Genesis 1

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

The very first verse in the Bible is sort of like a chapter "spoiler" -- it tells you what is about to happen, but it hasn't happened yet. This will be made clear shortly.

• 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.

The conditions at the beginning of the world were thus: It was dark, there was nothing but water everywhere, and God's spirit moved around in it. It doesn't say that God created the water, for all we know it the water is "co-eternal" with God.

• 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

In this verse God performed his first act of ex nihilo creation, or something from nothing. Now there was light to see, but water was the only matter which existed, with nothing in the water to see with the light, not even a surface with waves.

• 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Next God performed his first act of judgment, he separated the light from non-light. All through the Sacred Scriptures God will repeat this same act of screening or filtering, more often with people.

• 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now it was Sunday night but there was no sun yet. All we had was a time when it was light, and a time when it was dark. That tells us God separated the light and darkness by intervals of time.

• 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

A firmament is a solid dome or vault, as shown in the image here. This dome was God's second act of ex nihilo creation, created on Monday morning.

• 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.

The purpose of the solid dome was to divide the water that was, at that point, everything, into two separate reservoirs, upper and lower.

• 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Only on Monday did God call the firmament or dome "heaven". That is why verse one is not when God created the heavens and earth but only a chapter heading. Since heaven is identified as the solid dome, it also meant there was water "above" heaven.

• 9-10 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. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Tuesday was a busy day. After heaven was created, God proceeded to create the Earth, by producing land and dividing the sea from the land. Only then did facts on the ground catch up to the first verse in the Bible. And God performed his first quality self-check.

• 11-13 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. 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. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

For the rest of Tuesday God occupied himself by covering the land with the first living things, in the form of vegetation. But this was before the creation of the sun, which now provides the energy for all life on Earth. On this first day, plants drew their life-giving power from the whole sky, which was brilliant with undifferentiated light. And God performed his second quality self-check.

• 14-15 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: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

On Wednesday God started to decorate the firmament with lights. The lights were placed in the solid dome that covers the earth. Comets were provided to give "signs" (such as the passing of great kings). The stars with their familiar patterns revolved to mark the seasons.

• 16-19 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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 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. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

The sun and moon and stars were placed in the firmament, where they could move independently. This presumes the firmament is transparent, at least on the inside surface. And a curious thing has happened. Where before the light of creation was diffused over the whole sky only in daytime, now the light was confined to the sun during the day, to the moon at all times, and to the stars at night. And God performed his third quality self-check.

• 20-23 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. 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. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Thursday was when God populated the Earth with all the creatures which were not confined to the land. This included every creature swimming in the rivers and seas, as well as all the birds and bats and winged insects. God performed his fourth quality self-check, it is has become evident that God is working to an orderly and precise plan, with creation ordered by categories of habitat.

• 24-25 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. 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.

On Friday God made all the creatures which were confined to the land and performed his fifth quality self-check. Wingless insects such as mites were created at the same time as the higher-order mammals such as apes and horses. This claim is in direct contravention of the progression of species asserted by Darwinism. And yet, God said, "Let the earth bring forth" the living animals, which is precisely the claim of abiogenesis, that non-living chemical evolution preceded the beginning of life.

• 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.

Now God proposed to make human beings, and for the first time he used the plural, when he says "let us make man...after our likeness". Some Christians take this to prefigure the Holy Trinity, yet even the doctrine of the Trinity asserts there is but one God. And God doesn't begin to use the plural until the beasts of the earth are created. Obviously this means God proposed to make a hybrid creature which is like an animal, but also made to resemble God in some way. He said man was to be made after "our" likeness; that is, combining attributes of the animal kingdom with divinity. If the days are not taken to mean literal 24 hour periods of time, this interpretation allows for evolution to co-exist with creation.

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

Both male and female humanity reflects the image of God. As a spirit, God is not a "he" but an "it" with no physical gender. And since humans resemble animals in body, the image of God is reflected in mankind's interior life. Man's mind was made in the image of God's mind. Our body may be either male or female after the fashion of animals, but our interior temperament, male or female, also reflects the image of the temperament of God, which has elements of both.

• 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.

Here God authorized sex and the colonization of the planet, and he put man in absolute control of all the fish and birds and beasts of the earth, to do with as he wished, as long as he didn't eat them, as indicated below.

• 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.

In the beginning, God did not authorize a meat diet for human beings. We were only permitted to eat fruits and herbs. And God said he gave man the fruit of "every tree", but later amended this permission to mean every tree except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which he strictly forbade man to eat, and the Tree of Life, which he guarded with cherubim to prevent man from eating.

• 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.

In the beginning, all the animals were only allowed to eat vegetables, not each other. All the birds of prey with their sharp talons and all the lions with their fangs, only ate green leaves. No blood was shed anywhere on the whole earth. The lion lay down with the lamb.

• 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.

In the beginning, everything that God created, including human beings, was "very good". This stands in stark contrast to the Gnostic view (which has bled into the Puritan view) that matter is intrinsically evil, and only the abstract things of the spirit are pure. No, God created matter and found it to be very good.

So concludes the "overview" account from Creation Sunday through Creation Friday which comprises Genesis chapter 1. In the next chapter, God rests on Saturday, and then we flash back to the important events of Creation Friday when, during a single twenty-four hour day, Adam is created, then the animals, which are named by Adam, and finally a female human companion is created for him.