God, please bless our study of your word. Give us insight into the foundations of your creating so that we can understand our path and purpose. In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.
Book Overview
The book of Genesis forms the foundation of our understanding of God’s purposes and plans for our personal and collective past, present and future. It chronicles why God created us, the good things he had planned for us and just how badly we screwed it all up.
In spite of these mistakes, God promised the Messiah who would eventually come and restore the perfection that God established. Genesis follows the tales of the men and women who would form the bloodline through which the Messiah would come.
Genesis is a compendium of records starting at the creation of the world around 4000BC and ending with the death of Joseph around 1745BC. Moses most likely wrote the book of Genesis using tablets and oral accounts left by early patriarchs.
Introduction to Chapter 1
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understand is unsearchable. – Isaiah 40:28
The first chapter of Genesis provides a synopsis (summary) of the first six days of creation.
First Day: Light
Second Day: Firmament (Atmosphere)
Third Day: Earth and Plants
Fourth Day: Sun, Moon, Heavenly Bodies
Fifth Day: Fish and Birds
Sixth Day: Animals and Man
I will not address the misinterpretations and perversions that some people read into the first chapter of Genesis other than to say that the Word of God is not coded nor is it complicated to understand. It is meant to be taken literally.
But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. – 2 Corinthians 11:3
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. – 1 Corinthians 2:13
Study
Genesis:1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Before the earth came into existence, God existed. He was not created, but is the creator.
For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God. – Hebrews 3:4
Neither the universe nor the earth existed at this point. The second verse describes the utter emptiness and darkness of the expanse upon which God has not imparted his creative force, but the creative force of the Lord, the Spirit of God, is preparing to act.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
The first act of creation is to create light. Light takes many forms, of which visible light is a small part. The Electromagnetic Spectrum ranges from meter long radio waves all the way to gamma rays a fraction of a nanometer long. This light was separated from the darkness described in the second verse.
God completed the separation by naming both the day and the night and so ended the first part of his creation. The separation of the days of creation is an expression describing the separation between different acts of creation.
Some people wonder if the days were literal 24 days or these were time epochs. After all, the sun and moon were not even created until the fourth day. God’s act of creation was completely planned in advance from start to finish. God knew what a day was before a day even existed.
Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. – Exodus 34:21
God created the world in six days, just as man, created in his image also does his work in six days. God rests on the Sabbath, just as man rests on the Sabbath.
The question of whether these were literal days or epochs comes down to whether or not you want to compromise with the current scientific theories or you want to believe in an omnipotent (all-powerful creator).
Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You. – Jeremiah 32:17
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
On the second day of creation, God created the earth’s atmosphere. There were waters both below and above the sky.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
On the third day, the waters were under the atmosphere were segregated to create dry land, which God called earth.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
God then creates all forms of plant life, which all had their own code (seed) to reproduce themselves after their own kind. The Bible does not support evolutionary theory in any form. All species have always and always will produce only their own kind, although variation within a species will create different colors, behaviors and modifications.
14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then 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. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 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. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
On the fourth day, God creates the stars and suns in the area beyond the earth. He also created the sun and the moon. This creative act stands in direct contradiction to current scientific models which say that the sun came before the earth.
20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
On the fifth day, God created the birds and sea animals. God commands the living creatures should be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth.
For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: – Isaiah 45:18
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God created all the land animals. The theme of the goodness of God’s goodness in creation in repeatedly emphasized in the creation narrative. Some people incorrectly proscribe dualist elements to God, such that he creates good and evil.
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. – Matthew 5:48
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. – James 1:13
God is not only perfect, therefore he cannot do evil, but he also does not wield evil as a weapon.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The creation of man occurred separately from the creation of the animals. Man did not evolve from an earlier invertebrate. He was created willfully and purposely by the loving Creator.
God made man and woman special by crafting him in His own image. Man had a spark of God in him at his creation. He blessed them by them stewardship over every living creator he had made previously.
He gave them the same command as the animals; they were to reproduce abundantly and fill the earth with people.
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
While God gave mankind authority over all of creation, they were not to eat any meat. All the animals were also vegetarians in God’s perfect creation. Carnivorous diets did not develop until after the fall of mankind. He looks at the fullness of his creation and considers it exceedingly good.