Genesis 1:6-13 "The Second & Third Days of Creation"
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· 4 viewsOn the second literal 24-hour day of creation, God created a firmament (an expanse) dividing waters under and above the firmament. What the firmament a water vapor canopy, or the expanse of the sky, and space beyond? On the third day, God created dry land and brought forth all manner of plant life according to it's kind.
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Good Evening, Calvary Chapel Lake City!
Let’s open our Bibles to the Book of Genesis in our chapter-by-chapter and verse-by-verse study through the Old Testament.
Tonight we will look at Genesis 1:6-13.
And, we are doing pretty good. This is our third message in Genesis.
We covered 1 verse in the first message.
1 Day in the second message.
Tonight, we cover 2 days… 8 verses.
It’s progress… we’re starting to speed things up.
But, it’s difficult to go fast… as there is much to be said about Genesis… about the Book of Beginnings… and great debate exists between Creationists and Scientists… and even in their respective circles.
Creation scientists disagree with one another… as do secular scientists…
None of us were there in the beginning… and so numerous theories have evolved for the origins of the galaxy and of life.
But, what we know for sure is what we read in Scripture… “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Faith in verse one of the Bible… is foundational to the faith we Christians hold for the rest of the book.
If we cannot believe V1 in faith, how can we believe that God could do anything else?… including saving us… redeeming us… and returning for us?
But, I would assert that I… and I’m sure many of you take V1… and Chapter 1… and Chapter 2… and the rest of the book as literal… and historical… and prophetic.
We believe in the divine inspired word of God.
So, let’s continue in the book of Genesis… tonight looking at “The Second & Third Days of Creation”…
Our message title this evening.
Let’s Pray!
In reverence for God’s word, please stand as I read our passage.
Gen 1:6-13 “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.
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.
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.”
Praise God for His word. Please be seated.
Day 1… God created the heavens and the earth… which was without form and void.
All was dark… and the Spirit of God hovered… fluttered… seemingly vibrated the earth into a form… a sphere… not flat earth.
God said, “Light be” and light was… but light in V3 is a different Hebrew word for light than the lightbearers… the Sun, Moon, and Stars in vv 14-18.
Perhaps this was God’s divine light… as in Revelation 21… the glory of God will illuminate the New Jerusalem in eternity… there’s no need of the sun or moon to shine.
Amazing… if so… God’s glory… God’s light stands as book ends to the Bible.
The entirety of the book is framed in God’s glory.
And we left off at the close of the first day. “So evening and the morning were the first day.”
Rotation and time have been introduced to the creation scene.
And, day by day God will be adding to His creation.
If you’re reading in the King James, you will clearly see the repeated use of the words “And God...”
“And God said”… “And God saw”… “And God called”… “And God made”… and so forth.
In the New King James… the conjunction “And” may read… And or then or thus… but it’s the same Hebrew word Waw which is translated as “And.”
And, pardon me while I put my grammar nerd hat on for a moment. Some of you will find this interesting.
And, the rest of you… just bear with us… we shall we return to our regularly scheduled program in a moment.
If you recall from last week I introduced this repetition as a “Polysyndeton.”
Which is a literary structure that repeats conjunctions like “And” to connect and emphasize words and phrases in sentences.
Even deeper though… this device deliberately is purposed to slow the rhythm of the prose to produce an impressively solemn note.
As we read Genesis… the literary design is such where the reader should take line by line slowly… and just soak it in… with a very serious and awe-inspiring, reverent attitude.
Even the phrase “and it was so” which is repeated 6 times in Chapter one… creates this effect.
My Pastor taught that in modern Hebrew that phrase emphatically means “YES!”… as in rejoicing… and agreement.
Genesis 1 is written as a work to set our hearts upon God and glorify Him for each day of His creative work.
Ok… nerd hat still on… even deeper grammatically… polysyndeton is used quite extensively in the Bible… especially in the KJV… where the conjunction “AND”… is used as a literal translation of the Hebrew Waw-Consecutive.
This is like Nerd level 2 now.
The waw (sometimes pronounced “vav”)… the waw consecutive (in english… again simply repeating the word “and” or in New King James And, then, or thus)…
That repetition (called the Waw Consecutive) is a Hebrew grammatical device that is intentionally built into Genesis 1 to indicate a sequence of events occurring in real time.
In other words… the repeated use of “And” when used in a waw-consecutive takes the meaning of the word “and”… to mean “immediately after.”
We’re going to talk in a moment about the meaning of a day… and the day age theory…
And understanding just how Genesis 1 is written further supports that the Day Age Theory… that a day is millions of years cannot be so.
The waw-consecutive insists that the events occured in sequence… one after another… a chronological flow… with no gaps of time in between.
This literally devices insists that these are literal days.
ALSO… some have historically mis-taught (like Pope Benedict the 16th, as well as Progressive creationists (day-age theorists), and theistic evolutionists) that Genesis is a allegory… it’s just metaphor and symbolism.
But, grammatically… it can’t be… because the Waw-Consecutive also indicates Genesis is a narrative… NOT a poem.
The waw-consecutive is almost exclusive to narratives… NOT Hebrew poetry.
Genesis lacks key features of Hebrew poetry such as Hebrew parallelism… and figurative language.
Not to mention that the rest of the Bible treats Genesis as historical, not mythical or allegorical.
Genesis is a narrative… it’s history… not a poem.
Again… the waw consecutive is almost exclusive to a NARRATIVE.
In Bill Mounce’s definition of the waw-consecutive, he too stated they are “...used in narrative primarily to denote sequences of consecutive actions...”
Just in Gen 1:1-2:3… the waw-consecutive appears over 50x… either 51 or 54 depending on the source.
In Joshua, my Pastor found the waw-consecutive only appears 4x… and no one is saying Joshua is allegorical… it’s understood as historical.
Genesis is written as a literal sequential narrative… to suggest otherwise is dishonest grammatically and linguistically.
I’d love to say the nerd hat is coming off… but all of that just leads up looking at “What is a day?”
Before we move along to the second day… there is a question out there… “what is a day?”
It’s not my question… but the question stands.
I understand what a day is. Ancient Jews understood what a day is.
A child can pick up this book and read Genesis 1… and with their childlike faith… they won’t question this.
They will trust that in a day… God sequential created all that we see… in the present day.
But, people love to pick apart God’s word… and revel in being deep… and finding secret or mysterious interpretations.
Peter wrote, “…no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation...”
When prophets and men of God penned the Bible under inspiration of the Spirit… they did not insert their own private conclusions.
And, we too must be careful to take each verse and weigh it against the entirety of Scripture.
Barnhouse wrote, "I believe that the only way to understand any given passage in the Word of God is to take the whole Bible and place the point of it, like an inverted pyramid on that passage, so that the weight of the entire Word rests upon a single verse, or, indeed, a single word."
And, can we do that with the word “day”… which we see in V5… and V8… and repeated for each of the first six days of creation in Chapter 1? We can…
And, let’s try to do it quickly, because we could spend a literal day just studying the word day.
In Hebrew, day is “Yom” meaning “day; the warm hours; lit. from “sunrise to sunset.”
Figuratively, it can be used for a “space of time”… as in an “age.”
Mounce puts it all together and defines Yom four ways…
“day (24 hours),
daytime (in contrast to night); an indefinite period of time,
an era with a certain characteristic, such as “the day of the LORD” and
the prophetic “on that day.”
So, with most words… context is king.
And, with that… in Genesis 1… is there enough context to move us away from a literal interpretation of a 24 hour day… to interpreting “day” as an age of time?
The Lit. def. of V5b is “And the evening was, and the morning was, a day, one.”
One day… one 24 hour day…
Repeatedly… just to make it easy for interpretation… God even saw fit to inspire Moses to write “evening and the morning were the first day”
“evening and the morning”… second day… evening and the morning… third day…
Note that… perhaps circle it in your Bible… each of the days in Chapter one… are preceded by the words “evening and the morning”…
Why? Because a normal 24 hour day has an evening… and a morning…
And, not that’s not reversed… Jewish days began from sundown to sunset. So this is Jewish thinking.
Sunrise to sunset is Western thinking.
But, “evening and the morning” accompanied by “day” should be pretty clear that the context is a 24 hour day.
In the giving of the Ten Commandments… in Ex 20:8-11, David wrote, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work…” and then in V11 “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
Is David talking about a literal day or an age of time?
The context insists David is talking about a literal day… for a day of rest and in the creation account.
This is important because “progressive creationist” want to blend creation and evolutionary science in an effort to harmonize the Bible with "old” earth science.…
So, they created the “Day Age Theory”… which is riddled with problems… namely it waters down to God’s word… and adds to and takes away from Scripture… which God repeatedly says not to do… (Deut 4:2, 12:32; Pro 30:6)
Rev 22:18 declares, “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book...”
You don’t want to play with that fire.
And, the progressive creationists… who often identify as Evangelical Christians…
… which I guess means nothing… because anyone can identify as anything these days…
I’m thinking about identifying as a purple platypus… I’m still undecided though… I’ll let you know…
But, progressive creationists (mis-led Theistic Evolutionists as well) postulate that after the big-bang… after the something that came from nothing exploded in the beginning… there was a “day”… a sequential period… and age of 13-15 billion years…
Where God created species… and then created more species as former species went extinct…
God even created cavemen who looked and behaved like us, but were without an eternal spirit… they were not made in the image of God and had no hope for salvation…
And, death, bloodshed, and disease predated Adam and Eve…
And, the Genesis Flood was a local event.
And, of course they present their cases, but it all feels like a stretch. When I read my Bible… I am careful as I know how… to not “add to” or “take away” from the literal, grammatical, and historical context of what I’m reading.
And, I hope you can see… just in my description of the beliefs of progressive creationist… the danger of taking just one word “day”… and then not allowing the full weight of scripture to rest upon it… like an inverted pyramid…
… leads to a slippery slope… where a day is not a day, but an age…
… and then acceptance of all kinds of worldly and non-biblical theories creeps in.
Who wants to be a progressive creationist?
We have a sign up sheet at the back if you do… also be sure to sign the disclaimer that you recognize you may inherit the Revelation plagues by adding to God’s word.
I want none of that… not the day-age theory… definitely not the plagues.
I have no problem with the literal definition… and I have no problem… and wrestle not a bit that God can accomplish in a day that which we cannot comprehend.
He’s a big God… He said, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa 55:9)
There’s so much more that can be said about the “day age theory” and progressive creationism… if you want to dive deeper… Answers in Genesis has a number of articles on this position… and the flaws thereof.
But, do understand that a day, by def. number one… means day.
Let’s all spell day. D.A.Y.
Mankind has such a knack at taking what God presents as understandable to the eye… and making it complicated to the brain.
This is not God’s intent.
Moving on… Day 2. in V6 God lays out the next step of the plan… “Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.””
And, then in V7 God enacted the next step of the plan, “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.”
And then in V8 God named what He created on day 2 “And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Heaven is plural in V8 but written in the singular in New King James… interesting.
Some translations prefer the word “sky” over “heaven” giving a nod to that which we behold during the day… our atmosphere… where the birds fly…
“Sky” though creates a problem when we get to V14 and the Sun, Moon and Stars are placed in the firmament… certainly they are not in our atmosphere, but in the expanse beyond.
In an AIG article written by Dr. Terry Mortenson and titled “The Firmament: What Did God Create on Day 2?”
Dr. Mortenson dives deep into the Hebrew word raqiya‘… expanse/ firmament… which is a good read because the word is used 9x in 7 verses in Chapter 1 of Genesis.
And, Bible translations veer off from a literal translation of the word… especially in V20… only the New King James renders V20 literally as “across the face of the firmament of the heavens.”
And, this influences Christians… because translations such as…
“dome of the sky” feels very flat-earth-esque… ,
“vault or expanse of the sky” leans towards atmosphere…
But, “face of the firmament of the heavens”… is literal and makes a distinction from the other uses of firmament.
Dr. Mortenson spells out the common questions and prevalent theories that result from how one views the word firmament:
“Was the firmament or expanse the earth’s atmosphere where the birds and clouds are? Or was it a hard, metal-like dome or vault over the atmosphere under which or in which the sun, moon, and stars were placed? Were the “waters above” clouds, or did they form a vapor canopy above the atmosphere that collapsed at the beginning of Noah’s flood? Or is the expanse what we today call outer space and the “waters above” are the outer boundary of the universe?”
And… oh boy… we just stepped out of one hole looking at “What’s a day?”… and right into another… “What’s the ‘firmament?’”
It’s not my fault that Genesis 1 is going to take us day-ages to get through.
These are deep waters… I look forward to being in heaven and hearing from Jesus face-to-face how things actually went down.
If you’ve never studied this… there’s some depth here to understand.
Firmament… what is it? … by definition:
Strongs: “prop. an expanse, i.e. the firmament or (apparently) visible arch of the sky.”
Interesting insertion of the word “apparently.”
Mounce: “expanse (of the sky or heaven); the space above the earth that holds visible objects: clouds, planets, stars.”
Or if you’re reading from the Lexham English Bible… firmament is translated “vaulted dome”… New Revised Standard likes the word “dome” as well.
The snow globe… we live in a flat-earth snow globe.
The New Revised Standard or Lexham English Bible has to be the preferred translation for “flat earthers”… see it’s a vaulted dome, man.
If you’re using New Revised Standard… I’m not so sure about what standard they used…
They take “Spirit” out of V2 and translate is as “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
(Blow). What is that? It’s not the Holy Spirit… it’s just wind.
Crazy… they removed the Spirit from the creation account.
You may want to get a different standard.
Back to our text… Verse 6 reads… there’s a firmament an expanse in the midst (in between) the waters… and this expanse divides the waters from above from the waters of the earth.
Got it? Clear as mud.
Not really… the difficulty is not with what we can see… our oceans, rivers, and lakes… those waters are agreed upon by researchers.
But, what are the heavenly waters?
And, some of you know where this is going… some of you are thinking, “I thought the nerd hat was gonna come off?” Sorry!
Heavenly waters leads to the question… “Was the firmament a Water Vapor Canopy?”
If you’re not familiar… a general explanation of the Canopy Model is, and I quote, “there was a canopy of water above the atmosphere until the cataclysm of Noah’s day, at which point it disappeared either by collapsing upon the earth or dissipating into space. It is presumed to have consisted of water vapor because a canopy of ice could not have survived the constant bombardment of celestial objects like meteoroids which perpetually barrage the earth’s atmosphere.”
It’s also thought the Water Vapor Canopy would have shielded early humans from the sun’s radiation… which would help to account for the long life spans… which we will come to in Genesis 5.
Henry Morris in his great book “The Genesis Record”… advocates this position.
Morris wrote (and let’s pull up our slide of the Layers of the Earths Atmosphere… which I know you know already, so forgive me for insulting your intelligence… the slide was just for me):
Morris wrote: “The “waters above the firmament” thus probably constituted a vast blanket of water vapor above the troposphere [the lowest densest part of the earth’s atmosphere] and possibly above the stratosphere [earth’s atmosphere above the troposphere] as well, in the high-temperature region now known as the ionosphere [still further up in earth’s atmosphere where gases are ionized… pushing to the exosphere], and extending far into space. They could not have been the clouds of water droplets which now float in the atmosphere, because the Scripture says they were “above the firmament.” Furthermore, there was no “rain upon the earth” in those days (Genesis 2:5), nor any “bow in the cloud” (Genesis 9:13), both of which must have been present if these upper waters represented merely the regime of clouds which functions in the present hydrologic economy.” [speaking about the cycle of vapor to precipitation and back to vapor].
Easy to follow… right? Morris goes on to list 9 additional points in support of the Water Vapor Canopy model… and it’s worth the read.
Henry Morris “The Genesis Record.”
NOW… I was surprised to read that Answers in Genesis (AIG) does NOT support the Canopy Theory. Nor does GotQuestions.org.
Because researchers are abandoning the Canopy Model because of various pitfalls in the model… such as…
AIG states, “… if a canopy existed and collapsed at the time of the Flood to supply the rainfall, the latent heat of condensation would have boiled the atmosphere! And a viable canopy would not have had enough water vapor in it to sustain 40 days and nights of torrential global rain.”
So, the heat of the water would literally cook the planet as energy would be released when the vapor converted to liquid.
If you’ve loved the Canopy model… this info. is probably a shock to hear… but, don’t shoot the messenger… as mentioned this was surprising to me to read.
And, so back to the original question… what’s a firmament or as defined the “expanse”… in one study by AIG… here’s where they land…
“The conclusion of this study is that 1) the expanse is outer space, 2) where the birds fly and the clouds float is the “face of the expanse,” [and you see “face of the expanse” in V20] and 3) the “waters above” are the outer boundary of the universe.”
So, is the expanse the atmosphere and beyond into space depending on the context of the biblical passage.
Or, is the expanse a Water Vapor Canopy?
I don’t know. Minds far brighter than mine wrestle with these things… and examine them far deeper than I ever will.
The Expanse is something… God created it…
Ps 148:4 reads, “Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, And you waters above the heavens!”
Is that just poetic? Certainly it was written post flood… so, no more Vapor Canopy… if that existed.
Dr. Danny Faulkner at AIG takes the water above at the 'outer boundary of the universe’ as just that… water.
He discussed that there is a debate over the form of water at the edge of the universe… solid, liquid or gas?
But argues for water as the Hebrew word māyim is used in Gen 1:7 and Ps 148:4… and this is only used for liquid water.
There are different Hebrew words for ice and gaseous water.
Dr. Faulkner also wrote, “… we know nothing of the physical conditions at the edge of the universe. Indeed, the edge of the universe is a difficult concept to grasp physically. It may be that God has imposed conditions at the edge of the universe so that the water there remains as a liquid. Or perhaps not.”
Such a wild thought.
I will say… these verses and the AIG articles… raised another question in my mind… is there evidence of water in outer space? Are the waters above simply a boundary… or is there literal water in space?
I’m not sure how you’re mind works… but I don’t typically walk around thinking about whether there is water in the galaxy above!
But when we allow our minds to dwell on a passage or even word in scripture… and ponder that reality in the universe above…
… it is truly fascinating to think about these things.
Feel free to fact check this, because I just did a quick internet search… but there is apparently abundant water in outer space.
In Stellar nurseries… the Orion Nebula can fill Earth's oceans 60 times each day. Massive water.
In Water clouds… In 2011, scientists discovered a massive cloud of water vapor 30 billion miles away from Earth.
It’s thought to contain more than 140 trillion times the amount of water on Earth.
In Moons… not on the surface, but beneath the surface of moons… even in our solar system… scientist believe there are large deposits of liquid water.
Some entrepreneur is thinking, “bottled moon water… $10 a bottle.”
There are also observations of other systems and planets which are thought to contain water.
Such a vast amount of thought goes into understanding these things… and endless rabbit trails on these subjects…
Please… visit the Answers In Genesis website and geek out on a plethora of articles on these topics and more… and read the details of their studies until your heart is fully content.
What is the firmament? It’s the expanse that separates the waters above and below… and one day we will be face-to-face with Jesus…
And, I look forward to Him explaining these origins to us.
Let’s press on… Day 3. vv 9-10 “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.”
In V9… there was a vast amount of shoreless ocean… and then God spoke for dry land to appear… and it did… and He named it Hebrew “Erets”… Earth… meaning “land (in contrast to water), ground, soil”
With figurative meanings “heaven and earth” for the totality of creation…
Or “the ends of the earth” meaning a “very distant place.”
Context is king.
In V9… the context is creation… God spoke… which sets the miraculous into motion… then and now… and He deserves praise…
In Ps 33:6-9, the Psalmist wrote, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
He spoke and massive energy was released… perhaps the Earth’s core, mantle and crust are formed…
Or was the core and mantle already present in V2… and now the crust is forming? I don’t know.
Let’s pull up our layers of the earth slide… just as there are layers to our atmosphere… so too did God create our Earth with layers…
So in V9…
Dry land appeared for the first time… somehow the mantle breaking through the waters… minerals and rocks that make up the solid core.
And it’s important to note who has to power to make the dry land appear… and who the seas yield to.
The Psalmist in Ps 95:5 knew… “The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.”
It’s the same God whom in the Exodus account made the waters of the Red Sea move so the Israelites could cross over on dry land. (Exo 15:19)
If one has no problem with the Creation account… there should be no problem with the Exodus escape.
It’s the same God who allowed the Israelites to cross the Jordan on dry land. (Josh 4)
In 2 Kings 2… Elijah… empowered by God… struck the water with his mantle and divided the water.
In the New Testament… Jesus got into the boat with His disciples on the Sea of Galilee…
And, as a great tempest arose they thought they would perish, but Jesus rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.
And, the disciples asked, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (Matt 8:27)
They should have recognized that Jesus was God… because it’s God who has the power over the wind and the seas… and all of creation.
John 1:2-3 declares the “Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
And, so… just like Jesus does in our lives today… He starts with a 101 course… and then a 102 course… sometimes with trials…
The disciples again found themselves in a boat and in a storm a second time…
But this time without Jesus… and they were in the middle of the sea straining at rowing against a contrary wind for three or four miles…
And, Jesus came out to them… walking on water… and again He calmed the storm.
This time the disciples didn’t ask “Who can this be…?”
Matt 14:33 declares they “worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.””
Sometimes we have to go through the storm to recognize HE who has power over the storm.
Sometimes it takes a moment… and sometimes a trial for us to connect all the dots to recognize since creation… it’s always been God with the power over the sea… and it is Jesus who is God.
Back in Genesis… we observe in V10 the waters are ‘gathered together’ which God called “Seas”…
Not the seas we have today… but the pre-flood seas…
Even the land was not what we see today…
AIG describes a pre-flood supercontinent they call “Rodinia”… which broke apart at the start of the flood…
… creating rock that was covered with early flood deposits… and the plates collided to create mountains on a temporary supercontinent (known as Pangaea)… which only existed for a few weeks when the earth was flooded…
… then the plates separated to form today’s continents.
Of course… lots more can be said about all of that… and many articles can be read on Answers in Genesis.
And, when God beheld His creation… in V10 we read His reflection “And God saw that it was good.”
Interesting… God saw it was good on Day 1…
But, no mention of Day 2 being good…
Not that it was bad on Day 2, because in V31 God looks back on all He created and declared “it was very good.” It was all good.
But Day 2 was not a completed work… it was more of an intermediary step in the creation process…
On Day 2, He separated that which He created on Day 1… Day 2 was not a unique creative event.
Then, on Day 3… God saw that “it was good” twice. It was ‘doubly good.’
Which leads to a fun fact…
Some Jews choose to get married Monday night or Tuesday (Day 3 in Jewish thinking)… as they consider it a lucky day for weddings since the phrase “it was good” appears twice.
Jews take this as "Good for Heaven, and good for the creations."
This will blow your mind… John 2:1 “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee...”
Brings a whole new light to that passage.
“It was good” appears 6 times… and then upon conclusion of creation when God saw everything He had mad… we read in V31… “it was very good.”
And, who was it good for? For God? Or… did He have Adam in mind?
I think God had Adam in mind the whole time… and mankind in general.
Us whom He made in His image.
Us whom He uniquely gave a spirit…
The only thing that was “not good” was Adam’s aloneness… Gen 2:18 “It is not good that man should be alone...”
And, so God created Adam a helper comparable to him… Eve.
In love, God created a very good planet, and galaxy for us.
Which we don’t even know… we have no experience of Eden… and just how good it was to walk with God pre-fall.
But, even in it’s fallen state… despite the sin of the world… we still see beauty in creation…
Sunsets… waterfalls… mountains… landscapes…
A smile from a loved one… laughter… love.... connection…
There is much good that still exists… and we look forward to that yet future time… when it will once again be very good…
Jesus Millennial Reign… and Eternity…
And, we thank God for those future promises.
It will be very good.
Well… wrapping up vv 11-13 “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.”
Note that life begins on dry land… not in the the water as evolutionist declare.
Evolutionist state that “the order of creation starts with simple, single-celled organisms in the oceans, gradually progressing to more complex marine life, then land plants, followed by land animals, and finally culminating with humans.”
The Biblical record begins NOT in the oceans, but on land… and plants being the first in the order of creation.
And, note that God creates a system that is fully functioning… fully developed trees… and we know this because they are bearing fruit… and with a seed in themselves… giving them an “appearance of age.”
Some ridiculously suggest this is “divine deception”… as if God was lying about the age of His creation.
Did a tree have rings for example? If it had rings that would suggest age…
What should God have done… created a tree with one ring and it would break with the wind… or just sprouts… how would Adam eat a few days later?
That is all just silly. God created Adam fully functioning as well. Adam was not created as baby… he was a full-grown man…
Did he have baby teeth?
It wasn’t dishonest… God created what was necessary to sustain life in days.
And, God created a functioning system that could be interdependent in days.
Plant life never would have survived millions of years without the bumble bees that assist with pollination on Day 5… nor with the sun that provided the necessary blue and red lights needed to grow.
Day age theorists say the sun wasn’t needed because light was already created on Day 1 and rotation on Day 2,…
… but we have no idea if the light created on Day 1 had the correct photosynthetic active radiation wavelengths needed for plant growth.
That’s a huge assumption.
But the sustainability of plant life is not a problem if you take the Genesis account literally.
It’s interesting to note that God designed fruit with seeds.
Seeds are amazing… truly miraculous and a testament of God’s creation…
You take a seed… bury it… and with water and sunlight it…
… even if planted upside down… it senses gravity and always grows upwards.
And, seeds can stay dormant months or years and remain viable for decades or centuries.
2000 year old Date Palm tree seeds were found near the Dead Sea and germinated withing 48 hours after planting.
We know seeds have the ability to grow into new plants… perpetuating their own kind… but also feed and provide for many other kinds… animals and humans…
Their fibers are in our clothes and other products.
But, today if you go to the grocery store… you look for fruit with seeds… and you get annoyed when there are seeds.
You say, “Why didn’t you buy the seedless kind?”
We’ve grown accustomed to the genetically modified kind.
Interesting… there is a Global Seed Vault in an Arctic island in Norway.
It’s a doomsday seed vault to preserve and protect seeds from gene banks around the world… and to ensure seeds are not lost during a large scale crisis.
It can hold up to 4.5 million seed samples.
Good contingency plan. The seed vault… with the Great great grand seeds of original creation.
Non-GMO… for real.
Worship team please come.
We will pick up next time in V14… the fourth day.
And, we will begin looking at a phrase we read already three times tonight “according to its kind.”
Repeated 9x in Genesis 1. Important phrase.
Some of you thought I forgot. I didn’t… don’t worry. We’ll nerd out again next time.
Read ahead.
Let’s pray!
If you need prayer for anything, please let us pray with you.
May the Creator God bless the rest of your week. God bless you as you go.
