Mark’s Article of Faith | Creation

Genesis 1:1-5:2 | Creation

Introduction

My statement of faith is that I believe the universe and all that is in it, including our earth, was created by One God, the God described in the Bible. It is a creation with intention and purpose. I affirm the apostle Paul’s statement in his letter to the Colossians.

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Colossians 1:16–17

This statement of faith on creation is important to me because truth is important. The Creation story can affect how we understand the Bible story as a whole, but for me, the most important reason for studying it is to know the truth. Some have said, “What does it matter what I understand about the details as long as I believe God created everything?” I will admit that this is the most important point of these chapters, but at the same time, if our Lord wrote them for us, we should be able to read them intelligently and answer our own and other people’s questions.

The Background

When reading the Bible, it is essential to understand who the text was written to and to do one’s best to place oneself in their shoes. So we should ask: who was this written to? It might be that we think it was written to us; after all, wasn’t the Bible written for everyone? Yes, that is true, but every book, chapter, and verse had an original hearer in mind. We are then privileged to read them and gain wisdom from them.

Moses is considered the author of Genesis and the rest of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. With that knowledge, we understand that it was written to the Hebrews who had been living in Egypt for hundreds of years. It was most likely written when the children of Israel were out in the desert, heading to the promised land. It could also have been an oral tradition handed down from ancestors. Remember, by the time Genesis was written, well over a thousand years had passed after the creation of Adam.

The book of Genesis, as a whole, was written to help Israel understand its past and the reason it existed as a nation. Without purpose, a people or a nation will slowly move towards chaos. The first chapter addresses why anything exists. Egypt and the other nations were polytheistic, but Moses met the “I am who I am” in the wilderness and wanted his people to know they were a product of one all-powerful God who created everything. The creation story is a universal story that all people can believe in for themselves.

We then read in chapter two what God has planned for the creation, as seen in Eden. The Lord’s intention is to make the world a paradise, with humans helping as His image-bearers. We then read how we have failed in our purpose, and as a result, the world remains incomplete. After dealing with humanity and dividing them into nations to deter rebellion, God created a nation for Himself from Abram. The story leads to the reason they were in Egypt and why the Lord now wanted them to leave. However, it all starts with Genesis chapter one.

The Genre of Genesis Chapter One.

Understanding to whom this chapter was written helps us discern the narrative’s genre. Throughout history, different cultures and eras have understood the world through varying lenses.

“For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:”

1 Corinthians 1:22

In the days of the Exodus, stories about the past that were not directly witnessed were often told in the genre of mythology. Today, many equate ‘mythology’ with ‘fairy tale,’ but this is a misunderstanding. There are two different ways to understand the past: theories and mythologies. Theories attempt to explain how something works, while myths aim to explain what it means. Genesis, chapters one through three, is a hybrid of history and meaning—a form sometimes called ‘mythic history’ or, to avoid confusion, ‘theological history.’

https://www.britannica.com/topic/myth/Myth-and-history

Regardless of the term used, this does not mean Genesis is merely symbolic or fictional. Consider how Jesus used parables—stories grounded in reality to convey deep truths. Similarly, Genesis should not be read as a literal, event-by-event account in the modern historical sense. While God is the ultimate eyewitness, He chose to communicate through a form understandable to the people of that time. The mythic or theological genre was a logical method of transmission for profound truths.

In the beginning

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

Genesis 1:1–2

God and miracles.

These verses tell us that God created the heavens and the earth at the beginning and at an unspecified time in the past. The original reader would most likely have thought of the ground under their feet, the sky above. There is no record of people having knowledge of deep space at this time. Today, we understand that heaven is expansive, but that does not change how we understand these opening words.

The most controversial part of this is “God created.” I cannot say if atheism was a concept in the ancient world, but polytheism was certainly a belief. These words subject all of creation, even other gods, to this one God. Today, these words are the center part of the whole creation story because either you believe the world is a purposeful creation or it is a random singularity.

The other point these two words force us to address is the supernatural, or, we can say, miracles. The atheist may not want to believe in miracles because they speak of a supernatural being, but there is no getting around the fact that, since the universe exists and its creation is not a normal recurrence, they have to define them in some way. It has been said that we all need at least one miracle to explain our existence.

For the theist, this is the greatest miracle of all—everything from nothing. If God could create all things from nothing, then manipulating the creation is easy. To create a human from dirt seems much more difficult than restoring that lifeless human. If we look at the Red Sea, it seems impossible for that much water to be moved, but if we zoom out and see the Earth, the Red Sea seems like a little puddle, and then we zoom out to see the Milky Way, we wonder where the Earth is. If there is a God who created the heaven and the earth, the miracles of the bible should not even be given a second thought.

The foundation from which to build.

The words “And the earth…” tell us there was a planet when the story begins, but they also imply a heaven, because they declare that God created both heaven and earth together. Our God is a rational Creator and gave us rational minds. It is rational to think that the Earth existed at some point. We read about it sitting on pillars and having a cornerstone for a foundation (Job 9:6; 38:6; Psalms 75:3). While these might be poetic descriptions, they still tell us people need a place for the earth to exist. It can’t just exist in nothingness.  For us, we understand it exists in a universe.

When was our universe created? Well, we know that God is eternal and from everlasting to everlasting, so it doesn’t matter how far back it was created. The Bible tells us that the heavens will speak to us about the greatness of God.

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

Psalm 19:1

When scientists point their telescopes toward the heavens, we see things beyond comprehension. The universe is vast and full of mysteries waiting to be discovered. One thing that can be measured and known to be true is that the universe is old, very old. There are some who would deny this fact, but that is not based on science; rather, it stems from a desire to believe that Genesis teaches the universe is young.

Starlight tells a story; it is not just a beam of light. We observe changes in the universe, and if light takes millions of light-years to reach us, the event we observe must have occurred millions of years ago. We can bring this close to home: light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth, so when astronomers see a solar flare, they are witnessing something that happened 8 minutes earlier.

One Christian astrophysicist believes that light travels one way faster than the other, which could technically be true, but it seems like a suggestion meant only to lend credibility to a young universe; yet there could be another way of reading Genesis. However, as we will see, there could be a significant gap between God creating the universe and when He said, “Let there be light.” But do not mistake this gap for the gap theory, where an old creation fell. It is simply a gap of time between when God created the universe and when He changed the earth.

The status of the earth at creation.

Verse two tells us that the earth was without form and void. I believe these two words are essential for understanding this chapter, as they identify a condition that needs to be addressed. They also give the story structure. Then there is the word darkness. We could take this as literal darkness, but there are reasons that might not be correct. First of all, darkness is used to describe a state that is unfinished or imperfect.

“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”

Isaiah 9:2

One reason to believe that the darkness here is spiritual is that, if we read the text literally, a heaven was created on the first day, which would have included lights in the sky. I am certain that at this point, many will say that the lights were created on day four. Let me ask you not to force the reading of day four on these words; let us address that when we get there. A second reason to believe that darkness here speaks of an unfinished state is the use of the words formless and void. I am getting ahead of the text, but at the end of the first day, God says, “the evening and the morning were the first day.” The most literal reading of that is that there was a sunset and a sunrise.

So, with these things in mind, I believe the darkness describes the unfinished state of the earth, which was not suitable for life. I believe we could make a similar statement about Mars, since some believe we can colonize it. We could say of the planet Mars, “and Mars is formless and void, and darkness covered the land.” That statement would be made in reference to its inability to harbor life. Mars and many other planets in our universe have remained formless and void for eons. If God were to bring life to Mars a million years from now, there would be a gap between its creation and the fulfillment of its purpose. So I believe there is a gap between verses one and two and the rest of the chapter. However, that is not the traditional gap theory. My understanding of this gap does not mean there was a life-or-death situation in it before God said, “Let there be light.”

Let there be light.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 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.”

Genesis 1:3–5

The words “God said” are repeated and seem to start the story that is important for us humans. It is not about when the universe and our planet were created; it is about life on Earth. Before I address the light, I want to address the day. The plain reading seems to describe a day as we know it, a twenty-four-hour day defined by sunrise and sunset. These are not eons of time; that would be forcing an interpretation on the text. Many have tried to use Peter’s description of God’s time to make these days into long periods.

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

2 Peter 3:8

What Peter does tell us helps us understand what we are reading in Genesis. God working six days and resting on the seventh should be understood as an anthropomorphism. An anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to God. Meaning God is being described as working as we work in order to teach us a lesson. In my studies, an often-overlooked point in Genesis 1 is that God is the creator of the seven-day week, not man. He has defined our world in these terms. Also, while the week is being defined, it is used to outline the story.

What is the light?

If the sun was created from the beginning, what is this light being spoken of here? Many have wondered this, and one suggestion I have heard is that it was a supernatural light that created a cycle of light and darkness until day four. In my mind, this seems forced because why would God create a cycle of light when He already planned to have a sun to do that? Unless I have a good reason to believe it, it would make no sense. Since the world was in darkness, meaning it was in a state not capable of sustaining life, light would be the answer to that problem.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”

John 1:4

It seems that John affirms this idea in the opening of his gospel.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

John 1:1–5

For life to exist, there had to be a foundation for it, rules governing how life works. We can think of things like DNA. We would also need moral laws to govern goodness and righteousness. On a planet that was without form and void, we can see the need for a blueprint for life, and that is what this light is all about. Jesus is the architect of that blueprint (Colossians 1:16-17).

Let me take this a step further. Here we find Jesus as the light that brings life to earth on the very first day of the week. Then, as we read further, humans bring sin into the world and bring darkness back. So Jesus comes to redeem His creation by initiating a new creation, which begins with the resurrection. What day of the week does Jesus rise from the grave, and what time of the day is it?

“And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.”

Mark 16:2

They came to the tomb on the first day of the week and did not find Jesus because He had risen with healing in His wings. He is bringing about a new creation that will never end. Jesus is the light of the world!

Creating form

“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.”

Genesis 1:6–13

We read that the earth was without form and void. Starting on day one, the Lord is going about forming. God is creating environments for things to exist in and rule over. On day two, God creates the sky above, and the waters above are the clouds. We do not need to complicate this any more than what the Hebrews and we understand about the world.

What is the firmament?

The word firmament is meant to convey the meaning of the Hebrew word raqiya, which conveys the idea of something firm. Its root is raqa`, which is something hammered out like a piece of gold or bronze. That is a good understanding of the sky, no matter how you picture it. The Hebrews probably looked up: there must have been some sort of structure holding the celestial bodies in place, and then there were the clouds. Water is heavy, and these people knew it because they had to carry it constantly. How would water stay in the sky? I understand that water is heated and rises into the atmosphere, forming clouds, but still, that’s a lot of water that seems lighter than air.

Secondly, we now understand that our firmament also prevents space debris from hitting the Earth. When meteors hit it, they burn up. Our astronauts have to be able to pass through it to return to Earth safely. This firmament also protects us from harmful solar radiation. It is like an actual force field for the Earth. Then, once again, the sun sets and rises.

The dry land

The last environment that has to be created is the dry land. Not only did God create dry land, but He also called forth plants from the ground. Notice that it does not say, “God created the plants”; instead, He tells the ground to produce them. Every time I plant a seed and a plant comes up, it seems like a little miracle. It is like magic how there is nothing, and then something pops up. The wonderful thing about it is that these plants are necessary for animal life. Not only are they beautiful and nutritious, but they also taste good.

The form is complete.

We now have the place of order created by Jesus, the light that gives life. We also have a sky that divides the waters. Last, we have the dry land. There is no controversy here. Everyone recognizes that these environments exist and provide a place for the things that make our world full of life.

Filling the void

The lights in the sky

Now that God has created the environments for things to fill, it is time to reveal what will occupy them. We will start with day four, which raises some very important questions. I understand how most people read these verses, including myself, as God creating the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day, but could there be another way to read them that makes the story flow more logically? We should note that these celestial bodies are not given names, and some scholars attribute this to a reluctance to confer a sense of deity on them, since cultures of the day worshipped them.

“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.”

Genesis 1:14–19

I have been trying to show that the natural reading of the text so far would indicate there has been at least a sun from the very beginning. However, here we have what seems to be the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. For me, the natural reading seems convincing enough that we should not go back and try to reinterpret what we have learned. So the question here is, is there a way to read these verses that harmonizes with the previous verses? There is!

If we do not focus on creating these entities but instead on their purpose. In other words, God is assigning them roles to manage the times and seasons of life. The words “let there be” don’t say they are created from nothing; what they do say is let them have purpose, which is to divide the day from night and to provide signs for seasons, days, and years. Remember the genre we are reading here: it is a story about creation, not a detailed explanation of what took place. The story is about why things are the way they are. We read the words “God made,” but this Hebrew word does not always imply creation; it can mean to cause to execute or to do. We see this Hebrew word “asah” in the phrase “done this” in the following verse.

“And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.”

Genesis 3:14

I also notice that it says these are to divide the light from darkness, which is exactly what light does on day one. So instead of seeing day one and day four as two separate acts, we can see they are tied together. Jesus created the order of life and then gave these celestial beings the job of ensuring our world functions properly. Think about it, if these cycles of day and night, and seasons did not exist, there would be no life. We, humans, live by time.

One last point is that we know plants need sunlight to grow, and that is no problem, because the sun was created only one day after the plants. But does that make sense when we think about how God designed plants? Why create a sun after the plants if the sun is necessary for the plants? This is just one more thing to consider as we read the story.

Filling the water and sky

On day five, we see God filling the waters and the sky with life. These are the rulers of their domain.

“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.”

Genesis 1:20–23 (KJV 1900)

Creating the occupants of the land

The first thing we are told is that God creates all the animals that live on dry land.

“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.”

Genesis 1:24–25

The word “kind” is used here to refer to each animal. Today, scientists use the term biological species to define groups of animals by their ability to interbreed. That is the idea behind the word kind, animals that can interbreed. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the nuances here, but let me say that the concept of a kind remains a legitimate way to classify life forms.

So what about the days?

The word day can refer to different lengths of time, as in Genesis 2:4, where it denotes the total time of creation. However, when we read that the period here is defined by an evening and a morning, the only literal sense of the day is a twenty-four-hour day. When we read this account, we see that it reveals many things in a short narrative, making it an incredible piece of literature. The days are used to tell us that God created a seven-day week; they are also used as an outline to describe God’s blueprint of creation, the creation of form, and the filling of it.

There is another way we can understand how the days are used: for events. Events celebrated by days are found throughout the Bible. The entire story of the Exodus is summarized in the Feast of Passover. The two days of Purim celebrate the story of the Jews’ salvation. In many countries today, days are set aside to commemorate a great event, but that does not mean the time it took for the events to unfold fell within the twenty-four-hour period of that day.

Time and creation.

With this understanding of the narrative, it seems chronological time is not the point of the story, but that is the focus of how Genesis is understood today. Old-Earth Creationists try to fit these days into a chronology that aligns with old-earth geology. Young-Earth Creationists demand that it teach a six-day creation chronology. When we think about who this was written to and the purpose it must have served, it seems that how long things took would not have been a significant point. Instead, the point is that the great I AM is the only God who created everything.

If we are to figure out a chronology, we need to use scientific methods. It is my belief that if time is not a factor in the truthfulness of the Genesis account, then we can study our universe without bias.  That goes for both the naturalist and the creationist who believe that chronology will either prove or disprove the account.

The Creation of Man

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

Genesis 1:26–28

Among all the living things God created, He created a special life form in His image. The words here make it clear how man was created in God’s image—we are created to rule. That is what gods do; they are rulers. We are also created to be righteous rulers, because that is what the God of Genesis is. Notice the words subdue and dominion. These words speak of taking charge and overseeing something, and the something here is “all the earth.”

Should that cause us to think that there were things that, if they were not ruled, they would become unruly? How can that be in a perfect world, a world of peace and harmony? The question cannot be answered in this chapter, but chapter two tells us God put man in a special place called the Garden of Eden. Chapter three tells us that when Adam sinned, he was placed out of the garden to struggle with the creation. With the idea of subduing and dominion, along with the garden being a better place than outside the garden, a conclusion could be drawn that the world at large still needed to be tamed.

We notice that after God creates the animals, we read for the last time, “God saw that it was good.” Here, in the conclusion of chapter one, we read that it was “very good.”

“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.”

Genesis 1:29–31

These words seem to be expounded upon in chapter two. In chapter two, it says that God created man and placed him in the garden.

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”

Genesis 2:8

So verses 29-31 seem to be about the Garden of Eden, because it is here that God planted food for man and told Adam to care for it. We should not assume that all of the earth was “very good.” It was exclusively the Garden. This picture runs throughout the Bible. The earth outside the garden where humans have dwelt is a place of toil.

The Sabbath

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”

Genesis 2:1–3

In these verses, we learn a powerful lesson: we all need to stop and enjoy our labor. In this anthropomorphism, God works six days, and then He stops His work of creation. The idea of rest is not the same as sleeping, though that can be part of it. The idea here is in the words “God ended His work.” He stopped or ceased working. When something comes to rest, it has stopped. God sanctified His work on this day. Sanctified means He set it apart. When a craftsman finishes his creation, he removes it from the work table and places it in its intended use.

Here, God is done with His creation, and this is emphasized by the absence of evening and morning as on other days. It tells us this day will never end. That is our lesson. We are to work hard for six days, but there must be a day we stop and enjoy what our labor has provided. But there is even a great lesson in this, and that is to trust our Lord.

We find this concept in the Ten Commandments. The first four are about our relationship with our God. One is that we are to accept that there is only one God, which this first chapter of Genesis is all about. The second is not to make any image of a god and worship it. Why, because the only image created of God is man, and God created it. The third commandment tells us that we are ruling in God’s place and are to represent Him well. Not doing so would be taking His name in vain or using His name for our benefit while making Him look bad.

The four commandments are to keep the sabbath as God did when He created the world. He stopped working and started enjoying His creation. Keeping the sabbath is about trust, trusting that God is keeping our world in order. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:24-34, it is God who sustains His creation, and when we stop worrying about how we will pay our bills, where our next meal will come from, or about preparing for our future, we are showing that we believe our God cares for us.

Here are my closing thoughts

Genesis was written to a people who had lived as slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. Moses was met by the great I AM and told to lead the people back to the land promised to Abraham. These people lived in a polytheistic world, and it appears they had fallen into idolatry, as evidenced by the golden calf story. Moses wrote Genesis to teach them that God created everything in the universe, life on our planet, and even the seven-day week.

Genesis is not a strict chronology or merely a historical record. It is written in a genre—mythological or theological narrative—that was common for expressing foundational truths in the ancient world. The deeper question is: does this story make sense of our world? Does it answer the profound questions of why anything exists and what humanity’s purpose is? While science explains what exists and how it functions, it cannot answer the ultimate ‘why’; only a narrative rooted in meaning can address that.

The story tells us there is a mind behind the universe that we can see by our own ability to explain and reason. It also explains human emotions, such as love and justice. It then gives us a reason for living and a purpose to strive for. We were created to make our world a better place by aiding our God in His kingdom efforts. Then we can see that it is God who ordered our lives and the world by giving us a structured world. Part of that structure is to work for Him, but also to rest with our God.

It is not a chronology or a scientific discourse on when and how the world came to be. That does not mean we are free to make up those things to fit our own philosophies. It means we must let general revelation reveal these things to us.