05.006. Chapter 1
“In the beginning God… .” These first four words of the Bible form the foundation for faith. Believe these words, and you can believe all that follows in the Bible. Genesis provides the only authoritative account of creation, meaningful for people of all ages but exhaustible by no one. The divine record assumes the existence of God rather than seeking to prove it. The Bible has a special name for those who choose to deny .the fact of God—see Psalms 14:1; Psalms 53:1.
One of several interpretations of the Genesis account of creation, the creation-reconstruction view says that between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 a great catastrophe occurred, perhaps the fall of Satan. This caused-God’s original, perfect creation to become waste and empty (tohu wabhohu). Since God didn’t create the earth waste and empty (see Isaiah 45:18), only a mighty cataclysm could explain the chaotic condition of Genesis 1:2. Proponents of this view point out that the word translated “was” (hayetha) could also be translated “had become.” Thus the earth “had become waste and empty.” The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, preparatory to the great creative and reconstructive acts to follow. The remaining verses describe the six days of creation and reconstruction which prepared the earth for human habitation. On the first day God commanded light to shine out of darkness and established the day-night cycle. This act is not to be confused with the establishment of the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. In 2 Corinthians 4:6 the Apostle Paul draws a parallel between the original separation of light from darkness and the conversion of a sinner.
Prior to the second day, it seems that the earth was completely surrounded by a thick layer of water, perhaps in the form of a heavy vapor. On the second day God divided this layer, part covering the earth with water and part forming clouds, with the atmospheric layers (“firmament”) between. God called the firmament “heaven”—that is, the expanse of space immediately above the earth (not the stellar heavens, nor the third heaven, where God dwells). Genesis 1:20 makes it clear that the heaven here is the sphere where the birds fly.
Next the Lord caused the earth mass to appear out of the water that covered the face of the planet. Also on the third day He caused vegetation of all kinds to spring up in the earth.
It was not until the fourth day that the Lord set the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens as lightbearers and as means for establishing a calendar. The fifth day saw the waters stocked with fish and the earth stocked with bird-life and perhaps insects. On the sixth day God first created animals and reptiles. The law of reproduction is repeatedly given in the words “after its kind.” There are significant variations within “kinds” of biological life, but there is no passing from one kind to another. The crown of God’s work was the creation of man in His image and after His likeness. This means that man was placed on earth as God’s representative, and that He resembles God in certain ways. Just as God is a Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), so man is a tripartite being (spirit, soul, and body), like God, man has intellect, a moral nature, the power to communicate with others, and an emotional nature that transcends instinct. There is no thought of physical likeness here. In contrast to animals, man is a worshiper, an articulate communicator, and a creator.
There is an intimation of the Trinity in Genesis 1:20 : “And God [Elohim, plural] said, “Let us [plural] make [singular] man in our image…” The Bible describes the origin of the sexes as a creative act of God. Evolution has never been able to explain how the sexes began. In Genesis 1:28, the word “replenish” does not mean to refill, as if there had been a previous race. It means to fill or to stock.
It is clear from Genesis 1:29-30 that animals were originally herbivorous and that man was vegetarian. Were the six days of creation literal 24-hour days, or were they geological ages, or were they days of “dramatic vision” during which the creation account was revealed to Moses? No scientific evidence has ever refuted the concept that they were literal solar days. The expression “the evening and the morning” points to 24-hour days. Everywhere else in the Old Testament these words mean normal days. Adam lived through the seventh day and died in his 930th year, so the seventh day could not have been a geological age. Wherever the word “day” is used with a number in the Old Testament (“first day,” etc.) it means a literal day. When God commanded Israel to rest on the Sabbath day, He based the command on the fact that He had rested on the seventh day, after six days of labor (Exodus 20:8-11). Consistent interpretation here requires the same meaning of the word “day.” A difficulty, however, is that the solar day as we know it may not have begun until the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19). As far as the Bible is concerned, the creation of the heavens and the earth is undated. The creation of man is undated also. However, genealogies are given, and, even allowing for possible gaps in the genealogies, man could not have been on the earth for the millions of years demanded by evolutionists.
We learn from John 1:1; John 1:14, Colossians 1:16, and Hebrews 1:2 that the Lord Jesus was the active Agent in creation. For the inexhaustible wonders of His creation, He is worthy of endless worship.