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Session 5 - Creation Week - Part 1

Class Discussion (02-07-10)

The First Day

Although the earth had been created in a formless watery dispersion, existing in static darkness, God had a great and eternal purpose for it. First the Spirit of God imparted motion and form to the inert and shapeless elements, and next would come the energy of light to dispel the darkness.

Verse 3 is the first record of God speaking in the Bible. The Word of God brings light! The Father is the source of all things (verse 1), the Spirit is the energizer of all things (verse 2), the Word is the revealer of all things (verse 3). (Read 2 Corinthians 4:6; John 1:1-14; 8:12; 1 John 1:5-7)

Having separated the day and night, God had completed His first day’s work. This same formula is used at the conclusion of each of the six days; so it is obvious that the duration of each of the days, including the first, was the same. The day was the “light” time, when God did His work; the darkness was the “night” time when God did no work – nothing new took place between the “evening” and “morning” of each day.

Such a cyclical light-dark arrangement clearly means that the earth was now rotating on its axis and that there was a source of light on one side of the earth corresponding to the sun, even though the sun was not yet made. It is equally clear that the length of such days could only have been that of a normal solar day.

The first day might be summarized by saying that the nuclear forces maintaining the integrity of matter were activated by the Father when He created the elements of the space-mass-time continuum, the gravitational forces were activated by the Spirit when He brought form and motion to the initially static and formless matter, and the electromagnetic forces were activated by the Word (Jesus) when He called light into existence out of the darkness.

Of course, God is One, and all three persons of the Godhead actually participated in all parts of the creation and continue to function in the maintenance of the universe so created. All of this was accomplished on the first day of creation. The physical universe had been created and energized, and was now ready for further shaping and furnishing in preparation for whom it was created and designed for – mankind.

The Second Day

The word “firmament” is the Hebrew word raquia (pronounced raw-keé-ah), meaning “expanse”. It may well be synonymous with our modern technical term “space,” practically the same as what discussed in the last lesson for the word “heaven.” In fact, this passage specifically says “God called the expanse Heaven” (as translated in AMP, ESV, NAS, NASB and several other modern translations). There are three particular “heavens” mentioned in scripture: the atmospheric heaven (Read Jeremiah 4:25 KJV), the heaven where the stars and planets reside (Read Isaiah 13:10), and the heaven of God’s throne (Read 2 Corinthians 12:2 and Hebrews 9:24). The firmament referred to in this particular passage is obviously the atmosphere.

Canopy Theory

Separated by this firmament, or atmosphere, the two bodies of water were ready for their essential functions in sustaining the soon-to-come life on earth. The “waters above the firmament” probably constituted a vast blanket or canopy of water vapor above the troposphere and possibly above the stratosphere as well, in the high-temperature region now known as the ionosphere, and extending far into space. Clouds as we know them today probably did not exist because the verse says the waters were “above the firmament” plus there was no “rain upon the earth” in those days (Read Genesis 2:5), nor any “bow in the cloud” (Read Genesis 9:13). This would most likely be vapors (or vapor canopy) because it would have been transparent in order for the heavenly bodies to “give light upon the earth” and to “be signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years” (Genesis 1:14-15). This all changed after Noah’s flood providing for conditions (water that wasn’t there before, see Genesis 7:11) we now see in our atmosphere.

Proponents of this theory believe this helps to explain the longer human lives found before the flood (protection from cosmic radiation), no rainbows prior to God’s covenant (Genesis 9:13 NIV and NLT) and the massive continental drift. The climate would be very different prior to the flood with unified temperatures globally, no wind, no rain, no barren deserts and no ice caps.

Other Interpretations

The “waters above the heavens” could simply refer to clouds. The writer of Proverbs 8:28 understood the term in Genesis as a reference to the “clouds” where he speaks of God’s creative act of “establishing the clouds above and fixing securely the fountains of the deep.” A similar view point is found in Psalm 104 where the psalmist speaks of God laying “the beams of his upper chambers on their waters” and making “the clouds his chariot” (Psalm 104:3).

Also others believe that the term “waters” refers to the “4th state of matter” known as plasma. Plasma is the state when the molecular structure contains an equal number of positive ions and electrons. Material in this condition become great electrical conductors and can be affected by magnetic and electromagnetic fields.

Whatʼs Missing on the Second Day?

There is no “it was good” statement on Day Two! The Third Day is known as the day of the “Double Blessing.” It is still considered, as the third day of the week (Tuesday), to be a day of double blessing. Many people even plan their weddings for Tuesday expecting a double blessing for their marriage.

The Third Day

The “waters under the heaven” still constituted a shore-less ocean. On the third day of creation, God accomplished a third act of division. The light had been divided from the darkness on the first day, the waters above the firmament divided from the waters below the firmament on the second day, and now the dry land from the lower waters on the third day. The NLT renders the verse “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” (NIV has similar wording).

Not only had rocks and minerals been formed, but also a blanket of fertile soil – sand, silt, and clay sized particles in an ideally graded mixture with abundant chemical nutrients and soil moisture. God spoke again, this time organizing certain chemical elements of the earth into tremendously complex systems, each with a marvelous informational program built into its chemical structure, which could specify the reproduction of other units like itself. There is no suggestion that these systems possessed any form of consciousness; but each kind did have its “seed in itself” and so had the ability of reproducing its kind.

Three main orders of plant “life” are mentioned: vegetation (grasses), plants yielding seeds (herbs) and fruit bearing trees. It is significant that these plants were made, not as seeds, but as full-grown plants whose seed was in them. They had an appearance of age, not to suggest a divine deception, but are a necessary accompaniment of genuine creation. The whole universe was made as a functioning entity, complete and fully developed, right from the beginning. So the chicken was before the egg!

In verse 11 occurs the first mention of both “seed” and “kind.” Implanted in each created organism was a “seed,” programmed to enable the continuing replication of that type of organism. The modern understanding of the extreme complexities of the Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule and the genetic code contained in it has reinforced the Biblical teaching of the stability of kinds. Each type of organism has its own unique structure of the DNA and can only specify reproduction of that same kind. There is a tremendous amount of variational potential within each kind, facilitating the generation of distinct individuals and even of many varieties within the kind, but precludes the evolution of new kinds. We will cover DNA in more detail later.

The phrase “according to its kind” (or after their kind) occurs ten times in the first chapter of Genesis. Each organism was to reproduce after its own kind, not after some other kind. Whatever precisely is meant by the term “kind” (the Hebrew word min) it closely follows the definition what we currently call “species.” For example not all flesh is the same; humans have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.

Notice that the formation of plants, even in such complex forms as fruit trees, occurred before the creation of any form of animal life. This flatly contradicts the accepted evolutionary system, which has marine animals, both invertebrates and vertebrates, evolving hundreds of millions of years before the evolution of fruit trees and other higher plants. Many plants require pollination by insects, but insects were not made until the sixth day of creation, which argues against the possibility that the days of creation could have been long ages. The idea of theistic evolution is counter to the Biblical record of creation in practically every passage.

The terms “evening” (the Hebrew word ereb) and “morning” (Hebrew boqer) each occur more than one hundred times in the Old Testament, and always have the literal meaning – the termination of the daily period of light and the termination of the daily period of darkness. Similarly, the occurrence of “day” modified by a numeral, such as “third day”, is a construction occurring more than a hundred times in the Torah or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible written by Moses) alone, always with the literal “24 hour” meaning.

The Fourth Day

On the fourth day God made the astrosphere, the celestial sphere of the stars and planets surrounding and illuminating the terrestrial sphere. On the first day, He said, “Let there be light!” (the Hebrew word or*) and now on the fourth day, He said “Let there be lights” (or light-givers, the Hebrew word *ma-or). Light first, then the generators of light later.

Light rays were impinging on the earth as it rotated on its axis during the first three days of essentially the same intensities and directions as those, which would later emanate from the heavenly bodies to be emplaced on the fourth day. Light was coming during the day as though from the sun and during the night as though from the moon and the stars, even though they had not yet been made.

This may sound strange to us, but remember that it is just as easy for God to create waves of light energy as to create generators to produce the waves. There was no need for such generators except to serve the additional function of marking “signs and seasons, days and years.”

The fact that both sun and moon are called “light-givers” does not suggest that they are of the same substance. One actually generates light, the other only reflects light; but both “give light” as far as their functions relative to the earth are concerned. It is interesting that the stars are mentioned as of only minor importance relative to the sun and moon. “He made the stars also.”

Even though stars are incomparably bigger than then earth, and many of them even larger than our sun, they are of much simpler structure than the earth.

Let them be for signs…

A sign is something arbitrarily selected and appointed to represent some other thing. The letters of the alphabet are “signs” of sounds and numbers. There is no relation whatever between these “signs” and the things they signify, except that people have agreed to employ them for these purposes. This is true with all “signs” including stop signs, traffic signals, etc. You have to know what the sign means before you see a sign to know what it trying to tell you.

When Moses said that the swarm of flies should be a “sign” to the Egyptians, there was nothing in the nature of the swarm to show what was signified. Isaiahʼs walking barefoot had no natural connection with the Syrian conquest of Egypt, and yet this was “for a sign” of that fact. And here God said of the celestial lights, “and let them be for signs,” He meant that they should be used to signify something beyond and additional to what they evidence and express in their nature and natural appointment.

What the lights in the sky (sun, moon, stars) were meant to signify, over and above what is evidenced by their own nature, interpreters have been at a loss to explain (but no shortage of words). However many Hebrew scholars believe that the stars told the story of manʼs redemption and were used to teach Godʼs plan from generation to generation prior to the flood and perhaps for generations beyond Noah long before the Word of God was readily available. The early Hebrews called the star positions “mazzaroth” or most often translated “the constellations” (See Job 38:31-33).

The Mazzaroth is said to tell the story of creation, manʼs fall, Godʼs redemption through Jesus, the Messiah, and His return. Consider these examples: The virgin who is a mother (Mary the mother of Jesus), the lion (the Savior from the tribe of Judah), the Southern Cross (the Crucifixion), the serpent (the Devil in the garden), etc. The Bible often refers to the heavens declaring the glory of God (See Psalm 50 and 97).

The constellations, the twelve signs of the Zodiac (from the word zoad meaning “a walk, way, or going by steps” like Jacobʼs ladder), the “mansions of the moon” (or Lunar Zodiac), and the “thirty six deacons” and other astrological concepts all have their beginnings with the Mazzaroth. So what went wrong? Satan, just like what he has done in many arenas, imitates what God has done, this time by distorting the truth through the practice of astrology, fortune telling, etc. practices forbidden for believers (See Deuteronomy 18:9-13).

For more information about the Mazzaroth consider a book by Dr. Joseph A. Seiss (a 19th Century Lutheran pastor) titled “The Gospel in the Stars,” of course no one knows all the answers about the Mazzaroth, however this book helps the reader to better understand the basic premise of what the “signs” were and what they may represent. However be warned there are hundreds of “theories” about the Mazzaroth (well over 100,000 web pages found in a Google search). Remember we no longer need these “signs” as we now have the Word of God available to us, the Bible.

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