Creation day one – in the beginning
Thank you for looking at our Creation series, my desire in these pages is to look at the literal days of creation and in greater detail quoting primarily from the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis.
Genesis 1:1 (ESV) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
In the beginning from the book of beginnings
Genesis is called Genesis because it is exactly that. It is the “book of beginnings” It makes up the first book of the Torah, the first of the TNK (Tanakh) and also the first of the Bible (both Catholic and reformed versions) it is simply where the story begins.
Unsurprisingly it begins with the phrase “In the beginning…” tells you that the story begins at the start. God really started with a blank canvas, there was no pre-civilization, no dinosaurs prior to creation, there was what it says in Genesis chapter one verse one, that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Why are there so many pages about this?
It is a subject with vast quantities of knowledge; it is a subject that has been hotly contested, not just by people who believe that evolution is correct, but also debated by theologians unto what it all means. The important words on this page are the quoted Bible verses. Those are the infallible, inerrant word of God. I am just a guy who wishes to follow Gods plan for my life and present these verses to you giving words that God has revealed to me and explanations that follow a conservative Christian belief.
Let’s unpack the text
Verse one states the timeline.
Genesis 1:1 (ESV) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The five words that could possibly mean something different in this text are beginning, God, created, heavens and earth. Unsurprisingly “beginning” means “beginning”, God is the word “Elohiym” the plural of “Elowaah” which speaks of the plurality of God.
I am saying what you think I am saying, the triune God, both God the father & Jesus the son were there at the beginning of the world. If you look at this both logically and theologically, God starts the book he authored by placing himself there front and center at the creation of the heavens and the earth.
I could quite literally do a page on each of these verses. Imagine for a second what this actually means. God, a being that cannot be measured by a ruler, tape measure or microscope, so infinite that space, time cannot measure or hold him. A God so big that he created the heavens and the earth in one day.
As advanced as modern day science is, it is still catching up after many years on what God created in one day. In our galaxy alone there are billions of stars, we (as in our planet) are less than a speck of dust in the vast universe out there. That is just our galaxy, there is so much out there that we have not discovered nor have no idea what is out there. God did that in a day! Phenomenal when you think about it huh?
The words “God created the heavens and the earth” put the creation account at odds with scientific theory that states that “things happened by chance”. Chance indicates the theory that even although there is order, things such as a breathable atmosphere and being the correct distance from the sun so that we do not freeze or explode the planet, it could as easily have gone the other way and chance could have dictated that this could never have happened. With chance there are no absolutes.
By using the word “created” it tells me that the Gap theory is incorrect as there are no materials that he is working from. He is creating from nothing the universe. Unlike the “Big Bang” which surmises that matter exploded in a big bang giving us what we have now. We have a God who created everything starting with the matter. The word create is “bara'” which means to create, shape or form. The word heaven means “heaven” “visible sky, atmosphere” and earth simply means earth. We see what was created in verse 2…
Without form and void
Genesis 1:2 (ESV) The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Like any good builder, God laid a foundation. He created it as a blank canvas. It is described as “without form and void” God was going to do something about that very quickly. God had planned to use this planet and he was laying the foundations to make it an inhabitable place to live.
The bible does not contradict itself; it lists quite clearly in order what was created and when it was created. He did not create life before a sustainable environment for it to live in, he did not create vegetation before having all of the elements to allow it to grow. God had an order, a perfect order. This is much different to theories such as the “big bang”.
We are told in this verse that it was without form, water based and it was deep. We are also introduced to the third person of the trinity in this verse. We have written documented evidence that the Spirit of God was also there in this new creation.
Genesis 1:3 (ESV) And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God creates light in order to make the first day, let’s face it, logically you can’t have one without the other. People ask about this a lot as a possible discrepancy in the Word of God that the Sun and Moon was created after the light and dark.
When you have Jesus, the literal “Light of the world” and you have just created a universe that couldn’t be explored in millions of years, having the light of the world is good enough don’t you think?
Personally, I am not a fan of darkness! I am clumsy enough as it is, I am super grateful that God provided the light.
Genesis 1:4 (ESV) And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
For me this is another verse that disproves the notion of a “Gap theory” God is listed as acknowledging the light as good. Now a God of truth would not tell us that something is good if there had been a cataclysmic death toll preceding it.
In God’s perfect order he gives us a separation between the dark and the light. We learn in the next verse that this is what we call day and night.
Genesis 1:5 (ESV) God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
The underlying theme in this study (in this article as well as the others) is the order that is shown all the way throughout the creation account. God creates the universe, we then focus in on the earth which at this point is a blank watery canvas, then in order to make it a day he creates light, separates it from the darkness and makes it the first day. Lastly and this may seem blindingly obvious, you can’t have a day without a dark/light separation.
My hope is that these pages will make you investigate the claims of the Bible as regards to the creation account. If you have any questions then please see below.
God bless and I pray this was a blessing and please feel free to like, share or comment on here or whatever social media platforms you use as the Lord leads you to, as always I love questions about this or any other article so please feel free to fill in the form below, all comments are moderated to avoid profanity.