The Genesis Account of Creation

Every story has a beginning and an end, and hopefully, if the story is written well, serves the purpose of conveying truth or insight, and/or offering hope. Let me say from the outset, that I do not believe that the Genesis account of Creation is just a story in the sense of myth or fable. Genesis is an actual account of Creation, and the early days of humanity, that is given to us by God, through a human writer, most likely Moses, to serve some very distinct purposes. It provides us with deep seated truths that God provides for us so that we can accurately understand reality, not just in the factual sense, but so that we can understand the meaning. Genesis gives us a framework upon which to build our paradigm of life, and understand the rest of the Bible. It is not arbitrary. It is meaningful and purposeful, and each thing that we read in the first chapters lays the groundwork for us to understand the world we live in, the Cosmos, and ourselves as human beings.

Genesis says nothing about how long ago all of this occurred, so any ideas that we have about either the earth only being about six or seven thousand years old, or, as evolutions claim, the earth being billions of years old, can’t be proven. So I don’t care to get into speculation in either of those extremes. What I want to do is look at Genesis and understand what it means, and why it is significant for us today.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 　Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

“In the beginning, God…” Some may ask, “Where did God come from?” To that I say, “I don’t know…” The Bible teaches us that God has always been. He is eternal. How can that be? Again, I say, “I don’t know.” We, as mortal men operate within the framework of understanding anything from the perspective of mortality, or the finite. We cannot understand the infinite. It is outside our realm of experience. So, we take the eternal existence of God as a given. To ask where God came from is an unanswerable question. The flip side to that is that if you reject the given of God’s existence, where does your paradigm of life begin? If you buy into the idea that the Cosmos developed from some “Big Bang” I ask, “Where did that big ball of matter come from?” If you believe earth was visited by extra-terrestrial beings who started the human race, where did they come from? I would be willing to bet that your answer to either of those questions would also be “I don’t know.” The fact is, whichever approach you take, you are starting with an unanswerable question, or an unexplainable set of circumstances, and you just have to take something for granted in order to be able to start anywhere.

“created…” This implies an intentional purpose. Contrast this with the evolutionists idea or theory of blind chance putting molecules together at random. Random, chaotic, unorganized matter does not, in and of itself, evolve or develop into anything with structure and purpose. Common sense, and life experience teach us this. Order requires the intentional intervention of an involved being, existing outside of, and independent of the raw material used in the process. Our very existence started with God’s specific purpose in mind. We are not chance. Genesis grounds us in knowing this. This is extremely important for us in the forming of our life paradigm. Without knowing that God created, life is just blind, meaningless chance.

“The Heavens and the Earth” There is more to “the heavens” here than merely what we refer to as the “Cosmos”. In one sense, they are that. But in another sense, the “heavens” are another dimension to reality. A sort of parallel world that exists alongside of the world as we know it. It is the spiritual dimension to life that cannot be quantified with the five senses. It is the realm of the spirit, and of angels and demons. Man cannot enter and exit this realm without God’s intervention. It lies outside of our physical grasp, in the sense that we cannot manipulate it. When God chooses, He allows us to enter into this realm. It is not something we control.

In Scriptural language, water, or the sea, often symbolizes a chaotic mass. That is the picture of earth we are given here: a watery, misshapen mass. It is interesting to me that this picture of water is first given in Scripture. Many scientists in our time have tried to prove the existence of life on the planet Mars by speculating about the existence of water on the planet. Life, as we know it, cannot exist without water.

We will see later in Genesis that when God brought judgment on the world in the time of Noah, that He returned the earth to this chaotic mass of water. In other words, He decided to start over. There is much interesting speculation that we could get into about the effects of the later mentioned flood on the world, but we won’t get into that for now.

God was hovering over this chaotic mass, ready to move and bring order and meaning. I believe that this is often the way God works in our individual lives. We make a mess of things. God is watching, ready to intervene, ready to be invited in, to bring His life into the situation, and bring order and creative life into what has been a chaotic mess until that point.

Water, or the sea, can represent the raw force of nature, or the chaotic mass of lost humanity.

“…darkness was over the surface of the deep…”

Darkness is not an entity. Scripture says nothing about God creating darkness. Darkness is a word we use to express the absence of something else: light. Just like the word “nothing” doesn’t describe a thing, it describes the absence of anything. “Nothing” is not an entity, it is the absence of an entity. Life, apart from God’s intervention, is, by default, darkness. Darkness was, because God had not yet spoken light into existence. Darkness is a word we use to describe a concept, not an actual thing, just as we use the word “horizon”. We all know what we mean when we use the word horizon, but the horizon itself does not exist. If you move toward the horizon it continues to move, because it is not an actual thing, it is a perception. Without light, we perceive darkness, although darkness is not an actual thing.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 　God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 　God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Note: God created light before He created the Cosmos, before the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. Real light was spoken into existence, and lighted the earth BEFORE the sun was created. This is amazing! The cycles of light and darkness marking off day and night was put into effect before the sun was created. Light is a created power in and of itself that is not dependent on the sun. The Scripture later says that God is light. The presence of God is light, and brings understanding.

　And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 　So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 　God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Verse 7 seems to indicate that God created a canopy of water above the earth. Whether or not this consisted strictly of what we would think of as simply a cloud covering is not clear. Maybe it did, or maybe it was different in some way. We might think of the atmosphere of early earth as a kind of terrarium. Also, speculation about how the water table under the earth played into all of this is also interesting.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Next, notice that from verses 9 and 10 it appears that originally, all of the dry land on earth consisted of one large land mass, rather that the scattered continents, as we seem them existing today. Many within the scientific community speculate that this may have been the case, although this cannot be proven specifically. Some type of cataclysmic event, possibly the events of the great Flood later recorded in Genesis 6, may have caused this change. This speculation does tie in well with what we learn about the separation of the human race into smaller, more isolated people groups as after the judgment brought on mankind by God because of the construction of the tower of Babel as recorded in Genesis 11.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 　The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 　And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Next came plant life. Again, the Biblical account of Creation is amazing in that it “seems” to contradict some of what we think we know about plant life. As in my observation about the existence of light before the creation of the Sun, plant life was created and existed BEFORE the creation of the Sun! It is also to be noted that the much repeated phrase “according to their various kinds” begins to occur here in the account of the creation of plant life, in the same manner as it occurs later in the creation of animal life. I believe that the significance of this phrase is that it validates the sanctity or sacredness of life as God has created it. His order is holy, and it is right, and rightly to be respected and preserved.

Some modern scientific discoveries have opened for us the possibility of altering created life, and the base elements of creation, on the molecular, cellular, and atomic level that has the potential for being very dangerous. Cloning is a good example of this. When we get into genetic manipulation, and things of that nature, we are violating the sanctity of the created order. Please see the chapter entitled “Strange Laws” for more on this. Probably, the greatest, and most horrific example of our violation of God’s created order in our recent recorded history is the invention of the atomic bomb, and the subsequent devastating effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Other issues that could be addressed in this context are cloning, genetic engineering, growth hormones given to livestock, and many other such possibilities. I recently read an article about a young Korean prodigy who is working hard to crack the high IQ code, so in the future, we can genetically engineer our children to be born as geniuses. I believe that God, in His infinite wisdom and foresight, knew that the human mind would eventually track down these wrong intellectual paths, and provides a safeguard for us in these words from Genesis.

Now comes the creation of the Cosmos, the order of which I have made much of up to this point!

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 　God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 　God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 　to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

There is so much that I could write about these few verses that it would probably fill up a whole book. However, at this point I will refrain, and touch on a few key points. Here is the crux of how the Genesis account of creation differs from much of how our world and the cosmos is presented by naturalistic humanist today: In the Genesis account of Creation, the earth is presented as the center of God’s creative activity. It is center stage, and the rest of the cosmos is presented as being subservient of God’s purposes on earth. The reason for this follows.

Naturalists (meaning evolutionary, anti-God naturalists) speak of the mysterious universe, as if the universe is an entity unto itself. They deify the universe. The universe is their god. They do not put it in these terms, but that is what it is. This is not so. The universe is a creation of God to display His glory, and the universe is subservient to God, and to God’s purposes for mankind on planet Earth.

And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the sea, and let the birds increase on the earth. And there was evening, and there was morning –the fifth day.

Here we see the creation of life in the water, and life in the sky. This comes before the creation of animals that live on the land. There is a theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. This disproves that theory. God created birds as birds. Certainly dinosaurs did exist, the fossil records prove this, but they did not later evolve into birds. It is also theorized that life first originated in the water, and that later some water dwelling creatures moved to land, and adapted and evolved into some of the land dwelling animals that we now know. This disproves that theory as the next verses show. This, in conjunction with the repeated “according to their kind” words, is a safeguard against misleading evolutionary theory that God knew would later develop. It is recorded in the Word for that very purpose.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds; the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female He created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Evolution teaches that man is a highly advanced (evolved) primate. This passage from Genesis shows that there is a huge distinction between man and the animal kingdom. Man never originated as an animal. Man is the crowning act in God’s creation. He created the animals first. There is a lot more that could be said about the animal kingdom, but this is recorded here for a specific reason. It shows that man is more than an animal. He is on a higher order, and has capabilities that animals do not have. We are responsible for caring for animals in a kind and loving way, but we are not, nor have we ever been animals.

God said, “Let us make man in our image”. We see here the first inkling of what was later developed as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. There are many hints of the Trinitarian nature of God in other places in the Old Testament. God speaks in the plural here, and in other places. Christianity has always maintained that there is One, and only one God. There are no other gods. However, even though there is only one God, He exists as a triune being, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is a relational being. The three persons of the godhead have always been in relation to each other. This is a hard concept to grasp, but if you take the words of Scripture to be the inspired word of truth, there is no way to get around this.

There is more about the image of God in man, and what it means in a latter chapter, so I will not go into great detail here. But there are a few things to be noted:

Firstly, God is a creator. He has a mind and thinks. Man is a creator. He has a mind and thinks, he remembers things. He invents things and builds things. Animals do not do this. I am not denying that animals do have a sense of memory, and animals do express emotion, but in a different way. Animals seem to get over things pretty quickly. They do not seem to stew on things and hold grudges the way humans do. I admit that some of this is speculation on my part, based on my observations of animals. We cannot get into an animal’s mind to know how it operates, but we can learn some things from observation. That is the best we can do.

Secondly, God is a moral being. God is a righteous judge. There are some things that God will not accept. Man is a moral being, even though our morality has been affected for worse because of the fall. We all have a sense of right and wrong that governs our actions to some degree. To some it is greater, and others, less, but it is there none the less. We call people who seem to have no sense of right and wrong as sociopaths. They may be either mentally ill or demon possessed, or maybe both.

God is a relational being. He exists in relationship within the Trinity. Man is a relational being. People need each other. God created men and women to be in life-long bonds with each other. Man exists in community.

The last thing I will touch on here is that God is an aesthetic being. Order and beauty bring Him pleasure. Man is an aesthetic being. Mankind has always created art and music for their simple pleasure. Beauty brings man joy. Pleasure brings man joy. The simple act of eating. Our taste buds were made to enjoy the pleasure of eating. Our ears enjoy the sound of good music. Without meaning to sound crass, even our sexual organs are made to bring us pleasure when a man and a woman make love. (Bear in mind, that because we are moral beings, this needs to be done within the proper context of marital love.) I personally think that God designed men and women to delight in each other, because this brings relief and joy to us as we go through the difficulties of parenting. In a way, it is a reward for the hard work of being a parent. (Just my two cents worth!) Our skin is designed to enjoy the pleasant feeling of a nice warm spring breeze. If we were not aesthetic beings, there would be no need for any of these things to be pleasurable.

Some people will maintain that, because of the wording of these verses that mankind was originally created to be vegetarian, and that we only became carnivores after the fall, and that even animals were vegetarian. I do not know if this is so or not, but it very well could have been the case. Scripture does not state this implicitly.

In giving mankind authority over the earth, we are shown that we were the highest level in the created order of living things on the earth. This is another aspect of our being made in the image of God. God is the ruler of all Creation. God has given to mankind rule of the earth. We are God’s stewards of the earth. We are responsible for it, and we are to use it in the right way. There are a lot of things that go on in the world that mankind now does that are not exercising good stewardship of the earth. We are messing it up in so many ways.

There are a few things I want to touch on in summary here that I think are vitally important for each of us in developing a correct interpretation of reality. You basically have two sets of beliefs that govern the way people in the world think. (They may be expressed in different ways, but the basic assumptions or beliefs go something like this: Either you believe in God as the Creator, or you believe that things came about through the blind chance of what people wrongly refer to as “Nature.” What I mean by “wrongly refer to as nature” is this. God created nature. However, the term is used in our vernacular many times to mean, “nature, an entity in and of itself, apart from God” as if nature is just some mysterious force that exists for no explainable reason. Understanding that God is the originator of life, the originator of creation gives life meaning. There is a reason for it. This gives life purpose. It shows that life is not an accident. People are not accidents. It shows that people are valuable, and we are to see the value of all men, because God made them in His image. This safeguards us from hate and racism. This safeguards us from treating people unequally, regardless of their socio-economic status, race, or any other factor that differentiates us from one another. This shows us that we are a brotherhood/sisterhood of human beings created for a purpose

The opposite view is that there is no God, and everything is the result of blind nature. In this view, life has no meaning, other than the brief times of physical pleasure you can have for the brief span of your life on this earth, and then it ends, so ultimately it means nothing. Personally, if I did not believe in God, and believe that He has a purpose for everything, and that I am valuable to Him, I would not have any desire to go on living, because it would just be a dismal awaiting for the end. Life can get hard for everyone at times. None of us are exempt from life’s trials. But seeing the big picture, knowing there is more, and that it all ultimately means something in the grand scheme of things gives me hope and motivation during the times I am going through life’s hard things.

The next thing that I think Genesis shows us is that Earth is the center of God’s creative action. The order of the creation shows us that the Earth, where mankind, the crown of God’s creation lives, is the center of His focus, and the rest of the Cosmos, or Universe is made to show God’s glory, and to be subservient to God’s purposes for mankind on planet Earth. We certainly understand more now about the Universe, but that changes none of this. The science fiction of Star Wars and other movies, etc. of like genre are fairy tales. Man is not made to fly around space in machines. We cannot live outside the atmosphere of this earth for any length of time, and even then we have to do so in an artificially manufactured environment that is very costly to maintain, and subject to failure. The planet Mars, which is the closest planet to us is so far way, and from what we can observe, is uninhabitable. There is no reason for us to try to go there. I also get into this in more detail in a later chapter. I personally think that, apart from the purposes the Sun, Moon, and Stars serve for Earth, the rest of the Cosmos is merely God’s grand fire-works display, serving the purpose of showing us His greatness and power. We were never meant to fly around in space in machines, as is depicted in science fiction. I realize this is not a popular concept because our society is awash in science fiction space travel fantasy.