16/12/18 Genesis 1:1-19 “Days 1-4 of Creation”

 

Genesis 1:1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 

Godelohiym (masculine plural noun)

created – to shape, fashion, create (always with God as subject)

heavenshamayim [heaven; heavens; sky; as abode of stars; as the visible universe; atmosphere; Heaven (as the abode of God)]

eartherets [(from an unused root probably meaning to be firm) earth; land; district; region; territory; inhabitants of the land; space or distance in measurements; soil; land of the living; ends of the earth)

the heaven and the earth – what the Hebrews called the created universe.

 

Creation here must be understood to be formed out of nothing, as per Hebrews 11:3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

 

Although difficult to comprehend, it must be accepted that at some time there was nothing, then later there was the universe. Many theories have been proposed to “explain” the beginning of the universe without involving God, but not one is satisfactory. While the big bang “theory” attempts to explain why the universe is as it is, it is not considered a viable explanation for the creation of the universe itself.

Current conception of the Big Bang model assumes the existence of energy, time, and space, and does not comment about their origin or the cause of the dense and high temperature initial state of the universe. (Wikipedia)

Neither it, nor any other theory, can satisfactorily explain how the materials appeared in the first place, which means that the big bang “theory” cannot replace God as Creator, anyway.

 

Some self-professed “geniuses” have tried to “explain” how the basic raw materials appeared in the first place, but because not one of these theories can be proven, they fail to demonstrate any real truth. One alleged “genius” has said that the matter came from a massive surge of energy, which might be possible, but then fails to explain where this alleged massive surge of energy came from. That same “genius” also said that black holes are the answer to our questions regarding the origins of the universe, but was totally unable to prove anything. More like a “fool”, not a “genius”, methinks, desperately trying to prove that God doesn’t exist. The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. (Psalm 14:1) But when he died, he would have known what he refused to know in this life: that there is surely a God!

 

Genesis 1:2And 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.

 

without formtohuw (formlessness; confusion; emptiness; place of chaos; vain; vanity)

voidbohuw (emptiness; void; waste)

bohuw is found only 3 times in the OT; each time it is paired with tohuw (Here, and Isaiah 34:11But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion (tohuw), and the stones of emptiness (bohuw). and Jeremiah 4:23I beheld the earth, and, lo, [it was] without form (tohuw), and void (bohuw); and the heavens, and they [had] no light.

All occurrences of these two words suggest confusion and nothingness.

 

And the earth existed in chaos and emptiness, and darkness (or obscurity – it couldn’t be seen or understood) was upon the surface of the deep (as in deep water, from a root word meaning confusion or disturbance) Consistent with Jeremiah 4:23, there was no light in Genesis 1:2. Darkness (the absence of light to be able to see anything clearly) seems to be a part of the picture of confusion and emptiness.

 

And the Spirit (breath) of God (elohiym) moved (hovered) over the surface of the waters. “moved” is translated “fluttered” in Deuteronomy 32:11As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

 

Genesis 1:3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 

saidamar (to say; to answer; to say in one’s heart; to think; to command; to promise; to intend) “emir” (ruler, leader; commander) appears to be a related word. The idea is probably that God, as sovereign of all, said it as an order that could not be disobeyed. The speaking of the order is the same as the action being carried out.

 

Let there behayah (1/. something that begins or comes to pass, come into existence; 2/. a change of state, that is, became, something became something else; 3/. to be manifest, so that eye-witnesses may observe the signs of its existence)

The KJV records 3 incidences of this in Genesis 1.

the earth was without form (Vs 2)

Let there be light (Vs 3)

it shall be for meat (Vs 29)

Not every case of “Let there be” is necessarily an occurrence of this word; however, the Interlinear records it in many more places than the KJV manuscripts. Eg. the Interlinear also records this word for “and there was light” (Vs 3). Generally it may be assumed that each occurrence of “Let there be” means to come into existence, and the similar phrase “it was so” generally means that which was to come into existence has indeed done just that. That is, God commands something to exist, and it therefore exists as a result.

 

Let there be light – Let light come into existence. And because the word was spoken, the order came into being: and there was light.

Psalm 33:8-98 Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. 9For he spake, and it was [done]; he commanded, and it stood fast.

Literally, God only has to say the word and it is done.

 

Genesis 1:4And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

 

And God looked upon the light (that He had brought into existence) and saw that it indeed was good (pleasant; agreeable; acceptable according to His will), and God divided the light from the darkness (separated the light from the darkness; made a distinction between light and darkness). That is, as per next verse, day was now separated from night.

 

Genesis 1:5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day (yowm).

 

Now we have day (light) and night (darkness). This is the completion of the first day. One cycle of light and darkness equates to one day. Of course, logically speaking, until there was day and night, we couldn’t have had the first day. And this clearly defines the first day as one day followed by one night, a 24-hour period. (It’s impossible to see how each of these days could be long periods of time because they have been defined as a day and night period. Unless it is interpreted as not literal, but symbolic which is in itself illogical here.)

Note Exodus 20:11For [in] six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

 

Note that we have day (light) and night (darkness) even though the sun, moon and stars are not created until the 4th day (Genesis 1:14-19). This should not be a problem to understand, noting that in the end there will be no need of the light from either the sun or the moon in the new Jerusalem, for God is the light there (Revelation 21:23; 22:5).

 

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

 

And God commanded, Let a firmament (the vault or arch of the sky; probably our atmosphere; the sky) come into existence in the midst (between) the waters in order to divide two types of waters (in this case, the seas and oceans etc below from the clouds and vapours in the heavens above).

 

Genesis 1:7And 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.

 

In this way God caused the firmament to be made, such that it divided the waters below from the waters above. In this way it was done.

 

Genesis 1:8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

 

Our word “heaven” comes from a Saxon word meaning “heaved up above”. The Hebrews probably thought of it as being in the heights, or very high above them. The people [is] greater and taller than we; the cities [are] great and walled up to heaven; (Deuteronomy 1:28)

 

The great expanse (sky, atmosphere) between the waters below and the waters above was named by God as “Heaven” (the heights). (Did God actually call this firmament “Heaven” or was it a word that the people understood God to have called it? Note John’s descriptions in Revelation using the language of his day.)

 

And the 2nd day (the evening – sunset; the coming of night-time – and morning – break of day; the coming of daylight) was now completed; a 2nd 24-hour period has now occurred.

 

Genesis 1:9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry [land] appear: and it was so.

 

God now commands that the waters below the firmament be gathered together (collected) into one place, thus permitting dry land to appear. But, how do you gather water together without raising its level? Probably by raising the land level in some areas so that they would be higher than the water level. And it was so. It is said that if we levelled out the whole earth’s surface, it would be covered with water. That is, there is more volume under the water than land above the water.

 

By this stage we probably have a land mass some have named Gondwanaland, one single land mass surrounded by water. Over time (some say millions of years or more but these figures cannot be accepted without destroying the Biblical record) Gondwanaland has expanded and broken up and “travelled” outwards.

 

Genesis 1:10And God called the dry [land] Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that [it was] good.

 

The dry land is named Earth and the collection of waters is named Seas. God saw that it indeed was good (pleasant; agreeable; acceptable according to His will). Why didn’t God see that it was indeed good at the end of the 2nd day? Why instead does He see this as good part-way through the 3rd day?

It is suggested that God now sees that it was good because this is the completion of the firmament of heaven and the creation of dry land; thus all is now prepared for the creation of life on earth.

 

Genesis 1:11And 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.

 

Firstly God commanded the earth to sprout forth grasses (smaller plants such as cereal crops), and larger herbage plants (such as vegetables) and trees (larger and longer-living plants) that would bear fruit of its kind with seed in it. Many opinions exist as to what plants are in each category, but in general these 3 categories are meant to include all botanical species on earth.

 

Genesis 1:12And 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 earth brought forth plant-life just as God had commanded it, and God saw that it was good; that is, that it indeed was good (pleasant; agreeable; acceptable according to His will).

 

Genesis 1:13And the evening and the morning were the third day.

 

Once again, this has to be a literal 24-hour day or else plants are going to die before the sun itself is created the next “day”.

 

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

 

And God commanded: Let there come into existence lights in the heights of heaven above to divide the day from the night. The sun during the day and the moon and stars at night. Note that often the moon may be seen during the day and stars may also be seen at daytime under certain situations, but generally we associate the moon and stars with night-time.

 

And let these lights be for signs (the measuring of time in days, months and years; to mark seasons, times of the year, planting and harvesting times etc) and for seasons (this assumes the rotation of the earth already at this point in time and perhaps also the tilting of the earth’s axis though this probably occurred during the great flood) and for days (each sun-rising is a day) and years (this used to be 360 days per year, 12 months of the year).

 

It is interesting that the sun was created on the 4th day, while plant-life which relies upon the sunlight (photosynthesis) for survival and growth was created on the 3rd day. If these were indeed periods of time and not literal days, then how did the plants survive without the sun for a long period of time?

 

Genesis 1:15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

 

And let these lights (as per Vs 14 above) also give light to the earth. But God had already caused light to exist on Day 1, so why would these lights in the heavens add to what was already there? The answer may be that the plant-life needed a particular kind of light to exist; that it wasn’t enough to just have light to see things, but that sunlight itself was essential for the photosynthesis process of green-leaved plants.

 

And because God had commanded it, it indeed was so.

 

Genesis 1:16And 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.

 

Because we probably know more about space itself than the Hebrews, we therefore know that (a) the moon’s light is totally dependant upon the light of the sun, and (b) stars are actually similar to the sun, yet so far away as to appear tiny. However, this wording may be how the Hebrews understood the process of creation, just as John wrote Revelation as he saw it, in words that he understood at that time.

God made the sun and the moon and all the other lights of space including stars and other planets (which must have existed, yet are not mentioned in this creation record).

 

Genesis 1:17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

 

These 2 lights were placed in the heavens (or sky) in order to give effective light to the earth. They are where God placed them.

 

Genesis 1:18And to rule over (or have dominion over; dominate) the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

 

We certainly measure our days according to the sun or lack thereof, and whether or not it is a full moon etc. Eclipses emphasise the dominion of these lights.

And God saw that it was good (pleasant; agreeable; acceptable according to His will).

 

Genesis1:19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

 

And the 4th evening and morning marked the 4th day of Creation.

 

It is difficult to see how that false teacher Piper can teach that God ordains evil unless God can see that evil is good!

How can we hate what is evil if God has ordained it to happen?

You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen. God might will something precisely so that you would hate it.

When God ordained the death of his Son for my sin, he ordained that sin happen. It's a sin to murder the Son of God, yet nothing is clearer in the Bible than that God bruised his own Son. (Piper – “How can we hate what is evil if God has ordained it to happen?”)

 

And in “Does sin have a necessary place in God’s plan for the universe?” Piper says

My answer is yes. In God’s ultimate plan, sin has a necessary place. ……

God has planned the very best world for the accomplishment of his goal to magnify the fullness of his glory. ….

God’s holiness is not the least compromised or impugned by the fact that God wills for unholy acts to take place.

In order for this to be true, God has to see that sin is good, unholy acts are good, and sinful unholy acts are good for God’s glory! When God creates, He forms something from nothing. That is, for God to create sin, He would have to cause it to come into existence, and then he would have to see that it was indeed good.

 

Of course, Piper doesn’t say that God created sin, but he does say that God ordained that sin should happen. But, can God ordain for good something that was created by another will (?) for evil? God is certainly able to turn evil actions into good, for God is indeed sovereign, in spite of man’s rebellion (Genesis 50:20), but does God command (or ordain) evil to happen in order to produce good?  Can God then righteously condemn that same evil which He allegedly (according to Piper) wills to be so ordained? Creation should uphold God’s very nature, which includes holiness, something that opposes the very nature of sin and evil. How can holiness will for unholiness to occur without making that holiness unclean?

 

God saw His creation as good, acceptable to His will, and this means that creation was perfectly good. So, is Piper actually teaching that sin and evil are acceptable to God? How is it possible that that which is perfectly good should include sin and evil which God condemns as something that must not enter His presence? How can such a creation be acceptable to God when sin and evil are not acceptable to God? The only way sin and evil can exist is by wills which oppose God’s perfectly holy will. Man was given free will to choose; without such free will for man, then God must be accused of creating sin and evil, yet all the while seeing it as good. The free will of man allows God to remain perfectly holy in a world full of evil and sin. And God’s sovereignty remains absolute while He demands an accounting for every free will decision ever made by all mankind (2 Corinthians 5:10).

 

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