Creation

It seems to me that verse one is generally acceptable to most Christians, but what follows begins to fade into skepticism on account of the plethora of contending narratives regarding origins.

There is a real question that we need to ask ourselves, “Do we believe God is able to do what He says He does, and do we trust that He tells us the truth?”

Seems easy to answer when it’s talking about saving us, because that’s nice to think about.  What about when what He says seems to challenge what the world says, or our feelings?

 I think part of the problem, something I find in conversations, is that most people struggle to understand what’s actually being portrayed in the creation account.  Hopefully today we can shine some light on that and strengthen our understanding; strengthening our faith in God’s record of what He did.

At the same time, we can’t fall into the trap of abstracting it to the point where we allow falsehoods to creep in.  Keep in mind the ten commandments (of course the first place we all go for the ultimate authority on creation, right!?)

Exo 20:11:  For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:…

As plain as it gets, HE made it in SIX days. All of it.  What’s in view here?  Heaven, earth, and sea.  ALL that is in them.  Pretty sure He’s leaving nothing out, at least based on the last time I looked at what “all” means.  Therefore, if it exists, anything, besides God Himself, we’ll find it’s origins in Genesis 1.

Remember also that there is a theme to our Bibles that Randall and I are emphasizing throughout this series which begins in Genesis and is that God gets what He wants, a family. 

Isa 45:18:  For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; he created it not in vain, he formed it be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

God is clear about His intentions for His creation.  The perfect end-state we long for is going to ultimately be recapturing the perfection that was in the beginning, so understanding how it was made originally can really help us to understand what we have to look forward to.

Alright, we ready then?

What we have here is a basic timeline of the first seven days.  This will be the process by which God makes everything, from nothing.  If you’re about to embark then on a building project, a house let’s say, what’s the first thing you need to do?  Plan when the project starts, where you’ll build it, and what materials you’ll use.

What was Genesis 1:1 again?  In the beginning (The creation of time)  God (the builder) created the heaven (the space in which he’ll build) and the earth (the raw materials, all matter.)  It’s the universe being created.  Ever thought about that word, universe?  Uni – singular, Verse – spoken sentence.  Our “universe” is a single-spoken sentence…

This first verse, THE single spoken sentence, isn’t just some summary overview, but it’s actually the creation of time, space, and matter.  The project is underway. 

Gen 1:2:  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Verse 2 here, has been torn apart and rebuilt so many ways trying to find room for all of man’s modern ideas.  We’ll spend some time in a moment talking about the Gap Theory, but this is where it would go according to that idea.  The struggle that people have is when they see verse 1 like it was a complete act.

“If God made the heaven and earth, at some time called ‘The Beginning’, what happened by verse 2 to make it without form and void?”  The problem in my eye is that they overstate what verse 1 is actually telling us, and over-analyze some exceptional meaning into verse 2.

The simplest, and most accurate way to read verse 2 is to say that after God decided when and where to put His creation, having made the building materials, He observed the building site and rolled up His sleaves to get to work.  The statement, “without form and void” simply means “unformed and unfilled.”

If you’re building a house and the project site has just been laid out, you wouldn’t be upset or questioning the builder “why isn’t the house done? And where are the people who live here?”  Of course not, there’s a process to get there, work to be done.

Moreover, God anticipated the deceptions that would emerge, to discredit Him.  Things like reincarnation, cycles of birth and rebirth, not just people but the universe itself; this account is structured to emphasize there was a definite starting point, and like a potter to clay God will personally form each and every component to it’s desired specification.

On top of that, the order in which He made things specifically contradicts any other naturalistic theory of origins.  God did it like it couldn’t be imagined without Him.  More on that later.

Gen 1:3-5:   And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And the evening and morning were the first day.

So day 1 is in the bag.  We began with time, space, and matter; forming a canvas upon which God would build His creation, and the next step was light.  The way I like to think of this was God creating energy.  The materials were there, and now they’re charged.

Something else we see here for the first time which will come up again each day is this phrase, “evening and morning were the X day.”  At first glance we pass that by as it were common sense.  But look again, evening to morning.. would just be the night portion, not a 24 hour period.  So what gives?

So the word we see translated as evening and morning throughout this chapter are Erev and Bohker.  Indeed they are used to convey the concepts of evening and morning today, but there’s more to these words.

Erev – derives it’s meaning from obscuration.  Conveys encroaching darkness which makes one unable to discern forms, shapes, or identities.  It also has ties to increasing entropy, which is disorder and chaos.

Bohker – the opposite of Erev.  Derives it’s meaning from “becoming discernable.”  Describes the breaking forth of light to bring relief to obscurity and bring about perception and order.  Denotes decreasing entropy or the move from chaos to order.

These words became synonymous with “evening” and “morning” because of what they describe, darkness setting in and light breaking forth.  In Genesis 1 however, God intends for us to understand the root of the words.  With each step of creation, we’re seeing the house getting built.  From undiscernible stacks of raw materials to a fully formed house in which He can place His family.

Therefore, when you read “evening and morning were the X day” you can understand it as “from chaos to order in the X day.”

Now that we understand the framework for Genesis 1, we’ll move more quickly through the following days.

Gen 1:6-8:   And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And 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.  And the evening and the morning were the second day.

So what we have here in building project day 2 is the separation of the waters and the establishment of the atmosphere.  Elsewhere in scripture you find that this word “firmament” is used to describe where the birds fly, so read it as “sky.”  Notable is that the separation of the waters is vertical, not horizontal.  Some people think of this as the creation of the oceans and continents, but that’ll come later.  Genesis indicates that God originally made the earth with a canopy of water as the outermost layer of our atmosphere.

This shell, if you were, would do a couple important things; it would filter out vastly more harmful radiation than what happens today, would increase air pressure, and a few other things which matter if you’re scientifically showing how things like dinosaurs could exist on the earth, or how things lived so long and grew so big.

Day 3: - Gen 1:9-13:   And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Day 3 then brings about the dry land.  Based elsewhere in scripture and from geological studies it’s reasonable to assume that, just like in day 2, this separation was vertical, not horizontal.  Something to bear in mind is that the vast majority of the water in our oceans today would have been under the crust of the earth in subterranean water chambers.

There would have been springs that come up, feeding water to the vegetation and making networks of rivers and lakes, but no oceans like we know today.  Recall Isaiah 45, God made the earth to be inhabited, which sensibly implies that it would have been nearly universally hospitable towards life as opposed to the roughly 9% which is inhabited today.

That land was then populated with plants.  The house is framed and taking shape now.

Day 4:  Gen 1:14-19:   And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

So day 4 is sun, moon, and stars.  Notable is their purpose, signs seasons days and years.

Psalm 19:1-2:   The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

What God intended for the sky to reveal was His glory, including His plan to redeem that which He was making, knowing in advance it would need saving.  Sure day and night was part of the reason, but signs and seasons points to prophecy and the “appointed times.”

I wonder if the modern occultic practice of astrology has anything to do with perverting God’s creation?..

Day 5:  Gen 1:20-23:   And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 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 fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Day 5, we’ve moved beyond the building of the house itself, and now God is making those which will occupy this new house.  Day 5 focuses on birds and fish.  Note that modern taxonomy didn’t exist when this was translated, and whales referred to any large water creature, a subset of fish.  This is speaking to all marine life.

Day 6: Gen 1:24-30  And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Day 6 brings about all ground dwelling life, including of course us, mankind, and yes, dinosaurs.  He also dictates what our diet would consist of.  Plants are not “alive” in a Biblical definition, but rather are a self replicating food source.

God  now has all the elements of a family in place that He set out to make.  Something to note, as soon as God makes man He immediately imparts onto him responsibility.  From the first chapter onward God is clear that we have a purpose, and there’s no excuse for laziness or idle hands. 

Throughout these passages God instructs every living thing He makes to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  How many of you having known God or not received those orders loud and clear?  Amen.

We’ll circumvent the countless rabbit trails available to us here and point out that God’s instruction makes it clear that He was never content to only have that which was made in the beginning, but He wanted His family to grow.  God’s love is boundless and as many as can be with Him, He desires.

So, quick review of the chart here.  Day 1 – time, space, matter, and energy.  Day 2 – dividing heavens and earth.  Day 3, Dry land and plants.  Day 4 – Sun moon and stars.  Day 5 – fish and Birds.  Day 6 – Land animals and Man.  Day 7 we won’t see until the next chapter, but that would be the day of rest.

If you noticed, we hadn’t yet seen on day 6 the familiar closing phrase of “evening morning, etc.”  This chapter ends on day 6 with a special iteration which we’ll begin to wrap up on.

Gen 1:31   And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.  And the evening and morning were the sixth day.

This closes with God stepping back and reviewing the work from start to finish.  The builder has completed the home and it’s now got a family moved in, dogs and cats too.

But there’s something special which stands out if you’re paying close attention.

Every day so far in which God comments on things being “good” was just that, good.  In this last verse God says that it is VERY GOOD.  Seems trivial at first until you peel back to what was different in the text from which this was translated.  The way that phrase would be best understood is “…it was a perfectly unified order.”

In chapter 2 when day seven accounts for God’s day of rest there is no statement regarding evening and morning.  This to me shows that we’re on the right track with the meaning being deeper.  If each day, as progress is made, we’re being told that the heap of raw materials is moving from chaos to order, and by the end of day six we’ve reached a PERFECT, unified order… then the work is complete.  There would be no account of “evening and morning” on day 7 because you can’t beat perfection.

Bearing that in mind, we do have to circle back to what we mentioned earlier and contend with other perspectives on this creation week that circulate within the church.  One would be the Day Age theory, and the other the Gap Theory.  Regardless of where you stand on these, they aren’t necessarily salvation dependent, therefore we have zero excuse to divide on these issues.

Friendly debate and discussion is encouraged, but there can be no malice or ill will towards someone for leaning toward a different perspective.  That said, this is why I tend to feel that these theories have too many holes to hold water.

First the day age.  This would contend that we don’t know that God actually meant a day, but maybe these were each vast amounts of time?  Out of dozens of the holes in this one I’ll mention 2 things.

Back in my day we’d walk 5 miles a day during the day.

How many of you were confused by that?  I used day 3 times, how did you understand what I meant by that?  Context and literary structure.  It just makes sense.  In Hebrew it’s the same way.  One word is used in the same various ways for day like we use.  In Gensis 1, the context and literary structure only allows for it to refer to a normal, 24 period kind of day.

Secondly, lets look back at the chart.  Notice day 3, then day 4, then day 5.  What came first?  The PLANTS.  What do plants need to eat?  Sunlight… which came a thousand years later or a day later?  How about reproduction?  Don’t insects and birds carry pollen from plant to plant?  Man these plants will be in trouble… unless we’re talking about a day or two, like God said.

What is more challenging to your faith:  God did what He said and made it in six actual days, or “it’s OK God, we all make mistakes.”

To me I’m much more comfortable accepting God can create it as He said rather than crediting Him with messing up the delivery of His Word.

That one aside, we’ll look at the Gap Theory.  I’ve done a whole work up on this one in the past, so we’ll touch on the highlights from Genesis 1 that I think make this one shaky.  Bear in mind that this one is much more well thought out at least compared to Day-Age Theory.

The idea here is that there is a gap between verses 1 and 2, possibly of millions or billions of years.  The explanations of this time gap have changed since the theory’s origins, but the most predominant version today would suggest that satan fell during that time, and massive rebellion took place, and the earth was destroyed.

What this does is take verse 1 and assume that in that one verse God made everything and it was good, angels populated that one, but the war in heaven when satan fell ended up destroying the earth in the process and thus made it “without form and void” like we see in verse 2.

Verse 2 onward is God re-creating the earth and mankind arrives on the scene and the rest is history.

They justify wiggling this in here because there is ambiguity to the text in Hebrew on what is said in verse 2.  Unlike English, where we have much more specificity with our use of words and spelling, Hebrew relies on the reader inferring vowels and meaning from similar root words based on context.

Given how little context there is here, it would be TECHNICALLY correct to translate it like we see here, OR to say “And the earth BECAME without form and void.”  For those who want to believe that the universe is billions of years old, they’ll lean heavily on this potential translation.

Where this falls apart for me, ultimately is verse 31.  If everything is a perfectly unified order, if there is no chaos or disorder in ALL OF CREATION, then how is it that Satan could have fallen?  Moreover, like mankind the angels had jobs to do.  Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 talk about satan and his job before he fell.  It specifically states that he was in Eden, the garden of God, which was planted on day 6.

Proponents of this theory would argue this might be a heavenly Eden, not the one from the Bible, but something about verse 31 doesn’t allow that to work, in my opinion.

I believe that God’s desired family includes Himself at the top, angels doing one kind of job, man doing another, and animals also fulfilling their roles.  In the Garden we see that Adam walked with God, and I don’t think this was a spiritual thing.  I believe that the perfectly unified order spoken of in verse 31 speaks to a creation in which there is no physical realm or spiritual realm, there’s just THE realm, THE creation.  God and His creation living together in perfect harmony.

We know that’s what He says is in store for us in the new heavens and new earth, and as Randall pointed out last week God’s plan is to restore things to Eden, only with millions more occupants, i.e. a much larger family.

God’s made his move.  Currently there is no enemy, but God knew in advance what would change, it was written in the stars… 1 Peter says we were not redeemed with corruptible things, but by the precious blood of Jesus, the spotless lamb, who was foreordained before the foundation of the earth.  Anticipating an enemy, God made the way for salvation to ensure He gets the family He desires.