Introduction to the book of Genesis
From the Commentary on Genesis by Peter S Ruckman:
“The book was written by Moses and is commonly called “The First Book of Moses.” It has 50 chapters, 1,534 verses, and 38,267 words. It is found first in the list of books in the Hebrew canon and in the English canon. The word “Genesis” is kin to “generations,” “genes,” or “generate,” and marks the book as “the Book of Beginnings.” It records the beginning of the Heavens, the Earth, Man, Sin, Redemption, the Races, and the Covenants. Its outstanding characters are Adam and Eve, Noah and Enoch, Cain and Abel, Lot and Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and Judah. The types of Jesus Christ in the Book are Adam, Abel, the Lamb, Isaac, the Ark, Judah, Shiloh, and Joseph. The types of Antichrist are Cain, Ham, Nimrod, Laban, Ishmael, Esau, and Pharaoh.* Every major doctrine in both Testaments is found in the first twelve chapters, and the book is a supplement to the Book of Revelation, making the Bible an infinite circle, with neither beginning nor ending, in regard to its inexhaustible riches.”
In the beginning, God
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”
The Bible starts with “In the beginning God”. It is appropriate that “beginning” is next to the word “God.” If you look at the Hebrew text, they do the same thing. They deliberately put “God” next to “beginning.” This shows the power of the King James Text against any modern version.
All the things that make up the universe and the elements of science are in this verse.
1: Time- In the beginning
2: Motion- Created
3: Energy- God created
4: Space- Heaven
5. Matter- Earth (all physical objects)
Verse one debunks so much. It debunks:
- Polytheism. Many believe in more than one God, but the Bible says, “in the beginning God”, notice the singular God. So, polytheism is out of the picture.
- Evolution. The earth did not evolve by itself; it was created.
Genesis 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.”
The earth was without form, so it had no form to it. There’s a deep and darkness covering it. The question is, what happened here? Most creationists will say the Lord was putting the earth at the preparation stage for his creation. That is not true. Read the verse as it says. It did not say “God prepared”, it said “created”. When God created the earth, it is created where it is inhabited and has form. Did it say “created” in past tense? Yes, if it is past tense in “created,” it should have form and be inhabited.
The Genesis gap
Isaiah 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 to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
The Genesis Gap teaches that God created heaven and earth before Adam and the numbered days of creation. The sons of God, the angels, and Lucifer were the ones living there. But, because of their sin against their Maker, God had to send a universal flood that drowned out the universe and the earth.
Then God had to start from scratch because there was darkness and the deep (look at verse 2). Looking at verse 2, we see that it is not creation; it is chaos. Due to the angels’ sin, God sent a catastrophic event that would wipe out the sons of God, civilization, and start from scratch beginning with mankind.
Mankind is a lower form of creature, not like angelic beings. That’s why Lucifer and the fallen angels hates mankind and tries to attack us.
Looking at Isaiah 45:18, we see that if one does not believe in the Genesis gap, they will contradict scripture. God said He formed the earth. In Genesis 1: 1-2, the earth was without form and void.
Let’s also look at the book of Job:
Job 38: 4 “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.”
So, where was Job at the laying of the foundations of the earth? Mankind was not there. But the sons of God (angels) were there. Look at verse 7:
Job 38:7 “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
Why were they shouting for joy at that time? Maybe because it was created for them.
Now look at 2 Peter 3:4:
2 Peter 3:4 “And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
What’s the timeline? “From the beginning of creation”. So, this next verse is not Noah’s flood. It’s a different flood because the timeline is from the beginning of creation. Compare the coming verse with Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning… the earth… waters.”
2 Peter 3:5-6 “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:”
Notice the verse denotes a universal flood because it says, “heavens” in its plural form. “The earth standing out of the water and in the water” tells us that it’s a universal flood.
2 Peter 3:7 “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
What does the Bible mean with “heavens and earth?” The answer is the universe. In Revelation 22, God gets rid of the old heavens and the earth, and He puts a new heaven and a new earth. We all know that is a universal destruction. So, if you know Revelation 22 has a universal destruction, why can’t we follow the same context in 2 Peter 3:5-6?
Objection #1: The hydrological stage is a preparation process, not destruction
It is difficult to accept the Genesis gap because of evolution. Creationists have a fear of believing that they are caving into evolution. Their premise is the earth is millions of years old before God did the six days of creation. They teach that God created the earth, and He put it in a watery state (verse 2) as a preparation process for his creation. This is similar to what evolutionists teach. Evolutionists teach that Genesis 1:1-2 is the earth in a hydrological stage. Through time, life was formed.
Creationists fail to understand that water is not creating life; it is destruction. They use the argument about water, sunlight, and other elements in the universe. It is not possible for life to form from that.
Objection #2: Why wouldn’t God mention the gap?
Some might also say, that it is too much of a story to put between verses 1 and 2. Why didn’t God make a mention of that? God doesn’t make mention of a lot of things and He’ll put gaps. Look at Daniel chapter 1. Look and see there is a gap between verse 1 & 4 in the book of Daniel.
Daniel 1:1-4 “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his God; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his God. And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king’s seed, and of the princes; Children in whom was no blemish…”
If you start at verse 1, “in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim…”. Then go throughout the timeline with Daniel, we see a lot of information missing in between.
There is some debate about the year’s count with Daniel chapter 1 because there’s a huge jump of time. There are three major captivities:
- 606BC by Jehoiakim,
- 598BC by Jehoiachin,
- 586BC by Zedekiah.
There are three major captivities: when we can see that the destruction of Jerusalem. Some people only look at one thing in the Bible and assume conclusions. Sometimes the Lord will only give partial information and skip a lot of the other information to go to the next point.
Spirit of God brings life
Genesis 1:2 “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
The Spirit of God is starting to move now. Where there originally was destruction, is now God’s Spirit, which is like breath. That is where life is received. God is coming down here, and He is moving on the face of the waters. He is about to do something.
Interestingly, God’s Spirit is moving on the face of the waters because that is where there were spirits that departed. Since there is death all over, the Spirit of God has started creation. These dead spirits are the fallen angels. Some angels got affected by this universal flood, and these spirits went down to hell.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
So, notice at death, God’s Spirit departs, and the Lord does as he wants with the spirits.
2 Peter 2:4-5 “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;”
We see that this is about the angels that kept not their first estate during Noah’s days. Genesis 1:1-2, “darkness was upon the face of the deep” matches with 2 Peter 2:4, “…cast down…chains of darkness…”
1 Peter 3:19 “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;”
These spirits are in prison, which shows that they are sons of God. God prepared hell for the devil and his angels.
When did hell start? It is for these fallen angels. If we got rid of the Genesis gap, there is no origin of hell. It is that time when God said, “darkness.” Through this universal catastrophic event, there was total chaos. Noah’s flood was just a small flood.
When the spirits from the universal flood went to hell, the Spirit of God came upon the surface. Spirit means life. When a spirit departs, it means death.
So, what is going to happen? Creation is about to begin.
Genesis 1:3 “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
God speaks and there was light. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Spirit can mean breath, God is about to speak something into existence.
John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
It is the Word that created everything. When God says something, it must be created.
Genesis 1:4 “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
God divides the light from the darkness. There is light that existed before the sun. Where did this element of light come from?
John 1:4-7 “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.”
That light described in John 1 is our Lord Jesus Christ. The light is God.
Some creationists, including Larkin and Scofield bow down to evolution which is falsely called science.
The Bible never said God created the darkness, and it was good. The darkness was already there during the days of creation. It is something negative, destructive, and bad.
Light on the other hand, is connected to God. Even the eastern religions saw that. Light and darkness, good and evil, yin and yang, both elements must exist for the universe to come into existence. But that is not true. In Revelation 21, God is doing fine without evil, all of evil is cast into hell. God does not need the universe to exist with evil. These eastern religions have partial knowledge of something. Basically, there was evil at Genesis 1:4.
If darkness has always been there, light was the one that created all things. Then the idea is that darkness is not good, and light is connected to God. If God cast all the evil into hell, what would be left over? Light.
Revelation 21:25 “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.”
Revelation 22:5 “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever.”
Light is called “day” and darkness is called “night”.
In Genesis 1:5, God called the light “day.” It is matching with Revelation 21 and 22. The light is from God then the darkness he called “night.”
Evening and morning
Genesis 1:5 “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
God puts time in creation. He has light (from heaven) and darkness (throughout the universe) but did not go by a sun and moon time system.
That was the first day of God’s creation, evening and morning. Theistic evolution is the combination of theism and evolution. They believe that God used evolution for all the universe to exist. They teach that throughout billions of years, each day in Genesis represents an extended range of time. That is easily debunked because the day here is described as evening and morning. That is a literal day of 24 hours.
The three heavens
Genesis 1:7 “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.”
God never called this day good. On the other days of His creation, He calls it good. Why not here? That is because there is nothing good about the darkness in it.
Genesis 1:8 “And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
God divided the waters. We see that God called the firmament “heaven.” There was the first heaven in Genesis 1, and this is the second heaven. There are 3 heavens in your Bible.
2 Corinthians 12:2 “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.”
The first clue is that this firmament is called “heaven.” The second clue is verses 16-17.
Genesis 1:16-17 “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,”
We see that the second heaven refers to outer space in the universe. If
- the firmament is the universe,
- this water is above the universe and heaven is above the universe,
- this water must be the floor of heaven itself.
Revelation 4:6 “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.”
The sea of glass (frozen water) is from Genesis 1.
Genesis 1:9-10 “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.”
The waters below are called “seas” and the water above is called “sea of glass.”