Bible Study - Genesis 1

Creation of the Heavens and the Earth

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This is the very start of the Bible. Even this single verse reveals a lot of important things to us:

  • God is real. He is not just a fanciful theory, the figure of someone's imagination. He is not some weird "white-bearded old man, sitting on a cloud". He is very real, and he was there all the way from the beginning. He was even there before the beginning of time!
  • God is the creator of heaven [lit.: the heavens] as well as everything we see here on earth. Everything is ultimately a consequence of his decision to create the earth. That, however, does not necessarily mean that everything that happens is God's explicit will. We'll get more into this when we go through chapter 3 and the Fall of Man.

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.

Some people for various reasons question the idea of God being a Trinity. Here we see the blessed Trinity in action, right from the start. God (the Father) creating the heaven [lit: the heavens] and the earth, God (the Spirit) hovering over the waters, they are quite clearly revealed. We can also see God (the Word) - that is, Jesus, the second person in the trinity - shining through in a slightly more subtle way. God said; here we see the logos, the Word of God.

Another interesting to note here is that God explicitly created the light. The darkness isn't mentioned as something explicitly being created by an act of God. If we think of darkness as the absence of light, this makes quite a bit of sense. Also, God creating the light is in essence God taking a piece of himself, a piece of his own character, and putting it into his Creation - God, being the "Father of Lights" (Jas 1:17)

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 might wonder, as people have done: is this talking about a literal 24h period (a "day" as we know it) or can this be interpreted as an "era", a longer period of time? Some believers take this as literal days, where others see it as longer periods of time. To me, this is not the most important part of this story. I know that "with God all things are possible" (Matt 19:26). If God wanted to, he could very well create the whole universe in a week. For sure, he could create it even faster if he wanted to! On the other hand, if it harmonizes better with scientific observations, I don't really have a big problem with this being interpreted more figuratively.

(However, there are other parts of the Bible which suggests that the "days" of creation should be taken as literal days, like Ex 20:11 where the creation on six days and the rest on the seventh day is taken as a pattern for the children of Israel to follow. The motivation behind the Sabbath as explained there becomes harder to understand if a more figurative interpretation is used.)

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And 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. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto 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 called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And 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 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon 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 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 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 fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Here we see a couple of interesting things. First, the expression "let us" once more indicates the "plurality" of God - one God in three persons (Father, Son and Holy Ghost).

We also see that God's original plan was for man to have dominion over this planet. We were crowned as the absolute jewel of God's creation, and he gave us the power and authority to rule the earth. Not in a Machiavellian, cruel way of course, but in godliness and soundness.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

This is yet again something which is under fire in our modern world: the binary genders, where all of mankind is ultimately created as male or female. Now, I know there are people out there who struggle greatly with their gender identity, and I have a large respect for this struggle. But let it be known that this was not God's plan for creation from the beginning. He made us male and female - men and women. If this is a particular area of our lives in which we are struggling, God wants to lovingly help restore us to his original plan with us. It is part of His redemption plan.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Here's another absolutely awesome observation: after each day of creation, God looked at his work and saw that it was good. But do you see what happens here, after the sixth day of creation, when man has been created? Now it's no longer merely good - it's absolutely awesome! It was very good only after man had been created. To me, this reveals some of God's goodness and incredible love for us as human beings. I get the feeling he was really thrilled when he had created Adam and Eve, the first human beings!

Back to Genesis | Next (chapter 2)