Verses 6-8
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
We could go down lots of trails with these verses asking the question, “was there some huge canopy of water above the sky that surrounded the earth? Is that where the water from the flood came from?” But the reality is we don’t know the answers to these questions. And there is not a canopy that exist today. But God did establish water in the sky that we do have today.
And that is the clouds that are formed through water droplets. In many ways they act as a water-filled canopy in the sky. And it is through the clouds that the earth is watered
And so I believe that what we was established on day 2 was the establishment of clouds that would both bring shade to the earth but water.
Before there was human life, God provided the space, the expanse that we would live in and the air that we would breathe. But not only that, before there were plants and trees, he was providing the means that they would receive water. On Day 2, we see God bringing shape to this unformed earth and we see God cultivating the earth.
Verses 9-10
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
And now earth appears. The surface of the earth had already been created in day 1, but it had been enveloped in water. And now it appears. Could you imagine witnessing that from space? There is a planet of water and now this land comes up or the water separates. We don’t know if the earth was originally one piece of land like a super continent known as pangea and then later through the flood or through other means the continents separated. We are not sure what the original land mass looked like.
But what we do know is that God established on day 3 a planet that would contain both land and water. This is how the earth will be inhabited by humans. This is where humanity and many of the animals will live. God, through His provision, is providing our home.
Verses 11-13
And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
Now God created vegetation and plants and trees that will produce fruit. We not only see the creatively of God as he paints the earth with beautiful plants, trees, vegetation and fruits but we also see the provision of God. He is providing food for those who will inhabit the earth.
These verses not only shows the provision of God but it also begins to show the intentional design of God and the order of God.
The is the first time we see the word seed. God created plants that would yield seed and God created trees that would produce fruit that would have seeds in them. And these seeds would be the means that these plants and these trees would be reproduce themselves. This is how God would continue to provide for humanity.
But this reproducing isn’t random. God created fruit and vegetables according to it own kind, to its own family of vegetable and its own family of fruit. And so a tomato will not produce a banana and a banana will not produce corn. God is establishing boundaries in creation. God is establishing order in creation.
We live in a world in which boundaries are often blurred or simply ignored and order is often moved to disorder and even chaos. And yet God says I have created the world to operate in a certain way. And that order and structure is not based on the emotions or desires of humanity. That order is based on God’s will and God’s desire. May we not be casual with what God intentional put into place.
Verses 14-19
And 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 lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
In the fourth day we have the creation of the sun and the moon and the stars.
It interesting that the author of Genesis, Moses does not say “sun” or “moon”, he simply says greater light and lesser light. And we may wonder why? Because there are other times in the writings of Moses that he talks about the sun and the moon.
Well, in the ancient times, many of the pagan cultures viewed the sun and the moon as deities, watching and governing the world. In fact, Moses had to write about this issue to the Israelites. Deuteronomy 4:19, “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…”
And so to emphasize that the sun and the moon are created things, he simply calls them the greater light and the lesser light. They are not gods, they are God’s creation to serve this earth.
Moses also writes about the purpose of the sun, moon and stars. Not only was it to give us light during day and night, but it was to give us a sense of time and to give us a sense of seasons. Not only are our days established through the rising and setting of the sun. But our months have been established by the moon’s orbit. It takes the moon approximately 1-month to orbit around the earth.
You and I have the time and calendar on our phones and watches but ancient people didn’t. It was the sun and moon that gave them the rhythm of their lives. It was the sun and the moon that gave them an understanding of days and months and seasons.
Verses 20-23
And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its 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 birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
In the fifth day, God created the creatures that fly in the sky and the creatures that live in the waters. And this is the first time we have living creatures inhabiting the earth. This is one of those passages that challenges a Christians belief in evolution because a sea creature didn’t evolve to a land creature and then to a sky creature. The Bible says, God created the living creatures that fly at the same time as the living creatures who swim and live in the water. They didn’t evolve into each other.
And as verse 21 tells us God created different kinds of birds or species of birds and different kinds or species of sea creatures. There wasn’t one bird that become many different kinds of birds. There wasn’t one sea creature that become many kinds of fish. God is the one who created different species.
We also see the first time God blesses something. What is the blessing? The blessing is the ability to reproduce, to procreate. God gave the wonderful gift to his living creatures the ability to produce more creatures. While He is the author of life, He gave His creation the ability to produce life. And so He commanded them to be fruitful and multiple. We could say this was the first command given to living creatures.
As we look as these days of creation ending with the phrase, “there was evening and this was morning”, I want us to briefly examine the question: are these literal 24-hour days. Or is this a phrase that could represent a longer period of time.
And the reason why that is even a conversation is because people are trying to reconcile what some scientist have determined is the age of the earth and what the timeline of the bible would tell us the age of the earth is.
And so if one group says our science says the earth is billions of years old and then another groups says the timeline of the Bible tell us the earth is about 6,000 years old. What do you with that?
If you want to honor mainstream, modern science and while also honoring the Bible as the Word of God, then you have figure out how they can be compatible. And the easiest way to reconcile these two is to simply say these aren’t literal days.
And so let’s examine that.
The word “day” used here in Genesis 1 comes from The Hebrew word yom and is used over 2,300 times in the Old Testament. When yom is with a number it almost always indicates an ordinary day, i.e., a 24-hour period.
And so when Genesis 1:5 says, “the first day”, if we are to be consistent with the whole of the Old Testament, then we would read that as a literal 24-hour day. Outside of Genesis 1, that phrase “first day” is used 37 times in the Old testament and every time it is referring to a literal 24-hour day.
Now there are a several times that Moses uses the phrase “in those days” or he might describe “the days of” a particular person — referring to a season of time. But in that context he is not changing the definition of a day. He is looking at the past and saying that period of time which is made up of many days.
In Genesis 1 Moses actually gives a distinction between a day, a year and even a season.
In Genesis 1:14 he says, “And 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…”
There are years, there are seasons (fall, winter, spring) and there are days (nighttime and daytime).
Not only is the Hebrew word yom here in Genesis 1 used primarily as a 24-hour day throughout the Old Testament, but the verses in Genesis 1 are emphasizing a rotating earth that experiences both an evening and a morning. Day 1 there was an evening and a morning. Day 2 there was an evening and a morning.
And we know the evening and morning occur through a 24-hour rotation of the earth. There weren’t evenings and mornings. There was one evening and one morning. And not only is that statement made on day 1, but it continues to be stated after each day. There is an emphasis that the earth at the very beginning is experiencing a day as we experience days. That God is working within the time frame as we experience a day.
In fact, Moses makes a comparison in Exodus to the work week of the Israelites and the work week of God during creation.
Exodus 20:9 says “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work…” And then verse 11 says, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.’
There is a direct connection between the Israelites 6-day work week and the 6 days that God worked. There is a direct connection between their one day of rest and God’s one day of rest.
Now some of have referenced Psalm 90 as a place in Scripture where “day” could be used to describe a longer period of time. Psalm 90:4 says “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.”
Do you know what is interesting about Psalm 90. It is the only Psalm attributed to Moses. But Moses is not making the point that a day could also be referred to as a thousands years. He is not re-defining our understanding of day. In fact, he is using our understanding of a 24-hour day to make a point. God is not bound by time the same way we are bound by time.
Now we could say from God’s perspective that the first day was actually a thousand years since God is not bound by time but from a creation perspective, from the operation of the earth perspective, I believe Genesis 1 is clearly saying that the earth during creation was experiencing a 24-hour day.
If you are going to deviate from the common understanding of a literal day as represented in the word yom then the burden of proof is on you to come up with evidence that Scripture does not give us. And you are making the decision not to read Scripture from a plain, historical manner in which Genesis is written. And if we choose to make that leap, I think it is a dangerous leap.
And the only reason we would do that it is because it does not fit our physical understanding of how the world was created or fit our understanding of how old the earth is. And so we change God’s word to fit our understanding. And when we do that, we walk down a dangerous road of allowing our own understanding to shape our theology rather than letting God’s Word’s shape our theology.
And of course, we see that more and more in our culture today particular in the area of sexual identity.
We may grow up always believing that the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, same-sex relationships are wrong. And then we have a loved one who comes at as gay. And now we wrestle with our emotions and our understanding of God’s truth. How do we reconcile the two. And what happens is to resolve this tension we shift our understanding of God’s word. Maybe that is not really what God meant.
And that subtle shift doesn’t just change one area of Scripture but it opens it up for us to evaluate all of Scripture through our own experiences and emotions. And we begin to develop an experienced-based theology that is rooted in “me” and not the word of God.
This is why Proverbs 3 says to lean not on your own understanding. And Proverbs 14 says there is a way that seems right to a man but its end leads to death.
It is also why 2 Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith and not by sight…
Our job isn’t to reconcile God’s Word with history and science and experiences. It doesn’t mean we don’t wrestle with these things. It doesn’t mean we are not thinking Christians that seek to learn about understand history and science. it doesn’t mean we don’t seek to understand and evaluate our own experiences in their world. But at the end of the day it means we don’t cause Scripture to bend to our understanding and experiences.
It means, in humility, we recognize that we are creation and that God is creator. And we say God your ways are higher than our ways and we will simply trust you.