God chose Abraham to be the father of a family that would become a nation and be a blessing to the whole world (Gen. 12:1-3). This blessing would come to all mankind as Israel would allow the light of God’s presence to dwell within her, transform her, and shine out from her as a light to the nations (Isa. 42:6).
God went on to prepare the earth and fill it with living things. He accomplished this by simply speaking a Word. “Then God said” is repeated 8 times in Genesis 1. By a word he created light, the Sun and Moon, water and dry land, the universe of stars, plants and trees, the fish, birds and land animals according to their kind (Ge 1:3-25). “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Ge 1:26–28). “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Ge 1:31).
“THUS the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Ge 1:31). So God completed all of creation in six days. The six days of creation in Gen 1 can represent either (1) literal 24-hour days of creation, (2) literal 24-hour days of divine revelation of creation, (3) extended geological ages or epochs preparatory for the eventual occupancy of man, or (4) a revelatory framework to summarize God’s creative activity, asserting that ‘by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth …’ (Col 1:16).[v]
The fact that God does all works in what He calls a number of “days” does not mean these have to be days as man understands a day (a revolution of the earth in a 24 hour period). We must understand what time really is, that is, what time means to God who lives in eternity. The Bible says this about time from God’s standpoint: “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. (2 Peter 3:8-9). Also Psalm 90:4, written by Moses, also the author of Genesis by consensus, says: “For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the night”. This scripture indicates a thousand years are like a watch in the night which man sleeps through with no passage of time noted. Some interpreters say that the term “a thousand years” is simply a number meaning “ultimate perfection” (10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000).[vi] The Bible Knowledge Commentary states as follows: “God counts time differently than does man. People see time against time; but God sees time against eternity. In fact time only seems long because of man’s finite perspective. With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Other commentators regard a thousand years as meaning in ancient terms “a very long time”. One way to perceive time is that God carved out a section of eternity and called it time. Time as we know it does not exist in eternity.
God created a garden suitable for habitation by the man He was about to create. “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being [soul]” (Ge 2:7). Herein is the secret of life. Man theorizes that life happened accidently from a chance combination of the elements present in living beings. However mixing the right chemicals does not make life; it produces an inert mass without the spark to quicken it to life. God breathes life into the inert mass in order to make a living being.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Ge 2:18). God had earlier called creation “good”. But here He notes that it is not good for Adam to be alone. We know from verse 2:18 that Adam had a need; some say the need was loneliness. However, in order to have his need met by God, he first had to take care of God’s needs. God needed Adam to set the animal kingdom in order by naming each of them (2:19–20). When he met God’s needs, then God in turn moved and met his need of an help mate (2:21–22).[vii]
“So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh at that place. And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man” (2:21-22). What God did was put a piece of man within the woman and thereby established a oneness between them. Adam recognized this and said:
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man” (Ge 2:23). If Eve had been created from the ground as was Adam this type of oneness could not have been established (bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh). Then: “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Ge 2:24).
Evolution as the prime mechanism for adapting life, although accepted in the scientific community is not scriptural. God clearly states the animals were made “after their kind” (Ge 1:24-25). Man was made quite separately and did not evolve from any other species. Even looking at evolution of man from apes is not logical. There is a universe of difference between man and the monkey community-a gap that can never be explained satisfactorily by science. We know that recorded history began approximately 6000 years ago and before that we have only a fossil record, some sketchy archeological evidence and speculation to guide man in his quest for an accurate history. Remember Satan is the deceiver and he is always at work to discredit God’s version of events.
One interesting aspect worthy of notice is God’s lack of emphasis on the cosmos. It is not until the fourth day that he created the stars of the universe which science tells us number in the trillions upon trillions. Here is what god said about the creation of the solar system and stars: “Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good” (Ge 1:14–18).
Civilizations other than Israel exalted the heavens above all else and worshipped them as a source of life and prophecies of the future. This was clearly not God’s intention. He said to Israel this of the stars and physical heavens: “And beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, and be drawn away and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven” (De 4:19). All other nations could worship the heavens but not Israel. They had a more sure witness in God and the men He raised up to speak His word.
Utley, R. J. (2001). Vol. Vol. 1A: How it All Began: Genesis. Study Guide Commentary Series (3–9). Marshall, Texas: Bible Lessons International
