Genesis 1:1-13--Days 1 Through 3 of Creation

Genesis 1:1-13
Christian Standard Bible

The Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.

6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.

9 Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the water he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 Evening came and then morning: the third day.

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Yesterday, I finished my first read-through of the entire Bible (in no particular order).  It started as an examination of The Sermon on the Mount to answer "What does it mean to be a disciple?" and then moved into a total study of Matthew, then a study of the Gospels, and then eventually the entire Bible.  There is still much to learn as I start the journey of reading through the Bible again, but this time I would like to take a more structured approach of using the "Daily Readings" that go along with The Gospel Project lessons.  You can find this week's readings in the PDF attached to this post unit-1-session-1-god-created-humanity.html (you'll need to register for the website and then request access).

The first daily reading here has to deal with the first three days of creation, which work in parallel with the second three days of creation that I think we'll study next time.  The very first "thing" that we see God create is time, "In the beginning."  It is nearly impossible for us to imagine or even talk about "a time before there was time."  The very notion of "in the beginning" seems like a paradox to us because we imagine time as going infinitely in both directions, but the Bible tells us that time, space, and matter all have a definite beginning here in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"--time, space and matter were all created "in the beginning," seemingly simultaneously, which makes sense given how interconnected they are with each other (energy is coming shortly, but we don't see it quite yet).

The only place we see created is the earth.  God tells us there is land, even though we don't see it yet, for it is covered by darkness and by deep waters, and the Spirit of God is hovering over those waters.  Even in the places that look chaotic and disorderly and where there seems to be no light, only pure darkness, the Spirit of God is there and is at work.

Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.  There is no scientific explanation for the source of this light, just God willed it, and it was.  It certainly doesn't come from the sun or other stars (for they are created on Day 4), nor from bioluminescence of any creature, for they don't exist yet (see days 4, 5, and 6).  The only thing that existed that could produce this light is God Himself, and we will see God referred to as "light" quite often in the Scripturas.  As we just finished studying the book of Revelation, we will see God is once again the only source of light of the New Heavens and the New Earth--if the sun, moon, and stars exist, we won't see them because the brightness of His glory will overpower them.  God saw that the light was good, but there was a need for us to have a cycle of both day and night to keep track of time, so God separated light from darkness (the first of these separations that we will see, for this will form a pattern).  These container of the "heavens" and the "earth" will start to be filled on Day 4.

God called the light "day" and the darkness "night," and "there was evening and there was morning, the first day."  (I prefer the translation of "first, second, third....." with the singular day as opposed to "one, two three,...." with the plural "days," because it avoids confusion as to if Day 2 is two days long, and Day 3 is three days long and so on.  The phrase "evening and morning" tells us we are talking about a single day that we would now call a "24-hour day," but it was established here as starting as starting in the evening (dusk) and continuing through the morning (dawn) to end at the next period of dusk.  The Jewish people still have a day that starts at twilight for this reason (though we cannot yet call this start of the day "twilight" because there are no stars in the sky yet). 

On Day 2 of creation, God separates sky from sea.  He calls the expanse above the waters "sky" and He creates a firmament of water above the expanse (this is no longer there today--we'll see why when we get to the narrative of the Flood later in Genesis).  Theoretically, this "firmament" as we call it would regulate temperature on the earth and protect us from all kinds of radiation.  These containers are ready to be filled on Day 5.  God saw that this was good.

On Day 3, God gathered the waters together into the "seas" and formed the dry land that we call "earth."  God caused the earth to be fertile and to immediately bring forth all kinds of vegetation including many kinds of fruit-bearing and seed-bearing plants that would be for food for mankind and animals.  Each was created "according to their kind"--this is another phrase that we will see quite a bit in the creation narrative.  This assumed that God had a taxonomy in mind of plants and animals when He created them.  There would be different "kinds" of each which  we observe even today (a biblical "kind" is probably anything that is reproductively compatible with other organisms of the same "kind" as we only see it used to describe things that have sexual reproduction--plants, fish, mammals, and so on).  The earth produced all kinds of good vegetation and was ready to be filled with all kinds of animals and ultimately with men and women, and God saw that this was good.

We'll come back next time and talk about ​Genesis 1:14–2:3 (Days 4 through 7 of the Creation Week).