believe that there wasn’t a creator, but that it all happened by chance, it evolved and started with a Big Bang millions of years ago. It is beyond belief when we look at creation and what is all around us that these things just happened. I believe we must conclude that there must have been a creator, and the Bible tells us it was God. This is often referred to as intelligent design, and what greater intelligence could we have than God. I once read that if we believe that God did this, we have no problem with the rest of the Bible. He could do this so there is no problem with Him doing anything else. When we consider the intricacy and vastness of the universe we have to exclaim – ‘What an amazing God!’
The book of Genesis is vital to our understanding of the rest of the Bible, indeed to the understanding of life as we know it. Someone has said that almost all the doctrines and teachings of the Bible have their beginnings in Genesis. Sin, the fall, salvation, the promise of a Saviour and many others are found in this book. We learn about all aspects of life, good and evil here.
The Prophet Isaiah makes some astounding statements given to him by God, “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured the heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure” (40:12) ”My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together” (48:13)
Job also makes amazing statements about God – 26:7 “He stretches out the north over empty space, He hangs the earth on nothing…. “
A Psalmist said (Psalm 148:1-6) “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights!
Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light!
Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For He commanded, and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away.”
Isaiah (40:25,26) says, “To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, By the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; Not one is missing.”
Any thoughts of this happening by chance must be jettisoned. Many have come up with this theory over the years, but ‘chance’ never made anything, and any such theory is disproved. We can only make things out of something, but God did all this out of nothing. Everything in creation fits together perfectly. I believe the Hebrew word used is ‘bara’ and means ‘created out of nothing’.
I am not going to go into the various theories that have been propounded over the years from evolution to Big Bang etc., I am simply stating what the Bible says because that is what I believe. People seem to think science disproves the Bible, but many writers have given their expertise. Many think that all scientists do not follow the Bible but that is not true. Even I have several friends who are scientists and Christians, Professors Andy McIntosh, Steve Taylor, David Back to name but three. They write and speak at many places with other similar-minded brothers. If you want to read superb stuff look them up on your internet provider. Another writer has said that evolutionists are not interested in testing if their theory is true. They simply say that once you ignore the creating hand of God, it is the only explanation available, so what proof is that?
Jesus quoted Genesis as a historical record in Matthew 19 and 23 and someone said that if God had given us the book of Genesis as a scientific record no-one could understand it because he is God, and his understanding is past fathoming. Science is changing all the time as we are discovering things, but God never changes. God is from everlasting – “LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Psalm 90:1-2). God exists eternally, His act of creation marks the beginning of the universe in time and space.
Jesus acknowledged that He was there before creation – “O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was…for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5, 17:24).
Job indicates that God created angels before the beginning of time because they witnessed creation (Job 38:7) and Isaiah tells us of the rebellion and fall of Satan and his angel followers before creation. (14:12-15).
1:2 “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
It seems to me that God created it without order and uninhabited and what follows in six days was God bringing order and occupancy to His creation. We are not told why God chose to begin with a dark, chaotic mess but we soon see how, amazingly, He brought order, wonder and beauty to His creation. There was a fantastic pattern to His creation.
Without God our lives are a mess and when He comes in, He brings order, beauty and a pattern to our lives.
Here we are introduced to the third person of the trinity, The Holy Spirit. ‘Elohim’ is singular, but the verbs and adjectives connected with it are plural. Perhaps the first introduction to the Three Persons in One – God, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Someone has counted that thirty-two times in this chapter the name for God in Hebrew is ‘Elohim’ which emphasis His majesty and power.
We come to the six days of creation. There may be disagreement as to whether these were six days of 24 hours as we know them. However, I believe they were just that. If they were not so, I believe God would have told us. The reference to day and night, morning and evening must go to support that.
In beautiful and amazing order, God starts with light (v3-5). Light is what we need to bring us out of chaos. Notice that God simply, yet powerfully, said, “Let there be light and there was light.” He did not manufacture light, He simply commanded it. He divided the light from the darkness and called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night’. That was the fruit day. Spurgeon said that it was sublimely brief. ‘Light be: light was.’
It is interesting to note that the sun and moon were not created until the fourth day, so light, darkness, day and night existed prior to that. It could be that there was simply a division between day and night, light and dark which was recognisable. Thus, that was the end of the first day.
On the second day, (v6-8) “God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.”
This is difficult to understand, certainly for a simple man like me. The firmament is translated as ‘an expanse’ (NIV) or ‘space’ (NLT) separating the water in the sky (or water vapour) from the water of the land.
The wise writer of Proverbs (3:19,20) reminds us – “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens; By His knowledge the depths were broken up, And clouds drop down the dew.”
That was the end of the second day.
On the third day (v9-13) God divided the land from the sea and created plants and trees. I remember as a boy I was given an encyclopaedia which stated that all life began in the sea. My godly mother was incensed by that and said categorically that it was not true. I can see what she meant because whilst it seems that the land was covered with water, God commanded that the waters under the heavens should be gathered into one place and dry land appear. He called the dry land, earth and the waters, seas. It is, therefore, not true to say all life began in the sea, because God went on to create vegetation only after dividing the land from the sea.
Whilst plants require light and heat to grow, we see again that God created them without the presence of the sun as this was the third day and the sun and moon were not yet created.
It is interesting to note that those who support evolution or that creation took place over a long period and not literal days, say that plants etc could not grow without sunlight. How then would they explain this?
Genesis states that “it was so” on God’s command and not over millions of years. Quite honestly their arguments against Genesis creation account, and there are several, are so hard to believe.
The earth brought forth grass, herbs that yield seed and trees that yield fruit containing seed. These were created as mature plants and each one ‘according to its kind’. What a plethora of kinds and colours. God tells us that it was good in His eyes. He was satisfied with it. All this completed the third day.
On the fourth day (v14-19) God created the sun, moon and stars. These lights were to divide the day from the night and for signs and seasons, and days and years.
You will recall that on day one God created light so there was light and darkness, day and night. Now it appears that God gives the sun, moon and stars the responsibility to govern the day and the night. The sun would appear in the day and the moon and stars at night. They would be signs and seasons also. These lights mark and measure time and direction. I love the almost casual, throw-away statement – “He made the stars also”. Just think how many stars there are. – millions and millions, even among the ones we can see but what about the ones we can’t see! We can determine north from particular stars. We experience the warmth of the sun, particularly in the season of summer and the light of the moon and stars, particularly on cold crisp clear nights of winter. Psalm 147:4 and Isaiah 40:26 tell us that God has names for the stars and knows if even one of them is missing. God asks Job (38:31) about the Pleiades, Orion and the Great Bear, names that we still know today.
Many today delve into astrology, but it is satanic and is to be avoided. See Isaiah 47:12-14 – “Stand now with your enchantments and the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have laboured from your youth — perhaps you will be able to profit, perhaps you will prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from what shall come upon you. Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them; They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.” Deuteronomy 18:10,11 forbids anyone who makes his child pass through the fire, or practices witchcraft, a soothsayer or interprets omens (an observer of times (KJV)), or a sorcerer, a medium, spiritism, or calls up the dead. He says they are an abomination to Him. This includes horoscopes (lit. an observer of times) and the like.
God saw that what He had done was good and that was the fourth day.
On the fifth day God said, (v20-23) “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So, God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
All these were created at God’s command at the same time. There is no evidence that these evolved over millions of years, and each one was ‘according to its kind’, no question of one becoming another kind, but fully formed.
What an interestingly busy day this must have been. They were told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. What fascinating creatures, birds, sea creatures there are, all of which God created on this fifth day.
We come to the sixth day (v24-31) and another very busy day lay ahead. God begins by bringing forth “living creatures according to its kind”. These land animals of incredible variety included cattle, creeping things and beasts. God saw that it was good, He was completely satisfied with it.
God goes a stage further and we read “Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness….”
Note the plurality – ‘us’ and ‘our’ which are consistent with the triune God, which we know as the trinity. Man is different to other animals for he is in the image of God. Only human beings can have a relationship with God, experience His love and have a Saviour who died for our sins, and Jesus coming to earth in the form of a man shows that God The Son could come in human life and human form. He didn’t come as an angel. We are not told that angels were made in the image of God. Only as a human could He go to the cross and die for our sin.
Only human beings have personality, morality and spirituality. We have feelings, knowledge and a will; we can make moral judgments, we have a conscience, and we can have communion with God.
God gave man dominion over the fish, the birds, cattle and all creeping things (v26) which shows that man has pre-eminence over the rest of creation thus we have a responsibility for our environment.
God created male and female and blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.”
Genesis 1 is an overview and in chapter 2 we are given fuller detail of God’s creation of male and female. Creation of male and female, the differences are not accidents, they are distinct and have a purpose, their gender is specific, and today’s gender confusion is totally against God’s will and creation.
God blessed them. How important that is and how we all need His blessing. His blessing included a command and without His blessing there is no way we could fulfil His will. Man was given dominion over the earth and told to be fruitful and multiply. Some seem to think that the multiplying only came after the fall and almost as a punishment but it is clear that the command to multiply came before. Human reproduction is different from that of animals. Sexual desires in humans are completely different from animals. Human relationships are not only for having children but for pleasure. Sex was given by God, a beautiful thing between a husband and wife and a private thing and a bonding of their relationship but animals, generally, have no inhibitions.
It is apparent that they would initially be vegetarians as God said that herbs, plants and trees would be for food. It was only after the flood of Noah’s day that God told them that the animals were for food (Genesis 9:3).
We have to remember that until the fall there was no sin, death or decay, everything was perfect, so it is little wonder that at the end of this sixth day God saw what He had done and said it was very good.
