Genesis Segment 02 (1:3-15)

NOTE: All Hebrew and Greek words are normally transliterated. They are presented in their uninflected forms unless otherwise noted.

(Gen 1:3) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Notice that in this verse God created only light. The sun, moon, and stars are not mentioned.We are not told what this light was, or how it was manifested. It may have been that light was simply made visible then. Perhaps it was the light of God’s presence or maybe a cloud of luminance over the earth. We are not told. We do know that none of the light producing celestial bodies were extant that first day. God is light, so this light was not new to God.

Flesh eyes cannot behold the light of God unshielded. I base this on several happenings in the Bible. Ezekiel, in Eze 1:28, could not stand on his feet when he beheld the shekina glory of God. He was unable to stand until the Spirit entered him and set him on his feet. The indwelling of the Spirit allowed him to look upon God Himself. When Isaiah beheld Yehovah, he cried that he was a man of unclean lips (Isa 6:5). He was terrified until one of the Seraphs touched him with a live coal from the altar of God. In another example, when John saw the Living Christ in Rev 1:17, he fell down as dead. He was unable to function until Jesus spoke to him. There are other such instances, such as Moses, Gideon, etc. All the people this happened to beheld the glory of God and were not able to function until a supernatural action was performed. For these reasons, I believe the light or glory of God cannot be beheld in the flesh without supernatural help. The light God created on that first day was light that we could look upon in the flesh.

Light is not only a substance we can see, it is also synonymous with wisdom and knowledge (see Dan 5:14 for an example of this). Light is used of the righteousness of God (for example, Isa 2:5). Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was with God in the beginning (Prov 8:22-30). Light is also applied to the Word of God. His Word “is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path,” (Psalm 119:105).

So light here refers not only to visible light, but also to the glory of God, to God’s righteousness, to wisdom, to knowledge, and to God’s Word. There are several other things that light symbolizes. A Biblical word study of ‘light’ will reveal other meanings.

So we can see that when God made light to appear out of darkness (“darkness was upon the face of the deep“­—Gen 1:2), it was not only visible light, but the light of His righteousness, wisdom, and knowledge, which is infinite with God. God revealed all of these things when he said, “Let there be light.“

(Gen 1:4) And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

The Hebrew word for “good” is towb and it means the best possible. Its root can be used to mean joy. Therefore, it implies that God looked on the light with joy. Light and darkness don’t mix. Wherever there is light, there is no darkness. In a completely darkened room like a darkroom or a cavern, it is pitch black. But even the light of a luminous watch dial will provide enough light to see slightly. I have experienced this myself. I was able to see the outline of my hand in front of my face when the lights were switched off in the Florida Caverns. The light from my watch allowed me to see that outline. Darkness flees light.

Light and darkness also symbolize good and evil, respectively. Righteousness cannot mix with evil. So God separated the light from darkness. If He had not, there would be no darkness because light overcomes darkness. In the same way, we are to separate ourselves from evil. For examples of Biblical instructions to separate from evil, see Psalm 37:27 and 1 Thes 5:22. Just as darkness cannot exist in the light, God is righteous and evil cannot exist in His presence. That is why we cannot go into His presence with sin upon us. We must be washed in Jesus’ blood first.

(Gen 1:5) And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The Hebrew for night islahil, which means a twisting away of the light, figuratively, it means adversity. The word for day is yom. It has many meanings, as it does in English. Examples are a twenty four hour day, an indefinite period of time, and the time of light. We Christians are people of the day while Satan, fallen angels, and Satan’s children are creatures of the night. The Bible uses analogies between creatures of the night (like the owl and nighthawk) and the devil.

The day belongs to people of the light; the night belongs to those of the dark, like Satan. When prophecy is given concerning God’s people, it is usually given in days; when it concerns Satan or his demons or his people, it is usually given in months, which are time units based on the lunar cycle, which happens at night. Here are some examples: Rev. 2:10, where Christians who remain faithful tested 10 days. In Rev. 11:3, the two Witnesses prophecy for 1260 days. In Rev. 9:5, Locusts come out of the abyss and torment men for 5 months. In Rev. 13:5, the beast speaks blasphemies for 42 months.

“And the evening and the morning were the first day.” This is a good place to discuss the question, “Were the days of creation literal 24-hour days, or were they long periods of time?”

Here are reasons for them being 24-hour days: The Israelites reckoned their days from sundown to sundown. When evening begins and the sun goes down, a new day begins. The language of scripture carries forth this thought by stating that evening came and then morning came, indicating one day. God spoke and creation happened. There is no reason to doubt that He could have created all in six twenty four-hour days. He could have done so in an instant. Why didn’t he? Because seven is a number that God uses to signify divine perfection and completion. God uses sevens intricately in his written Word. For more on this subject, see the works of Ivan Panin. There are seventy periods of seven in Daniel’s prophecy. According to Dispensationalists there are seven dispensations. There are seven days in the week. There are seven sevens in jubilee. God used seven so that man could see His handiwork in creation.

Here are reasons for them being periods of time: Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years with us. The psalmist, Moses, tells us the same thing in Psalm 90:4. There is no reason to believe that God did not create the world in seven thousand years. That would also fit the scripture.

The use of the phrase “And the evening and the morning were the ____ day” lead me to state that these days could not have been long, indefinite time periods, but must have been regular 24 hour days from sunset to sunset, one complete revolution of the earth on its axis. As stated in the last segment, it is possible that the earth may well be millions of years old (but not probable), but this present creation may be six to fifteen thousand years old.

One theory I cannot support is the worldly theory that God created the earth eons and eons ago and then set Darwinian evolution in motion. Surely, God could have done so had He wanted to, but the evidence just does not support this hypothesis. There is no real evidence that any species evolved into another. In fact, during the so-called Cambrian era, most major groups of complex animals appeared in the fossil record around the same time. This is known as the “Cambrian Explosion” and supports the Genesis account of creation. Yes there have been adaptations within species in reaction to their environment, but they are still the same species even though they have some differing characteristics. This is known as micro-evolution. And yes, there are a few pieces of bone that were built up into possible missing links, but those in themselves are flimsy evidence. For example, evolutionary scientists from bone fragments of a skull and jawbone deduced one complete skull and then a complete skeleton. This was supposed to be a missing link between primates and men. That is flimsy evidence (it was actually wishful thinking). In fact, it was determined that the fragments came from a human, an orangutan, and a chimpanzee.  No, the evidence tells us that God created all that we see now. By the way, science, that is true science, is beginning to abandon the old theory of macro-evolution in favor of a created earth. The preponderance of the evidence supports it.

(Gen 1:6) And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

There can be no doubt about what this says. The translation is accurate and precise. God made the firmament (expanse), which is the sky or atmosphere, and placed it between the waters and divided the waters from one another. The problem is what were these waters? The next verse sheds more light on this.

(Gen 1:7) 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.

OK. So there were waters above the sky and below the sky. It is easy to picture waters below the sky. Just go to the seashore and have a look. The sea is a body of water under the sky. But what of the waters above the sky? Well, the Bible assumes we know what is being said. It is simple, apparently there was water surrounding the earth outside the atmosphere. The waters could have been liquid, but common sense and science tell us that is probably not correct. So the waters may have been in vapor form. While there is water vapor IN the atmosphere, the Bible says these water vapors were ABOVE the atmosphere. It is silent on this subject other than this verse. In my opinion, what the Bible says is literally true, that God placed a great water vapor canopy around the atmosphere which is no longer there. Why can only be opined. Some say that this is why the people before the flood lived such long lives–that the water vapor canopy shielded harmful radiation from the earth causing longevity.

I can’t say why, but the effects are known. It is known that tropical conditions existed on the earth in much greater latitudes than they currently do. The remains of tropical plants are found in England, Iceland, and the Asian tundra. The effect of a canopy of water vapor would be to stabilize the temperatures of the earth and protect it from extremes, in effect, making it tropical and subtropical throughout. The original global warming.

(Gen 1:8) And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

What is this Heaven? Should it have been capitalized? Heaven (the proper name – with a capital H) is physically where God is (see Revelation 21). Here we are talking about the firmament or sky. The Hebrew root word for heaven (or heavens) is shamayim. James Strong defines the word as lofty, or the sky. He also says that it includes the sky or atmosphere surrounding the earth as well as inner and outer space. It should be noted, though, that when God is in Heaven, the same Hebrew root word, shamayim is used (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:39). The word, shamayim, is plural but it is used in both a singular and a plural sense. In answer to the question posed in this paragraph, “Should it have been capitalized?” it really does not matter. Either way is acceptable.

(Gen 1:9-10) 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. (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.

Here we have the word “earth” used to mean a portion of the planet, and not the whole thing. The Hebrew word for earth, ‘erets, can mean the whole earth or any portion of it. It can also mean common, country, field, ground, land, nations, way, wilderness, and world. It is translated each of those ways in the KJV.

I don’t believe the word “earth” should be capitalized here because as dry land it is only a part of the planet. When the word is capitalized, it refers to the entire planet. The use of the word here is the same as if it was called dirt or ground as in this sentence: “He dug for worms in the earth.”

The seas were separated from the dry land, and they still are. Here again is the word towb or good. God looked upon it with joy. This is not the same thing as continental drift of the supercontinent theory that states one giant super continent existed in the beginning and split into the current continents via plate tectonics. That probably happened when God mixed up the languages and spread the inhabitants all around the earth at the Tower of Babel. (Editor’s note, 2014 AD: Walt Brown has posited the Hydroplate Theory, which is alternative way to account for the flood and plate tectonics.)

(Gen 1:11-13) 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. (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.

These verses directly refute the Darwinian Theory of Evolution. The verse says let the plants of the earth bring forth seed, and let them reproduce their own kind according to the seed that is in them. And let them do it on the earth. The Bible makes it clear that life on earth did not start from primordial soup and through natural selection the species were produced. No it says God created as He wanted them and they are only to reproduce themselves, not evolve into another species.

Why is Evolution being taught to our children as fact? Because Satan wants to deceive the nations to believe that there is no God. What better way than to refute what God says in His word? This is just like the serpent deceiving the woman in the garden. He told her that what God had said was not true. He is now telling the world that what God says about creation is not true; therefore, there must be no God. Watch out for his lies; he is very crafty.

In fact, I will go on record and state that the so-called enlightenment of the late eighteenth, the nineteenth, and the twentieth centuries has been the result of the theory of evolution. Our entire rationalist mindset of the twenty-first century is predicated upon macro-evolution. Our agnosticism and atheism are direct results of the theory. Yes, the beginnings of these things took place before Darwin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but all seemed to coalesce after Darwin published “The Origin of the Species”. Many rationalists lauded Darwin’s work, which gave weight to their arguments.

The word here for tree is ‘ets, עץ. It comes from the root word, ‘atsah, עצה, which is one transliteration out of several. The same word can be transliterated ‘atsah, ‘ahtash, ‘atseh, and ‘etsah, and could also be pronounced ‘ets. Each transliteration has a different meaning assigned to it in English. Some of these meanings are: to close or fasten, the human spine and body, trees, timber, prudence, advice, and counsel. It is interesting to note these things. The one I want you to remember is the spine and body. Remember this because in various places in the Bible, the Father, the Son, men, and Satan are symbolically referred to as trees.

Day three is done.

(Gen 1:14-15) 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: (15) And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Here the Bible is talking about stars, actually the zodiac. I am not talking about the zodiac used by astrologers to predict the future and whatever else they do. The word zodiac simply means the circle of stars and constellations around the earth. There is no evil there. Here, we are talking about the zodiac as designed by God for signs (as stated in verse 14).

Some theologians hold that the zodiac provided signs before the Word of God was written down. In fact, they say, God’s word is contained in the stars. The zodiac begins with Virgo, the Virgin (Mary), and ends with Leo the Lion (Jesus) standing over a defeated Hydra, the serpent. According to them, the entire purpose of God is written in the twelve signs of the zodiac. That is their opinion; you need not accept it as fact.

The sun, moon, and stars are given for signs and seasons. Indeed one can tell the season by looking at the positions of the constellations. As for years, there is what is called in Astronomy the precession of the equinoxes. If you read about the positions of certain stars in history, you can take those positions and use the precession of the equinoxes to determine the year that history was written. Psalm 19 talks about the stars: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork (Ps 19:1).”

Revised July 27, 2011

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