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Studies in Genesis, Lesson II, Genesis 1:1-5
God begins His book to man by introducing Himself to us as our Creator.
He tells us this immediately in Gen 1:1 but he also tells us this by the creation itself which opens up to all of those created the knowledge of a Creator.
The creation itself reveals in infinite examples the handprints of God.
Fingerprint experts are able to pinpoint suspects by the unique prints that fingers and hands leave at the crime scene.
If this investigative process is applied to the handprints left by God in his creation there will quickly be found unending evidence that a Creator has left these prints.
For: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. Psalm 19:1-4
And the Apostle Paul thousands of years later has so concisely written, guided by the same Creator, that God has provided to all the knowledge of Himself through His Creation.
We read of this in Romans 1:20, For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God has provided to man a mind to receive a knowledge of Him and He has provided to that mind the things that are made, to open up to man the Creator’s invisible attributes.
So praise be to God who does not hide himself from His creation for each sunrise and sunset speak of God, each starry sky, each forest, each rocky crag, every flow of water, every wavy shore and every man, every woman, and every child and even a baby in the womb simply by their existence declare the glory of God.
To conclude otherwise is to reveal nothing other than the deceitful and wicked heart, a heart that declares, No God for me!
And this heart was revealed in the Garden.
So let us read Genesis 1:1-5, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And 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. 3 And 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 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
So immediately we know that the world did not create itself or come about by chance as those with twisted minds and corrupt hearts so preach and teach for the heaven and the earth are the products of a Creator.
To deny it is to go against all evidence.
It is so obvious that it is mind boggling to think that so many think otherwise.
Perhaps think is the wrong word to use for most minds are simply brainwashed and robotic in this matter by the self-called enlightened ones of the world.
God created the earth which is just a small speck in a universe so great our minds cannot comprehend it.
The size of it itself declares the glory of God.
It is written that a typical galaxy contains billions of individual stars; our galaxy alone (the Milky Way) contains 200 billion stars. Our galaxy is shaped like a giant spiral, rotating in space, with arms reaching out like a pinwheel, and our sun is one star on one arm of the pinwheel. It would take 250 million years for the pinwheel to make one full rotation. But this is only our galaxy; there are many other galaxies with many other shapes, including spirals, spherical clusters, and flat pancakes. The average distance between one galaxy and another is about 20 million trillion miles. Our closest galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy, about 12 million trillion miles away.
But this simply declares our God did this all by Himself for we read in:
Isaiah 48:13, Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
And God is bigger than all of creation for Isaiah 40:12 tells us:
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
Think of that, all the oceans held in his hand, every particle of dust measured, every mountain and every hill placed on God’s scale.
And all the oceans, all the dust, every mountain, every hill was called into being by the word of God for God used no pre-existing material to create for the word create so used here means to create out of nothing.
He did not take from himself to create for He created all things new from nothing previous.
All things that we see could disappear but that would not injure or affect God for he is separate from His creation.
Only God can create for creation demands bringing into being something not previously there.
Men say they create but men only fashion or form things out of existing materials from one shape to another.
God has given us that, for we are created in His image.
And creation of anything demands a creator in existence before the creation.
For God did all of this in the beginning, yet there was much before the beginning.
As we are told in Psalm 93:2, Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.
And in Psalm 90:1,2, Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Jesus prayed this prayer in John 17:5, and verse 24 so we may know of this eternality of the Godhead:
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was……Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
And at some time before the beginning, God created the angels, because they witnessed the creation of the heavens and the earth for we are told in Job 38:7:
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
And God also before the beginning determined the destiny of those who by faith would receive His Son and become sons of God.
For this we are told in 2 Timothy 1:9:
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
So Genesis 1:2 pictures the beginning with this: And 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.
We are given here a view of beginnings as a sculptor begins his work.
For a sculptor begins his work with an unformed piece of marble or granite being able to see through all the hardness, the finished work of his hands.
The earth was without form and it was without identifying landmarks for it is now pictured like a lump of clay in the potter’s hand or the marble of the sculpture who examines it prior to beginning his creative work.
And so moves the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters for his sculpting tools are at hand.
And verse 3 and following begin to describe God’s working and fashioning this form transforming it from simplicity to complexity, from a void mass to a Garden of Eden, a Garden of Beauty.
But it was intended to be a Garden to be occupied, tended and inhabited for this is given to us in:
Isaiah 45:18, For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.
And in this creation of God his fashioning of it indicated age for his word brought forth that which was mature.
Mature trees, mature animals that were formed fully grown, men and woman in their adult years, and in so doing showing us that He made an earth and the heavens in the midst of a time sequence with age built in.
When God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life he breathed into the mouth of a mature adult body.
When God caused Adam to sleep and opened Adam’s chest to fashion Eve from one of his ribs she was presented to Adam as a mature adult female.
And even then at the beginning when asked her age I imagine she wouldn’t tell a soul even when she celebrated her first birthday as an adult.
So reading Genesis 1:3-5, And 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 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Now we know that light takes time to go from one place to another but when God created light it was in all of his universe at the same time, no travel time allowed.
He said let there be light and that word was heard throughout the universe and there was light.
So we are told that God divides his creation into days and light was made on the first day.
What do we do when we arise in the morning?
We turn on the light.
It is the natural thing to bring order out of chaos for in darkness we are so prone to stumble.
God brings forth light to a world without form and void and the creative process begins.
In this He shows us what is necessary in our own lives for without Christ we live a life without form and void but with Christ, the light of the world, form and definition comes into our life.
Paul said this so beautifully in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6:
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Notice that God said, Let there be light and there was light.
He did not need the sun to make light nor the moon to reflect light for they were made on the fourth day.
In the new heavens and the new earth there won’t be any sun or moon for God Himself will be the light.
For this is so in Revelation 22:5, And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light.
That which is emitted by the sun is given to point the way to the true Light.
Another example of God’s creation given to reveal to us the character of God.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
So God divided the light from the darkness.
In this he shows us that light has no fellowship with darkness.
Darkness flees in the presence of light.
Again a spiritual lesson from the physical world.
And the Apostle Paul uses this to describe the need for the separation of those who walk in the Light from those who walk in darkness in:
2 Corinthians 6:14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
And in Ephesians 5:11, And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
So by this use of light and darkness God creates the first day.
There is no reason to believe that this day was any different from the days in which we exist for everything on earth is interrelated and interdependent.
All life needs other life to exist and calls for a creation in which all life appears in a short span of time.
Most everything eats on a daily basis and all things depend on other things to eat.
God’s six days of creation prepared for this quite efficiently.
We have said that believing that: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth is an act of faith.
That faith continues here for God is fully capable of creating all things in six days of equal time to our day.
The circuit of the earth around the sun has not changed since the creation nor has the turning of the earth in relation to the sun changed since those first days.
Don’t you suppose if God used long periods to create He would not have use the word Yom which means day when Moses wrote the Pentateuch? |