Category Archives: Chapter 1
6 Days of Creation – Genesis Chapter 1 Review
(Ver 1.2) In my Blogs the last couple of weeks I have been exploring an overview of the 6 days of creation and teaching how each day fits a prophetical view into God’s timeline for the 6000 year period of human history. I know this is a controversial viewpoint and it is probably brand new information to many. However, it is there if you research it and studyit from a prophetic perspective. Some have probably wondered how did I come up with the idea that the 6 days of creation were prophetic windows? I beleieve that it is just what the Bible says and therefore it is not my opinion or my personal interpretation of what God says. What we must do is to allow the Bible to interpret itself, so we must look for God’s definitions, His commentary and explanations and we must put these together with the words written in Genesis to understand them. Look at this verse and see what it says for yourself:
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which are not,…
You see from this verse God says I have declared or stated the end from the beginning. In other words God has prophesied the ending from the beginning. Genesis chapter 1 definitely declares the beginning of our current world system. So somewhere in that description is information about what is going to occur in our history and its final conslusion. To declare something that has not occurred is clearly a statement of prophetic proportion. The only to verify that a prophecy is from a real prophet is for us to examine the words and see if they have been fullfilled, have transpired or are coming to pass presently. Here is another scripture that speaks to us along these lines:
Ecclesiastes 1:9 The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done,….
Again in this verse we see a powerful reference of something to look for when reading and studying the Bible. We can use these words to imply that God declares that what He has done during creation is that which will occur again. You see as I have read the Bible I have discovered a series of repeated patterns that have occured over and over. That is why that I believe that we should study the book of beginnings like it was a raod map to our future. Of course since we are at the very end of the 6th day or 6000 years, we should realize that we do not have very much time left. This actually makes our research more sure, since the majority of recorded history has already occurred and we are nearing the end now.
We started the chapter analysis by looking at the fact that the earth as stated in the Bible is much older than 6000 years, but we are not specifically told how old it is anywhere. It could very well be millions or billions of years old. We looked at scripture that speaks to us about a pre-Adamic civilization or world that existed prior to our current world system. We found scriptures that indicate that this world was completely destroyed and apparently God started over with us, or for us.
We looked at the work of God during creation and identified God’s first act as being division. God divided Light from darkness. We can imply from this that prophetically speaking God is breaking away or dividing himself from something that He does not want to associate with. At least 3 times in the chapter we can see that God divided something from something else. I can tell you right now that most Bible teachers and preachers don’t have a clue to the significance of these words of God so they ignore them. I’m sorry that I just don’t have time to teach you all of that right now.
The next significant point about creation is how God created. I might have alluded to the fact that God looked at the problem and always spoke the answer or the solution. As it is written in the New Testament, God is a God who calls those things that be not as though they were and as we can see from creation, they become exactly what they are called. Since man is made in the image of God this implies that man operates the exact same way that God operates. Of course not at the same level or capacity that God is, but you would be amazed at what the Bible says about our spoken words and the Bible is very strong in this area and says many things that are very hard to accept by many Christians.
During our study we identified some of the key symbolic elements and researching them in the scriptures discovered what they meant and how they are applied within creation. Light is symbolic of God. Seas are symbolic of people. Day and night are symbolic of the conditions of men’s hearts. Some have allowed the sun of God to light their hearts and then others have been kept in darkness because they have allowed Satan to blind their minds. We have identified the symbolic Sun as being Jesus Christ. Then we have identified the symbolic moon as being Satan, the ruler of the darkness.
In the creation of Adam on day 6 I took you through an analysis of the Hebrew words for man and Adam as being the same word. I then showed you from scripture how Genesis 1:27 should have been translated as Adam instead of man, because God calls both the male and the female by the same name. The inference of and application to marriage is of course easily seen.
Finally we looked at the coming into maturity of the body of Christ. We also looked at the delegated authority of the body of Christ. We are at the end of Day 6 of God’s established timetable and God has the planned return of Jesus Christ next on the agenda. I believe very strongly that Jesus’ return is not very long from now. I know I did not attempt to cover everything that the chapter speaks about. My goal was to give you some new perspectives and things to think about that you hadn’t seen before. Things that can be tremendously important to understanding a large portion of the Bible. I hope you have enjoyed Chapter 1 of Genesis and we will move into Chapter 2 next. I probably will not go verse by verse but I will change to a larger what are the key concepts given to us level of study. There are some awesome things in Chapter 2 and 3 if you can see them. So continue reading in Genesis and see what else God has to reveal to us.
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 God’s Delegated Authority
(Ver 1.1) There are so many things to learn in the Bible it is a challenge to figure out what do people already know, what do they need to know and what is important. So I plan on wrapping up my blog on Day 6 of creation with this last bit of information. When I worked for a small software company many years ago, I met a man there that had graduated from a seminary (which will remain nameless). He had some very strange ideas about the Bible and had been taught many things by people who obviously didn’t know God. There is a difference in knowing about God and knowing God. Well any way this man told me that in first chapter of Genesis when God said “Let them have dominion”, that didn’t mean they were in control of anything. In other words he read the scripture and immediately threw away the verse because it did not fit his theology. That of course is a huge problem. We should always make our theology and beliefs fit what we read and learn and not the other way. What does it mean to have dominion? Here is what Webster defines the word as:
Dominion: dominance or power through legal authority
Adam was given legal authority over the planet. That would make him the ruler of the earth, wouldn’t it? If you are brave you might have called Adam the “god” of this world”. God’s statement gave Adam dominion, and that implies a transfer of ownership. A legal status change or transfer from God to man. Legal authority is a right that is bestowed upon you, something that can only be transferred upon you by a higher authority. You can’t make your self a policeman, but if you sign up go through the training and are accepted you can be given the authority of a policeman by the local city government. A policeman has a transferred authority to carry out and enforce the law. Power and authority are sometimes used as synonymous terms. But really they are quite different, many strong men have the ability to exercise power over people to make them do what they want, but most do not have the authority backing them. When God created the world he turned over the authority to rule it to his creation.
Psalm 115:16 The heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s: But the earth he hath given to the children of men.
This verse in Psalms tells us very clearly that the earth was given to the children of Adam. Do you recall in the Gospels when Jesus walked the earth he constantly referred to himself as “the son of man”. Jesus of course was a Hebrew and in the Hebrew he was saying I am a son of Adam. Remember man and Adam are the same Hebrew word. The Pharisee’s would ask him where do you get your authority to do these things? They recognized that he taught with authority, spoke with authority, cast out devils, healed the sick and did many other miraculous things. But Jesus never told them where he got this authority. I personally believe that God had given it to him when he created Adam.
So what is the huge controversy about this delegated authority of man? The main problem that the seminary graduate had was that it violated his idea of God’s sovereignty. If man was in control of the planet, that meant God was not. If man was responsible to work and keep the garden, then that means God was not. The implications are huge and it helps to explain a lot of things in the Bible when we see these things clearly. Why did Jesus have to come in the form of a man in order to redeem us? Why did the omnipotent God have to be birthed through a woman on this planet to do everything he needed to do to free us from sin, Satan, death and evil. There are so many things to think about and to consider. But, we first must start by reading the Bible finding out what God says happened and then attempt to understand how that affected us.
When I started this blog, one of my statements was probably very offensive to some. I called Adam the god of this world when he was created. It is funny how many things that are in the Bible that people ignore. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 God calls Satan the god of this world, how did he get this title? It had to be transferred to him from Adam. Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil? Satan came to him and said “worship me and I’ll give you everything that you can see.” Satan told Jesus that it had all been given to him. So who gave it to him? It had to be Adam, because God had given it all to Adam. Only the owner has the right to transfer ownership. I can’t come up to your house and tell you that I am giving your house to someone else that wants it. If I don’t own your house I don’t have a right to tell you who lives in it. So many things to consider, isn’t there? So then what do Christians do with John the 10th Chapter when Jesus tells humanity, “Is it not written in your book of the law, I said you are gods.”. Most religious people and denominations stay very far away from that verse and never touch it. Act like it does not exist and we don’t have to address it. If we acknowledge that it’s there, then we have to come up with excuses of why it’s not true. Heaven help us all!
When Jesus was raised from the dead he makes a statement that blows you away. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says this “All power is given to me, both in heaven and in earth.” What a radical statement, according to what many theologians teach, you would have thought that God already had all power in heaven and in earth. Apparently Not! Do you see the problem? Here we have another very direct statement that God (the highest authority) has delegated all authority to Jesus both in heaven and on the earth. How could God do that? It was because Jesus was a son of Adam and had the right to take back what his father Adam had given away. See right there so many religious people are going to scream and say I said Jesus’ father was Adam and not God. But I didn’t say that. Jesus was the Son of God, but He called Himself the son of Adam. Naturally born a child of Adam a man, but spiritually conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. The combination of God’s word and Mary’s egg, produced a man called Jesus Christ. A man who was 100% God and 100% man.
That concludes my short lesson on delgated authority. If you study the subject you will clearly see that God had the right to do whatever He desired with His creation and He clearly desired to create a man and give it all to him and his children. Jesus came to the earth to get back what Adam had given away to Satan and do other things that I have not touched on as of this point in my Bible lessons. Please continue to read and to learn what Jesus has done for us. God Bless!
Genesis Chapter 1 – Did God Create a Perfect World?
(Ver 1.2) I’ve heard many, many Bible teachers stand up and speak about creation in the terms that God created a perfect world for Adam. When Adam came on the scene everything was perfect, they would say. The implications to this always bothered me, since that is not what the Bible said. I’m not sure how these teachers came to that conclusion, but I simply have to go by what the Bible says. Six times in the chapter 1 of Genesis God declares what He has done as being something that is “good”. Good is of course a positive term, but it is also a highly subjective term. What is good to me, might not be good to you. I could say Apple Pie is good. But you might not like it. However, if I said something was perfect that implies something else entirely. Here is the definition of perfect found in the Webster’s dictionary:
being complete of its kind and without defect or blemish; “a perfect circle”; “a perfect reproduction”; “perfect happiness”; “perfect manners”;
So according to the dictionary, perfect means something that is complete, but not just complete, but something that is free from defects and flaws. In my opinion, perfect would imply something that could not fail or be brought down. If Adam was created perfect in a perfect world, it would have been impossible for him to sin. Since we all understand that Adam did sin, we can understand that he at the very least had the potential for flaws. Adam possessed the ability to fail, like an appliance you might buy at the store. Have you ever bought a perfect appliance? I really don’t think so.
So when God says it was good, what does that mean? I would say that in God’s perspective or viewpoint on the event, it was a positive outcome. It was an opposite of evil or bad. What if we could come up with a rating system and many have, that says something like this:
Worst –>Worse –> Bad –> Neutral –> Good –> Better –> Best
Many times consumer reporting companies have similar rating schemes for appliances or cars, etc. You can see by the scale that there are varying degrees for bad and good. You could never say that about “perfect”, there are not varying degrees of perfect. Given my rating scale where would you put God’s “good” creation? It would have to be somewhere to the right of Neutral, but where I’m not sure. If you notice I did not even put the word “perfect” on the scale, since that would go so far above and beyond what I consider to be even the best. I am convinced that “good” is not “perfect”. However, it is really not my opinion that matters, but what God thinks about it that counts. I found some interesting scriptures in the Bible that speaks to us along these lines:
Genesis 2:12 And the gold of that land is good;
God said the gold in the land was good. But gold is a metal that is mixed and very hard to find in a pure state. Gold has a grading scaled from 1 to 24 carats. 24 carats would be the best and purest but yet I doubt if you could call it perfect. Sometimes it can be good to see what is opposite to a definition in order to help understand the positive side of the subject. In Genesis 2:18 God says it is not good for man to be alone. That would be the opposite of good and looking at that verse it could be a highly subjective term. I don’t know if we have gained a definition or not of the term what is good. Let me throw another scripture in the mix that says something totally different.
Psalm 119:96 I have seen the end to all perfection…
Many times we read stuff and don’t apply it to what we learned earlier because we don’t really understand it and aren’t asking the right questions. This verse has a statement that has broad and far reaching implications. What does the term “All” mean? To me that means “All”, “everything is included” and means it is all inclusive. There is nothing that is left out. If you said “most” or “some” that would leave some items excluded from the list. So the term “All” is all inclusive, there is nothing left out or omitted. This is not going to sit well with a lot of religious minded people, but this would also include God himself. God did not leave himself out of the term “All”. I have always believed that God was a perfect Spirit being. In capable of errors, with no flaws. But if God says in His word that there is coming a time when there will be no perfection, what does that mean? How would we possibly apply that fact to God? I wish I had the answer to that, but maybe you do. Tell me what you think about this scripture. Maybe you know some other scriptures in the Bible that answer that question. In my mind this verse is speaking of Jesus who was God in the flesh. If Jesus was born a “perfect” man that would mean it would have been impossible for him to sin, just like “Adam” if he was perfect. So when God became a man, the Bible says that He was tempted in every way just like we are. Satan came to Jesus and tempted him just the same as us. So, if this was the divine God, was it really a temptation? Of course it was and that would imply that Jesus was only “very good” and not perfect. Jesus had to be capable of sinning and failing, otherwise it would not have been a temptation. That is what I think. Do not misunderstand me, I did not say Jesus sinned. I just said He had to have the possiblity to sin our he would not have been tempted just like we are. It just would not make any sense to me.
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 Part 2 – God Called Them Adam
(Ver 1.1) In my last lesson on Genesis I talked about the prophesied coming of a perfect or more literally a mature man, but today I want to shift gears and change our focus on something new. Back in verse 27 we saw the creation of man in the image of God. I want to stop right there and point out something that I found very interesting while I was studying this verse. The Hebrew word translated as “man” is H120 in the Strong’s. Now that is all well and good until I noticed that the name “Adam” was from the Hebrew H121. So what is the problem? If you don’t speak Hebrew you would never know that these two words are the exact same word. Strong decided to give the one word two different reference numbers even though it is the same word. That is a major problem for translators and readers. How do you know when you should translate the one word as “Adam” or as “man”. The determination of the meaning becames a highly subjective decision process that can be very easily mistranslated based upon someone’s opinion of what they think it means. I hope you understand the problem. You see I for one believe after searching the Bible for the occurrences of these words that sometimes they did it right and a few times I believe they did wrong. Uh oh!
Gen 1:27 So God created Adam (man) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Look at verse 27 and see what changes if I change the one word. “So God created Adam in his image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them”. Thre was nothing that super dramatic that changed. Was it completely different, not really. The original said “man” my modified version said “Adam”. But since they are the same word in the Hebrew which one is right? Verse 27 actually contains a major contradiction, riddle or puzzle. Did you notice it? It said at first God created him, and then it says God created them. We really haven’t gotten to the creation of the woman even though she is clearly mentioned for the first time in this verse. As we get into chapter 2 of Genesis we will begin to see that chapter 2 is really just a more in depth look at some specifics that occurred in chapter 1. Chapter 2 is simply a more detailed account of the creation event using new information given to us and a more in depth look at some very new huge subjects such as God’s definition of family and marriage.
Getting back to the puzzle of verse 27 what is the solution to the contradiction? This is why I believe the word should be “Adam”. When God created the male and the female God called both of their name “Adam”. It use to be common practice in our world for women to take the name of their husbands so that they were both called by the same name. When we get to chapter 2 of Genesis we will see why more clearly. So why did God call both of them Adam? Maybe we should stop and ask, did God call them both Adam? There is actually a confirming scripture that says this later in Genesis. Look at this verse in Genesis 5:2:
Genesis 5:2 Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name “Adam” in the day that they were created.
It is truly amazing what the Bible says when you can see it and put the pieces together. This verse is speaking directly about the cretion account we just read about in Genesis 1:27 but this time it is worded correctly and stated accurately. The translotors had no choice but to make it this word based upon context. If they would only understood this more clearly I believe that they would corrected what they had already done in chapter one. What caused them to make this verse Adam and the other one man? In this verse there is the direct association of this word being both of their “names”. These are the kind of little quirky things that you just need to become aware of when you read and study the Bible. The translators were men and they sometimes made mistakes. Every Bible translation has some problems, but there are none that can’t be solved by you studying. God Bless!
Genesis 1:24-31 Day 6 Part 1 Prophecy of Man
(Ver 1.1) We have arrived at the last day of creation, the last day of God’s work to create our current world system. We again see the law of Genesis being restated in the creation of the animals and the rest of the creatures that inhabit the earth. Everything on the earth produces after its own kind. Squirrels produce only squirrels, mice produce only mice, horses produce only horses, cattle produce only cattle, etc. It is very interesting to note that everything is completely created before man arrives. God has provided everything that man would have need of and there was nothing lacking. No there were no cities, houses, cars or roads, not even any computers or internet but God provided every raw material necessary for man to create all of these. It is also interesting to note that God created man to be an inverntor and a creator. Man does not create on the level of God, but we create, music, art, machines, tools, on and on. I’m sure God gave many these ideas for these great inventions and creations and maybe even helped them build them. But creating stuff is in man and no other creature possesses this feature to man’s creative degree. I’ve never seen a monkey paint a Mona Lisa.
We can see that God created everything that man would have need of physically, but spiritually would be another question. I don’t know how preachers can teach poverty and self sacrifice. It seems religious minded people have a tendency to look at a mother Theresa and think she is some kind of saint because she owns nothing. I personally think that is slap in the face of God who created everything for his creation to enjoy, to possess and to use. If God had not intended for man to have any of it, why would He have went to so much trouble of putting it here in the first place. If you have children and your two year old wants to play with a knife would you put it on the table and say leave that alone it’s not for you. Any two year old will forget quickly whatever they are told and pick that knife up and do whatever they want to with it. In order to keep somebody from having something that is harmful the best things to do is not to put it any where within their reach in the first place. So obviously God is smarter than parents if He thought wealth and riches were not good for His children because it would hurt them, the would He have put them here anyway? Do you see how idiotic people’s opinions can get? No you see in Revelation that heaven is paved with streets of Gold. That sounds like wealth to an extreme. It doesn’t sound like God thinks that wealth is harmful does it? Oh well let’s move on to another subject. Let’s skip down to verse 27 and look at the creation of man.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
I firmly believe that starting in verse 27 that the creation of man is a prophetic event signifying or prophesying the coming into maturity of the new creation of those in the church or those called the body of Christ. Man was the last part of the process of creation and if you want to get technical, woman was the actual last work of God’s creation process. Man was created and came into being at the end of the 6th day of creation. I believe that as the Bible says, that in the last days knowledge will increase and I believe that men and women in the church will again start to resemble their creator. Reading verse 27 we see the explicit statement that God created man in his image. What exactly does that mean to you? To me that means if you looked at Adam and Eve you would immediately think they look like God. Did you ever notice red headed parents normally produce children with red hair. Looking at the red headed children you can say they were made in the image of their parents. You immediately identify one from the other. You can look at one child and recognize the source or origin. That is what I believe God is prophesying about his church, we will finally be able to see a Christian and say wow! he looks like Jesus. God’s family resemblance should be there for all to see. There are several scriptures that I could include here but search your KJV Bible for words like “perfect”. This word is a little bit misleading because it means “mature”, “complete”, “fully grown”. There are several verses in the New Testament that ask us to wait for this perfect man to come and I believe the time is now.
Genesis 1:20-23 Day 5 of God’s Creation
Gen 1:20 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.
(Ver 1.1) According to Day 5 of creation, God caused the seas to fill with every type of fish and sea creature. During this time period we also see the fact that every type of bird is said to develop to fill the sky above the earth. It is interesting to note that I guess evolutionists seem to believe every animal on the planet originated from the sea. At least this is the way that I understood what they were saying. I do not profess to be an expert on evolution theory and whoever has studied it is of course no expert either, since they can’t prove anything they are saying. According to the Biblical record of the creator, the fish did come first, followed by the birds. But in no way does it say they evolved one from the other, in fact it declares the total opposite. I alluded to the law of Genesis when we discussed tree and plant life development. The law of Genesis says everything produces after its own kind. Every fish, bird, mammal, insect, reptile, or whatever, has within itself the ability to self sustain it’s own species. Each one has the ability to reproduce itself and to keep it going. Every species has the seed within itself to reproduce.
Using the study of DNA recent scientists have made a lot of discoveries. DNA is an extremely complex coded formula that dictates what a creature will become even before it starts to develop. There are no overlaps or DNA evolution between species that I know of concerning God’s creation. I know that humans contain a similar DNA characteristic to that of monkeys but on close examination they are completely different from that of a monkey Therefore a monkey will never be able to reproduce or to transition to the form of a human. They are just too different. DNA research using what is known as “mitochondrial” DNA has determined that all of the human race originated from a common woman they so appropriately have named “Eve”. I remember reading this in the News Paper several years ago. Of course they buried this information on one of the inside pages, but the result of the article was the conclusion that the Bible was more accurate than we thought. We didn’t come from monkeys, but rather from a single woman named “Eve”. Since that publication the world’s scientific atheists have done their best to explain away the findings. I pretty much just ignore their ramblings. I know the Bible is true, I know that it is the words of the one that created it all and therefore I would rather read the Bible than listen to the words of an ignorant man attempting to say there was no God involved.
I would like to be able to discuss the prophetic implications of these verses but, I have to be honest and say that I don’t know of any right now. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it just means I don’t know them. I do know that they early church used a symbol of a fish and this is an event that occurs on the early part of day 5. So if you can see any prophetic implications from Day 5 in how it would relate to the early church please let me know. I’ll be happy to learn.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 5
(Ver 1.1) After I learned this information that I have been attemting to teach to you, it changed my perspective on much of the Bible. I started to understand a lot more of the parts that use to be very hard to follow. I hope that you too are beginning to see some glimpses of the light of how the scriptures harmonize and fit together. We have been discussing the two different realms or spiritual states of the human heart. Those who are in darkness and those who are in the light. We have seen that Jesus Christ represents the sun and we are beginning to understand how the word of God causes Christ to arise and shine into our hearts. I think it is a good time to talk about the identity of the moon.
Gen 1:16 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.
I once heard a minister say that the church is the moon (lesser light). That we are the one’s that live now in this dark world and we are to rule over it. Of course on the surface I understood what he was trying to say but he got it all very wrong. We are certainly in the world, but we are not of this world. In fact if you look at scripture it says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph 2:6). No, just think about all of the the known moon’s characteristics. The moon is a lifeless chunk of rock that has no ability to do anything. The light it shines at night does not originate from itself, no it is simply a reflection of the light from the sun. Some would say that fits the church, we don’t have any ability within our self but we depend upon Christ who gives us the ability to do whatever. Of course that is true, but let’s take the analogy deeper. The moon is lit in the sky in different phases. The moon goes from completely lit to completely dark. How does that fit the church? Are you saying God shines on us sometimes and sometimes He doesn’t? Or are you saying man hides from God so that God cannot shine on him? Either one doesn’t really make any sense to me. The moon is also only lit on one side. There is a dark side of the moon that we don’t see. Is this descriptive of the church? Does the church only show the world the part they want to see and hides the part they don’t want people to see in the darkness. That shouldn’t fit a true Christian in the church either. These are major problems to the moon being the church from my view point.
Gen 1:18 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.
We know from reading Genesis 1:18 that the sun rules the day and the moon rules the night. We could also say that the moon rules the darkness. Night and darkness are synonymous terms. Here is a scripture that should help to clear up the confusion of is the moon the church. Let’s look at a verse in Ephesians 6:12:
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Did you see what that this verse says? Who is this verse talking about? It is speaking of Satan and his demonic forces. These are the spiritual forces that are our enemies and as this verse states, they rule the darkness, not the church. In fact the Bible tells the church that we are not of the darkness (John 12:46), it also says what association has light with darkness (1 Th 5:5), meaning there should be none. You are welcome to study this subject in more depth, because I did not attempt to give you every scripture that there is on the subject. My goal is to point you in the right direction and help you learn. God Bless you and I hope you enjoyed Day 4. I’m sure I didn’t cover everything, but I hope I helped you to see some new things in the Word of God.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 4
We have been exploring the revelation of night and day, light and darkness and have discovered that these are symbolic elements that represent the state of the heart’s of men. We have explored the fact that God created a division between two different distinct groups of people which Jesus Christ implemented with His death and resurrection. One group is those who belong to Christ and are said to be the children of the light and the day. Those who don’t belong to Christ are those who walk in darkness live in the night. Let’s look at another verse that confirms this:
Romans 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
According to this scripture God writes to the church and declares them to be a guiding light to the blind, those who are in darkness. Right there we know that we the church are not in the darkness, but yet we are the one’s which can shine the light for those who are unable to see spiritually. What is blindness? It is the inability to see light. How is it that some people can see and understand the Bible and many others can’t? Here is the answer to that question:
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
This verse of scripture contains so much revelation that it is difficult to stick to the point at hand. However, it declares that the “god of this world” has blinded those who are in darkness. Let’s stop right there and determine who is the “god of this world”? Most of you should already understand that this is Satan, the dragon, the serpent, the devil, the deceiver, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, the adversary, the father of lies, Beelzebub, Lucifer and I could go on and on. This enemy of God and the church goes by a bunch of identities and names in the Bible but they all direct us to one spirit being called Satan. The verse in 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that there are those who are in spiritual darkness because of this enemy that has caused them not to believe. It in effect says that Satan is blocking the light from shining in so that they are not able to see spiritually. It also confirms that Jesus Christ is the light or the Sun that is trying to shine in on the hearts of those men in the darkness.
I hope you are grasping the powerful symbolism that Genesis is providing us. What we are beginning to see is two different rulers, two different gods, one god of this world and one God our Lord Jesus Christ. Two different kingdoms, one of light and one of darkness. Two groups of people those who live in the night who are unable to see and those who walk in the light and can see where they are going. It is a profound symbolic representation of the spiritual state of two completely different groups of people. We will continue more in the next lesson and hopefully finish up day 4.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 3
I knew this day would take a lot to explain and even more effort on your part to understand. But I’ll do the best that I can in a limited space to teach you as much as I can. In the last lesson we concluded with the revelation of the identity of Sun as being Jesus Christ. Before we move on to the moon, let’s back up and address the purpose of Day 4 from God’s perspective. We saw that Day 4 was an emphasis of a division occurring. I believe the divisions already existed back from at least Day 1 when God said let there be light. The implication of Day 1 was light did not reach the surface of the planet and therefore darkness prevailed upon the face of the earth. When God said let there be light He allowed the light to penetrate into the darkness. This is probably a mixture of my personal opinion and the implied references found in the word of God. Unless I find some scripture to back that statement I really don’t expect you to believe it.
Back to the subject of Day 4. We can see in the scripture the reference to the existence of two distinct realms or dimensions. One is called “Day” and the other is called “Night”. I think it would be good to look at the symbolism of these two divisions. Let’s start with the obvious, the day is the time where we experience the presence and warmth of the sun and it’s light. The night is the period of time when normal people sleep and the sun is not present. One division has the sun light and the other does not. From what we have seen Jesus Christ represents the Sun. Scripture also tells us that God is light. We can already begin to see a spiritual reality being stated. The day is for those who are in the light of the Sun of God, the night is for those who are without God. Do you understand this? This is the division that took place when Jesus died on the cross and after He arose.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:5 God writes to the church and says to them “You are all children of the light and children of the Day…”. I already mentioned this next verse in the last lesson, but I’ll show it to you again in 2nd Peter 1:19, God writes that “The Day will dawn out of the darkness and the Day Star will shine in our hearts.” I know I paraphrased that verse a little bit but I didn’t change the meaning. God is saying that Christ will dawn in our dark hearts and light them up with His light and cause us to be the children of the light. Let me give you one final scripture from Romans 13:12 God tells the church “the night is far spent and the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light”. All of the key elements are mentioned, day, night, darkness and light. Where do you stand today? The Day and Light symbolism goes through out the New Testament. You are welcome to study it and find out how the physical characteristics of the night and day are symbolic of the spiritual conditions of men’s hearts.
So we have established the identity of the symbolic night and day as being the spiritual condition of men’s heart. In our next lesson we will continue to expand the identities of the other symbolic elements that we have found in these verses.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 2
We can learn something very important for us to know, if we pay close attention to the wording of verses 14 and 16. In reading these verses of day 4 we can easily see that God is speaking of two lights, but yet God does not name the lights or call them by their usual referenced names of the sun and the moon. They are referenced in a general or generic way of just two lights. In verse 16 they are called two Great Lights. But this time it distinguishes them and qualifies them as one being much greater than the other one. We are told the greater light will rule the day and the lesser light will rule the night. It is not difficult to figure out that God is speaking of the Sun and the moon. So why doesn’t God call them by their usual names? This is just one technique that God uses to conceal the truth in the Bible. There are many other methods, but we will only address this one here. I call this God’s way of hiding the truth in plain site. To make the truth harder to find God often times refers to the same object or subject by different names and/or descriptive terms. So many Bible teachers have missed this fact and as a result have taught several things in error. But I won’t get into that. Here is a most valuable lesson for your Bible study, when searching for a subject in the Bible, try to think of every possible title, name, or descriptive quality to search for. Use your Bible search program to look for these and it will go much faster. By finding all of the verses that you can about a specific subject you are much more likely to learn the truth and not fall into error.
Here is where we start to get into the prophetic side of the scriptures concerning day 4. I told you much earlier that the 1st Chapter of Genesis contains a lot of symbolic references, much like the book of Revelation is covered with symbolism throughout. Knowing this we can now begin to learn something that will help you in your Bible study tremendously. What does the symbols of the sun and the moon represent? If you recall I also told you that the days of creation were a prophetic timelines into the future. So what happened on the 4th day or around the 4000th year of our history? We know that Jesus Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, he then grew up 30 years and then ministered for 3 years, was crucified by the Roman soldiers, died and then rose again after 3 days. The fourth day of creation is giving us a prophetic view into the coming of Jesus Christ and the basis for why he came.
So what does the Sun represent? I will tell you that the Sun represents our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In 2nd Peter 1:19 Jesus is referred to as the “Day Star” that will arise in our hearts. What is the Day Star? Just another name or title for the Sun. Get it? In Revelation 22:16, Jesus himself is speaking to the church and He calls Himself the “Bright Morning Star”. What is the Bright Morning Star? Of course it is another name or title for the Sun. You do understand that our sun is just our closest star? I think I’ve given you enough references but here is one more that I will close this lesson with. In Malachi 4:2 God prophecies that the “Sun of Righteousness” will arise with healing in His wings”. Who is the Sun of Righteousness, of course it is Jesus Christ.
Genesis 1:14-19 Day 4 Part 1
(Ver 1.1) Day 4 of creation is incredibly amazing hidden information that when you see it and understand it helps to explain many things found in the New Testament. I have attempted to teach you that all of the days of creation are prophetic statements that pointed us to future spiritual events and day 4 is one of the most significant of them all. But before we get into the prophetic spiuritual side of the scriptures let us deal with the surface text content and the natural implications. If you recall in day 3 we saw that the earth begins to bring forth plant life. I then pointed out the requirements for all plant life and this included soil, nutrients, water, appropriate climate and atmosphere and then the existence of light. These are just the basic rules and requirements found within God’s creation for gardening and farming. If you have ever grown a garden you can understand this. My main point that I want you to understand was that the sun had to exist on Day 3 in order to already have growing and living plants on this planet. These are laws created by God and people ignore them and beleive God circumvented them in order to explain how God created the sun on day 4.
I’ve heard many Bible teachers claim that God created the sun and the moon and the stars on day 4. However, I would have to disagree strongly with that teaching and say all of these already existed prior to day 1 of creation. I have already tried to emphasize what the Bible describes to be “a world that was” and that this world is said to have been completely destroyed by water in 2 Peter 3:6. But, I guess there will be many that will still be skeptical and refute these truths in the scriptures because they do not understand them. That is too bad for you if you close your eyes to what the Bible says in order to believe what you want.
If you think about it from a scientific perspective what is more important the earth or the sun? Which one can survive without the other in the form that it is currently in today? The obvious answer is the sun. Only the sun is independent from the earth and not the other way around. In other words what revolves around what? If you are just a little bit intelligent you understand that the earth revolves around the sun and that the earth is totally dependent upon the sun for all of our life, warmth seasons and time cycles. The earth is completely dependent upon the gravitational pull of the sun to determine it’s position in the universe. Without the sun and it’s gravitational pull, the earth would be floating away in space to who knows where. Then there is also Day 1 of God’s creation evidence when God said let there be light. What is the dominate source of all light for our planet? Of course it is the sun, so if the earth could have any light on Day 1, it must have also had the sun. Think a little bit more with me. On day 1, God declares the light to be day and the darkness to be night. These are clearly sun based concepts that do not and cannot occur without the existence of the sun and the earth’s rotation around it. Since the days of creation are divided into 6 day and evening periods of time, the existence of the sun is a requirement for the definition of what a day is. Without the physical sun’s existence on Day 1, a day could have been defined to be a billion years. So I’ve given you a few really good reasons why the sun had to exist prior to day 4 of creation. So if we read again about Day 4 what is God talking about?
Gen 1:14 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:
Did you notice that verse 14 mentions division again? This is at least the third time we have seen an explicit reference to God dividing one thing from another thing. I really don’t believe people have discovered yet what this means and why God had to do this. But, I’ll teach on this subject in the future and leave it alone today. Now let’s look at what God says about these two lights. God says these will be used for signs, seasons, days and years. We can understand days pretty easily, a single revolution of the earth represents one 24 hour period of time. This day is divided into two equal periods of 12 hours where one is called day and the other is called night. Then it mentions years, a year is a complete cycle of the earth around the sun. This cycle takes approximately 365 days to complete. It didn’t really mention months but a month is very close to a complete cycle of the moon around the earth. So God declares these lights to be the time keeping devices for us to establish set time periods and that is an interesting concept, without them what would we use to measure time?
I want you to consider this new perspective of our modern calendar. What is our current year number based upon? The current calendar year is based upon Jesus coming into the world. These are commonly called B.C. and A.D. B.C. refers to the time before Christ. A.D. is the latin phrasing that means the “year of our Lord”. These are very specific references to God coming to the earth in the flesh and most people on the earth ignore it to live in their ignorance. I do not beleive that God speaking in Genesis 1:14 about setting calendars is a cooincidence and I beleive they are directly related to what God has accomplished.
We have only started day 4 and there is so much that we could discuss. I think I will stop here and continue the next time we meet.
Genesis 1:9-13 – The 3rd Day
Gen 1:9 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.
(Ver 1.1) Day 3 of creation is very interesting and contains a lot of information. It begins by confirming to us that the world was covered with water and God commands the water to gather and separate from the earth. Maybe you realize and can understand that this is also a stated division of land from water. The separation of the waters from the land is what God says caused the land to appear. To appear means it was clearly hidden before. It is not that complex yet people ignore the little details given to us by God to beleive an alternative reality of what happened. It is very obvious to me now that Genesi 1:2 describes a universal flood that covered every land mass on the earth. If you study this out you will find that there is more than enough water in the oceans to accomplish this. All it would take is a shifting of the depths of the oceans nd the water would again cover the earth very easily.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
I want to point out in this verse that God declares a defintion for the Hebrew word translated as “earth”. God very clearly says “earth” is dry land. This is so obvious to me but many have not seen it, that God says in Genesis 1:1 that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. The “earth” Hebrew word in Genesis 1:1 is the same Hebrew word that God defined here in verse 10. Theefore, by God’ definition, God declares in Genesis 1:1 dry land existed in the beginning. There is a major conflict that is given to us in Genesis 1:2 where the world was covered with the deepness of water. I have concluded from this information that Genesis 1:2 is describing a time after the begininning where something catastrophic occurred to cover the earth completely in water.
Gen 1:11 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.
Then God commands the earth to produce grass, trees and living vegetation. God also gives us the Seed law of Genesis and a key to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven. God says the seed is always in itself. That is a fascinating concept. Basically it states that there was a creation event that occurred once and that this resulted in a process of self perpetuating events. What we learn from this concept is that each part of God’s creation had within itself the ability to reproduce and produce more of their own kind. In other words God created things ONLY once and then these tings had the ability to self sustain, propogate and continue to spread and grow indefinitely. That is a very important conept to grasp both phsycially and spiritually.
Since God creates plants on Day 3, I believe that it would be noteworthy to analyze a plant’s growth requirements. What are the basics that any plant needs to sustain growth and produce fruit for example? Of course all plants require earth, fertilizer, nutrients, correct atmosphere, water, the correct climate and light. What was the last requirement in my list necessary fundementals? It was light. Do you know what that means? It means that the sun already existed as of Day 3 to help to regulate the earth’s temperature and provide the necessary light for any plants to grow. Without the sun’s existence, the earth would have been an ice cube and vomplrryrly unable to produce any plant life. You’ll hopefully understand why I went into this level of detail when we get to Day 4 next.
Gen 1:12 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.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
God declares the earth’s ability to produce plants existed on Day 3. Please keep in mind that all of the laws of agriculture that God created for the earth to be able to do this must have been in existence at this time. Also consider the timing and the order of what is occuring. Before the existence of any animal God first produced food. This is the basic requirement for higher forms of life like birds or animals. If there was no food supply nothing would have survived long. God’s intelligent design is clearly outlined in what He has accomplished the order of mention declares the wisdom and intelligence of a creeator.
Genesis 1:6-8 God the Divides Waters from the Waters!
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.
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.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
(Ver 1.1) The first three chapters of Genesis are very full of symbolism. I believe the 6th verse of Genesis 1 is no exception. Here God speaks of natural things, but these things all have spiritual meanings that were hidden from man. God again deals with the subject of division on the 2nd day of creation. In this verse God seems to establish a separation between two bodies of water and He calls this expanse of separation the firmament. It is interesting to note that our sky separates two very large bodies of water. We of course know the oceans and the seas are very large bodies of waters but we also know through scientific studies that the clouds and the atmosphere above contains a large amount of evaporative waters. Rain obviously falls from somewhere and waters the earth. It is a process created by God to water the plants of the earth and to give us a fresh drinking water supply. All of this is good and all of this is interesting but God is also giving us some more information in this chapter that we need to become aware of.
What is the symbolic term “waters” representative of in the Bible? How does God define waters? It might surprise some of you but the seas and bodies of waters is often times referred to as a type of peoples or nations. Isn’t that an interesting concept? Let me quickly give you a scripture that supports what I just said. In Revelation 17:15 God gives us a definition of the term “waters”. God again uses “waters” in Revelation 17 symbolically and so read this verse very carefully and observe what it says:
Rev 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
God specifically says that the symbolic “waters” are representative of many people and nations. So if we look again at the 2nd day of creation, God says he has separated waters that are below from the waters that are above. If we apply the definition we found in Revelation to these scriptures and apply them to the context of them being prophetic, what conclusions can we arrive at?
What happened 2000 years after Adam? Looking at the Bible timeline we can discover God’s covenant with Abraham occurred approximately 2000 years after Adam. The establishment of the nation of Israel occurred on the 2nd day of God’s timeline. God made a covenant with a specific group of people. He chose to marry a nation of people. God did not covenant with the entire human race, just the descendants of one man named Abraham and then only with the descendants of one of his son’s Isaac. What was the result of this act of God? We had one group of people in covenant with God and the rest of the descendants of Adam separate from the covenant. That represents a clear division and an established difference between two waters. The waters from above were now different than the waters that were below.
It is very interesting to note that 7 times in the first chapter of Genesis, that God says what He did was either “Good” or “Very Good”. But, on the 2nd day of creation there is no mention of anything being “good”. The first time we saw something that was stated to be good was the mention of Light being separate from darknesss on day 1. The next time anything is said to be good is on day 3. I can only conclude based upon this evidence that whatever God did on day 2 was necessary, but not something God wanted to do or what He considered to be good. That of course was just my opinion, but I find it fascinating.
God Bless,
Genesis 1:5
Genesis 1:5 ends day one of the creation account. This verse gives us God’s perspective on light and darkness. He calls the light “Day” and the darkness “Night”. Everything in the Bile has significance and this naming of the two divisions will become increasingly important as you learn more about them in the Bible. It is very significant to realize that the 1st act of God in creation of our world system was to divide something from something. These two things were light and darkness or as God called them “Day” and “Night”. We know from a natural perspective day and night are 2 divisions within our daily cycle. Each division has 12 hours in them. Isn’t it interesting that the number 12 occurs so frequently in the Bible? Israel had 12 tribes, Jesus had 12 disciples, the New Jerusalem has 12 foundations and we could go on and on.
I alluded to the fact that the 1st chapter of Genesis was prophetic in nature and many will not understand what I’m talking about. You see the days of creation were outlined in a specific order following a specific plan of God. God gives us clues to our earthly history and timetable by studying this chapter. Here is a quick introduction to what I’m talking about. In the book of 2nd Peter 3:8 we are given a major clue to this prophetc account of creation. This verse tells us “A day is as a 1000 years and a 1000 years is as one day.” Isn’t it interesting that the account of the Genesis creation is given to us in terms of days. As you read thru the chapter you find that God worked 6 days to create and then on the 7th day he rested.
If you had the time to do an in depth study in the Bible you would find that it has been approximately 2000 years since the birth of Jesus Christ. According to Peter this is 2 days. Going back from Jesus to Abraham is another 2000 years or 2 days. Finally from Abraham to Adam is another 2000 years or 2 days. Add this up you arrive at 6 days. According to the Biblical calendar we are at the end of the 6th day of God’s creation timetable. We will continue to look at this in more depth as we continue thru the chapter. That was just a quick introduction and I welcome you to go through the Bible and do the math and check what I just told you.
God ends Day 1 but I wanted to make another point about verse 4 real quick that maybe you didn’t see. Did you notice that God called the light, good but he did not call the darkness good. That is also significant. I hope you are enjoying reading thru the chapter and we will continue again tomorrow.
Genesis 1:4 Day 1 of Creation
(Ver 1.2) We are of course still in the beginning of the creation of our world system in God’s Day 1. It is important to note what God does on each day of creation. It is important to note the order of the events of creation. I believe from years of Bible study that each day of creation is a prophetic view into God’s overall plan for the future of mankind. I believe sincerely that each day of creation reveals something that either already occurred or will occur at a specific time in the natural timeline of man’s existence on the earth.
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
We learn these concepts from reading verses like Isaiah 46:10 that says God “declares the end from the beginning…”. From this information we understand that the story of the beginning of our world also reveals to us the end of our world and it’s timetable. Since we are discussing day 1 and a day is to the LORD is as a 1000 years we further understand day 1 until the end of day 6 have already passed by. It is only the end of Day 6 that is still occurring right now. Then we will learn that Day 7 will be the coming millennial day of the LORD described in the book of Revelation. You might say I’m jumping to conclusions and making some radical assumptions, but nevertheless I will stand by that statement. I hope as we continue to go through this chapter that you will begin to see it also.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
So what did God do on the first day of creation? God looked at the earth and saw darkness and said “light be”. According to Genesis 1:4 God informs us that this first act was done in order to “divide” light from darkness. That is a amazing revelation if you choose to understand it. We know from 1st John 1:5 that God is revealed to be “light” and then the verse goes on to teach us that in Him is no “darkness”. If we search the Bible using our Bible Search software we should look for verses containing the words “light”, “darkness”, “day” or “night”. These verses connect us to a revelation of a spiritual realization that we can see being initiated first in Genesis 1:3-5. If God is Light, what is darkness? We all understand that darkness is defined as the absence of light. Therefore, spiritual “darkness” would include anything not being a part of God.
The implied meaning of this verse is that God has separated himself (God=Light) from darkness (Eph 6:12). Let’s look briefly at the word “divide” in the Hebrew. According to Strong’s the Hebrew word H914 means to “sever”, “separate”, “divide asunder”, “make a difference”. This word implies a cutting into two pieces using a sharp knife. I could probably go into a lot more detail right here but that might just cloud the issue. What we should take away from the 1st day of creation is that there was a plan of God implemented for the separation of light from darkness. I will also mention this for the sake of argument later, if the world was introduced to light on day one the “sun” has to also already exist doesn’t it? It is an interesting puzzle, but one that we will address later.
Genesis 1:3 – Let There Be Light!
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 5 in the Bible study series helping us to understand Genesis 1. We have been moving through the chapter verse by verse and studying it using some new ingsights from the written Word of God. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would recommend that you start with “Part 1” first and then move through it in numbered sequence. Genesis 1:3 begins the account of God’s creation of our present world system that we all currently live in. We have already looked at verses 1 and 2 and have seen that the world as described at that time was covered completely with water in a lifeless state of darkness and utter destruction. From God’s choice of words I have determined that there is enough scriptural evidence that this was not the way that it started initially in the beginning. Therefore, something catastrophic had to have occurred to cause the world that was originally created by God in Genesis 1.1 to perish and to become completely and utterly destroyed resulting in an uninhabitable planet. Why is it even important to study this part of the Bible and what relevance does it have for Christians today to know and understand this information? I think that is a very important question to ask and to answer. I want to answer that question by again telling you something else that God says about the beginning in another part of the Bible:
Isa 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
First notice God’s usage of the key Hebrew word “beginning” (Strong’s H7225). This Hebrew word is used in only 49 verses of the Old Testament and that is not too many to go and read them all to see if they apply or shed light on the subject of Genesis 1. In Isaiah 46:10 God uses the exact same Hebrew word translated as beginning in Genesis 1:1. Therefore we have a direct link to subject content based upon God’s word selection. Then notice what God declares and the implications associated with this statement. God says I speak of the end from the beginning. Wow, that is a radical concept and a revelation of monumental proportions. It means that if you do not understand the beginning that you will never be able to understand the end. Uh Oh? That does not sound good for a lot of Bible Prophecy teachers today. God says that you can read what I wrote in the beginning and see what is coming in the end. How is this even possible? Are you beginning to now see the importance of learning the correct interpretation of Genesis 1? I mean do you want to know what Revelaion means? If yes, then you better start with Genesis 1 and find out what that means because there you will find the keys to unlocking the understanding of the book of Revelation. Wow, I just taught you something that is so far off of the charts of current Bible teaching that I wonder why I said it. I just let you in on something else to look for in Genesis. The first thing that I mentioned was that Genesis 1 was about Jesus and I told you to look for Him in every verse. Now I have sprung another revelation on you and said in every verse to look for the end from the stated beginning descriptive words. Therefore we have three direct priorities in reading every verse. We want to understand what they mean in the stated beginning context first, we want to then know what they mean for Jesus the creator second, and then finally, we want to know what they mean for the future end of the world. Please allow me to list these again so that you can remember them and learn why it is important to study the creation account in Genesis:
- Study Genesis to see and understand the creation event first.
- Study Genesis to see and understand the God who created everything second.
- Study Genesis to see and understand the end of the world.
In studying just the first three verses of Genesis 1, I have counted over 15 different direct subjects to study in the entire Bible and I omitted the smaller more common Hebrew words from this count. Here is a list of the primary or dominate subject Hebrew words in these three verses. Every word occurs at least once and when more than once I included a count after the word in parenthesis.
- Beginning
- Created
- Alef-Tav, A-Z, Alpha-Omega
- God (3)
- Heaven
- Earth (2)
- Without Form
- Void
- Darkness
- Face (2)
- Deep
- Spirit
- Moved
- Waters
- Said
- Light (2)
Surely you can begin to see how complex the Bible is by examining this short list of subjects. Searching the Old Testament for every one of these words would be a large task, but one that would be very beneficial to our understanding. Then crossing over into the New Testament would be of even greater benefit if we could determine which Greek words corresponded to these 16 Hebrew words. That is possible and maybe I should teach you how to do that here in this lesson. In order to cross languages barriers to find the New Testament Greek words that are directly related or associated to the Hebrew O.T. words we need to find an Old Testament quoted verse in the New Testament with that word exact in it. This is difficult but not impossible to do with a computer and a version of the Bible that helps to identify them. For example I like the NASB version of the Bible for this cause. They capitalize every Old Testament verse quoted in the New Testament so that they are all easily recognicable. I then do a search for the words that I am looking for like “heaven” and “earth” and then find them in a N.T. quoted verse. I did this search and found both words in Hebrews 1:10. This verse quotes Psalms 102:25. Then I go to Psalms and verify that the Hebrew words in that verse for “heaven” and “earth” are the same words found in Genesis 1 and they are, so I now know that the Greek words G1093 and G3772 are equivalent words for the Hebrew words H776 and H8064 respectively. Do you understand what I just did and why? It can be a bit complex and take some time and effort to accomplish, but yet it is very important and very beneficial for the subject study.
When reading verse 3, it is very interesting to note that the first act of God in this creation event was stated to be the introduction of light back into the planet. Why was that God’s first action and how would that even be possible, if the literal sun did not exist already to shine on the earth? You see I believe the first chapter of Genesis is both literal and symolic of many greater spiritual truths simultaneously. This is the only way that one verse can teach you three different things using the same words. I believe that Genesis 1 was God’s way of teaching us some very complex hidden things by God selecting the specific stated order of every event performed, how it was recorded and described, how it was performed, and then by the timing of the event in the overall 6 day process. What God does is reveal to us greater hidden spiritual truths while creating our world system concurrently. In other words everything recorded in Genesis 1 is by divine superior design and has a hidden purpose to reveal a greater mystery.
We should know from reading and studying the Bible that God has described Himself to be Light. Light is an important concept found throughout the Bible in many forms using many synonymous terms. The first recorded mention of light is here in Genesis 1:3. One of the last direct mentions of light occurs in Revelation 22:5 and says some awesome things about this subject of how God will be to His people their eternal light. Therefore, when God said in Genesis 1:3 “Let there be Light”, what exactly did that mean and what are the imiplied reference for Jesus and the end of the age?
1Jn 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If you only think naturally or carnally you will miss all of the spiritual messages from God hidden in His word. This is why when Jesus taught us the scriptures that said repeatedly “Let him that has ears to hear, hear” (Mat 11:15). What Jesus was claiming was that there was more said in the scriptures than what their natural ears were currently understanding. Let’s get into what the symbolic meaning of the “Light Be” command could represent in Genesis 1:3. We can see from several other scriptures in the Bible that there is no place that we can go that God is not already present there (Psalm 139:8). God is clearly an omnipresent being and all that means is that the Spirit of God is present everywhere simultaneously. Therefore, to attempt to teach that God was introducing Himself into the world, I believe would conflict with the omnipresent part of God’s nature. What then can these verses possibly represent?
We can see from studying the rest of the chapter that God is repeatedly dividing something from something else and here in verses 3 through 5 God separates Day (light) from Night (darkness). In day 1 of the six day creation event God defines what day is and what night is and that is a much more significant revelation to consider than you know right now. It is also a stated major problem if the sun does not exist on this day of creation since day and night could not possibly occur without the existence of the sun and the earth’s rotation around it.
Here is the first time we see God doing anything specifically in direct reference to a specific creation task. We should begin to ask the question “How does God create anything by definition and revealed methodology”? This is a critical point to understand as we will later learn why it is so significant. Men typically create things with their hands, they build a car, write a song, mow the grass all natural things involving the work of our hands. Where were God’s hands during this work? As we see later in the chapter God rests on the seventh day from all His work so we know that He was working while He was creating. But, I believe we can clearly see that God’s work methods were by a radical new method of labor. I believe, knowing how God works will help us learn how we should be working. But, I guess I won’t go there today.
So what did God do? God looked out on the darkness that covered the earth in verse 2 and then what happened? What does darkness represent literally, figuratively and symbolcically? I believe this is a concept we need to define using the Bible. God spoke to the darkness and said “Light Be”. This is a pattern that will be repeatedly emphasized as we continue through the rest of the chapter and this work methodology is also found throughout the Bible in the lives of a number of key examples given to us by God. Most people who read the Bible don’t really understand what they read. As a result they gloss over their minds and basically ignore the words that are written for them to turn to alternative preconceived ideas or thoughts that they think that they do understand. It sure changes everything when you finally see what the actual words and meanings say; it will change your entire outlook on God and His Word if you let it in and accept it as truth.
Let me introduce you to a brand new concept called symbolism. I personally believe that practically everything in Genesis 1 is symbolically linked to a greater hidden truth of something that God is doing in the spiritual realm. Genesis chapter 1 is so heavily saturated with this symbolism that it has very rich and deep meanings attached to every verse. Every day of creation is symbolic of a spiritual day to God and I believe this is a new concept that you need to take hold of in order to understand how near we are to the end of our time here on this earth. As we will soon see the 6 days of God’s creation are symbolically representative of each day of human history on our planet. Since Adam’s creation man has been on this planet very nearly for 6000 years. We can calculate this duration using the genealogies found in the Bible and the ages of the men given to us in those geneaologies. This is how many Bible teachers have come up with the popular theory of the age of our earth being only 6000 years old. However, they are misapplying the information and missing the greater truth that God hid for them to find. Let me stop here and introduce you to some of God’s critical commentary of the creation events found in Genesis. You need to begin to understand that God reveals more information in other parts of the Bible that are essential for you understanding what is occurring in Genesis. If you only study Genesis in a vacuum void of these verses you will never perceive the truth of God. Turn with me in your Bible and read these verses found in 2 Peter:
2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
2Pe 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
2Pe 3:8 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.
Notice what God reveals in these verses. In verse 8, God gives us the redefinition of the Genesis term “day”. This definition represents a new spiritual “day” concept and not a literal day reality. God is revealing a specific clue to the duration of the world by informing us that each day of creation represents a 1000 year period of God’s time. Peter is quoting a part of a verse found in Psalms to make this information plainer and to give it significance to our study. By examining the context of this statement you should be able to clearly understand that Peter is linking this new “day” length information back to the original Genesis creation account. Go back to verse 4 and you will see a clear reference to the “beginning of creation” a clear reference to the information found in Genesis 1:1. Peter immediately follows this verse with a statement concerning Genesis 1:2 where the world was completely covered with water. Then Peter in verse 6 declares that the world that then had perished. Did you know that there was a world that existed before our world? God was teaching us a revelation and giving us explanations concerning the first two verses of Genesis in this discourse. Next in verse 7 God declares information about the end of the age linking the beginning to the end again as we read in Isaiah. Immediately following this statement is verse 8 concerning the definition of a day as being 1000 years. God has placed such key detailed information here that it is amazing when you can see it.
Did you notice that in verses 5 and 7 were two significant references to the Word of God? This reference is also a critical part of the Genesis Bible study. I believe if you do a search in Genesis 1 for the phrase “and God said” you will find it written 10 times in 10 different verses. God places extraordinary importance on His Word in the creation of the world. Peter reveals to us that the world that perished was created by the spoken Word of God and that the world that we live in currently was also created by the spoken Word of God. We learn as we continue that this is how God worked so keep this information in your mind as we continue in this series.
Do not misapply 2 Peter to attempt to say each day of creation is a literal 1000 year period of time. That would be another misapplication of spiritual information. God uses natural things to help us to understand spiritual things. Therefore, I am a firm believer that the 6 days of creation are literal 24 hour periods of time. Take the information literally in Genesis whenever possible but also realize that every literal word has a symbolic meaning potentially attached to it. What I am doing is viewing the information as being literal and symbolic at the same time as I have stated before.
Genesis 1:2 Part 2
Gen 1:2 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.
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 4 in the series of Bible lessons on Genesis chapter 1. We have talked about a lot of different subjects so far and I have introduced you to a new controversial debate that is raging between many Bible teachers. Some have said that the earth is relatively young and only 6000 years old and other Bible teachers like myself see it to be much older. Techinically speaking nowhere in the Bible does God give us the exact age of the earth or the universe so it would be foolish for any man to try to date it so precisely. That is why I do not give you any dates, but I only say it is very old based upon the Bible. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. Today I’m going to focus on the part of the words in verse 2 where God says “And darkness was upon the face of the deep…“. Genesis 1:2 continues with some revealing words, the implication is made that the earth is totally and completely covered by water and in complete darkness. This would imply that there was no dry ground anywhere and that the depth of the water that covered the ground was so deep that light could not penetrate to reach it. This information would further the concept definition that the world was an uninhabitable place. It sounds a lot like the movie “Waterworld” without any people, animals or even fish. Let’s examine this information baed upon what science tells us about light penetration in ocean water because I think this is fascinating to see what God is saying to us. After the first 3 feet of ocean water 50 percent of the light is absorbed by the water. That is not much depth is it? But it get’s even better. Sunlight is a compound source that when separated using a prism like device we can demonstrate that it is comprised of multiple colors. These can be viewed as red light, blue light, yellow light, green light, etc. Red light is completely absorbed in the ocean water in the first meter. Therefore red light is absent after the first 3.3 feet. The color with the deepest penetration is blue light and it will travel only to a depth of around 330 feet which is much deeper than the color of red. However after 330 feet there is no available light to see and we now have a state of darkness. Therefore the ocean dept that covered the earth in Genesis 1:2 must have been at the minimum of 330 feet to produce the complete darkness on the face of the deep.
I beleive this would be a good time to restate the information given to us in Genesis 1:1. Genesis 1:1 taught us that God created the heavens (implied sun, moon, planets, stars, etc) and then the earth. 
I based this conclusion on associated scripture context and the lack of direct creative accounts given to us anywhere else in the chapter. We must learn to see what the Bible actually says, but we also must be able to learn from what the Bible does not say concurrently. Both are potential sources of factual informaiton that are relevant to us having correct understanding. We know from scientific observation that the earth revolves around the sun in a designed concept that we call our “solar system”. A system is a set of individual compents that comprise a greater something that works togeither to produce a postive outcome or purpose. For example, a sound system is comprised of speakers, a receiver, an amplifier and possibly other components that work together to produce musical sound or voice amplification. Take one or more of the individual components away and the complete system fails to function correctly. This is the concept being taught to us by God in Genesis 1:1. The existence of the sun is a central required component for the earth’s viable existence. Since God does not directly tell us when the sun was created in chapter 1 we must conclude it was created in verse 1 by an implied reference and scientific system completeness if for no other reasons. 
I know that many people will try to say that the sun was created on Day 4 but that is techinically NOT what it says and only what you thought it said. We will talk more about that part of the subject when we get to those verses. Just try to see where I am coming from for now and then later try to see how I got there after you have all of the information that I can give you. From my understanding of scriptures and science there is an absolute requirement for the sun’s existence in verse 2 of Genesis 1 but the fact that the light does not reach the surface of the planet makes the reality more complex on why this is happening. The lack of light on the surface of the planet could be for multiple different reasons. I have heard many people theorize about a pre-Noah canopy of clouds that prevented the direct light from the sun from fully reaching the surface. But even on a cloudy day we can still have significant light to see by. No, I have conlcuded that it was the combined effect of both the cloud layers and the depth of the waters that covered the earth that were the contributing factors for there being no light that was reaching the earth’s surface.
Here is another interesting concept that is very important to understand when discussing Genesis 1 creation.
If the sun does not exist in verse 1, then no other part of the chapter makes direct logical sense. You see without the direct presence of the sun, there exists no concept of how to measure time or how to define day or night. Did you ever think of that? The creation account as you will soon see going forward is divided into 6 days of God’s labor and they are described to be evening and morning day 1, 2, 3, and etc. Without the sun, there is no evening and neither is there any morning. There is no concept of what a day is if the sun does not exist. This is exactly what I was teaching you about our solar system and the loss of one key compent. When you take the sun away from being created in Genesis 1:1 the rest of what we thought we knew in Genesis 1 begins to fail and fall apart. We have no basis for the truth to define what a day is if the sun does not exist. I hope you are at least thinking and trying to understand what I just said.
The last part of the verse says “and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Again, this information is confirming that the entire world is covered with the deep liquid substance of water. Obviously this was a universal or global flood of the entire planet earth. If we recall from verse 1, it said in the beginning God created “earth”. The use of the word “Earth” implies by direct definition that there was dry ground that was inhabitable. You might ask me how I came to that definition of the Hebrew word translated as “earth” and I will have to tell you that it was defined to us by God in verse 10, but since we have not gotten to that verse yet, you will either have to trust me or stop and go study verse 10 out of sequence and then come back to verse 2 and apply God’s definition to verse 1. This brings up an interesting point again about how to study the Bible using the Bible. This is an example of why it is essential to not study ANY one verse in isolation. You must take the Hebrew word translated as “earth” and then go see how God defines it and uses it in context. This Hebrew Word (Strong’s number H776) is used 15 times in the first chapter of Genesis. Please go to them all and show me where they do not refer to dry inhabitable ground. In most of the verses it is more than obvious that this is the clear meaning. Therefore to exclude the first verse and say it is not referring to dry ground is inconsistent idiocy. It is an absolute necessity to be consistent in your interpretation of every word of God!
So we again see by the definition and the usage of the word “earth” in chapter 1, that something happened to cause the current state of water that destroyed it in verse 2. What happened in Genesis 1:2? The Bible doesn’t really tell us very many specifics, but God does give us some very relevant and important clues about this event. Finding the clues and then putting all of them together correctly is always the biggest challenge to correct Bible interpretation. We need to go search our Bibles for where God speaks of creation and floods in the same reference. We can do this by simply a word search.
I found a very major clue to what happened to the earth in Genesis 1:2 given to us in 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 4 thru 6. In verse 4 of 2 Peter 3, God specifically mentions “the beginning of creation” to help define the associated importance of the next two verses, 5 and 6 being directly associated with Genesis 1:1. Verse 4 points us to Genesis 1:1 in two ways. First, there is the obivous phrase of “the beginning of creation” referenence and that leaves no doubt in my mind that this is a reference to the first verse in Genesis and no other verse in the Bible will fit. Then second, there is the implied antithesis reference of Peter talking about the coming of the Lord at the end of the age. Both of these references help to point us back to the 1st verse and chapter of Genesis as I have taught you about Jesus being the Alpha and Omega God who created. This information in verse 4 connects the next two verses in 2 Peter back to Genesis 1 by context association and by the continuation of the same thought statement. Let’s go and read all of the verses in the correct sequence:
2Pe 3:4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
I’ve already talked about verse 4 so I will not repeat myself. Verses 5 and 6 speak directly and specifically about the earth being covered with water and this matches the information exactly that we saw in Genesis 1:2. In verse 6 God makes this very radical statement, “The World That Then Was…”. If you read this and are just a little bit smart, you will quickly realize that God is speaking of a different world other than the current one that “Now Is”. You see it says this world that was before our current world perished completely. What world can that possibly be talking about? The Greek word translated as “perished” is defined as the complete and utter destruction of a world with no survivors. Go look up the word for yourself, if you don’t believe me. The Greek word is G622 and it is a very interesting study being comprised of two root words that leave no doubt in my mind that this event being described represents a transition from previous life to complete and utter death. In other words you never use this word unless there existed a life and now that life no longer exists.
Obviously many people who believe in a young earth theory try to explain away these scripture references by saying they are talking only about Noah’s flood and not the Genesis 1:2 flood. But, you see that interpretation, contradicts with what this scripture in 2nd Peter says and makes God to be a liar. First, learn this simple fact that Noah’s flood was not at creation but occurs well over a 1000 years later following the creation event. How can you associate Noah directly with creation? Was Noah there with Adam? I really do not think so and that is the primary problem with a Noah application. Then take note of this very important fact that in Noah’s flood the world that “Then Was” is still the same world that “Now Is” and in the flood of Noah everything did not completely perish. There were many survivors of the Noah’s flood including the animals, the birds, the fish the plants, the trees and even 8 human people. After Noah’s flood the same descendants of Adam that inhabited the planet as before the flood, still inhabited the planet after the flood. The ancesteral lineage of Jesus in Luke 3 proves this by going from Mary all the way back to Adam. This proves that we are still in the same world system that was created by God in Genesis 1. This is a very important revelation to see and understand for it helps to explain a lot more things in the Bible than you can imagine right now.
There are certainly many other scriptures in the Bible we could bring in right here that shed more light on the “world that was”, but for now I’ll leave it at that. Just recognize and acknowledge this verse in Genesis 1:2 that we are studying today is talking about a universal flood that destroyed everything that was on the planet. I think I will end the lesson on that note and thank you for your time in studying the Bible with me. Please feel free to leave me a comment if you know of any scriptures that are relevant to what I was teaching about today. Please do not leave me a comment with your opinion, for like I said before I’m not interested in your opinions. Only God’s Word will prevail over the opinions of men. God Bless.
If you would like to continue to the next lesson in this series on Genesis 1 please go to “Part 5“.
Genesis 1:2 Was there a Long Period of Time Between Verses 1 and 2? Part 1
(Ver 2.1) This is now Part 3 in the Genesis 1 Bible study series. If you have not read it from the beginning you should go back and start with “Part 1“. So far in our study we have not encountered any deep controversial discussions, but then again we have only just now gotten to the 2nd verse in the Bible. Here is where I believe it begins to potentially change. I’ve alluded to the fact that many Christians believe that creation took place a short time ago, ranging from 6000 to 10000 years at the most. I can not disagree with that erroneous belief more strongly than to say there is “No WAY” that can be true based upon a full study of the entire Bible! While many people like to hang on to a young earth theological theory, because that is what they think the Bible says, I have spent a lot of time looking deeper for the truth in the Bible and I want to discover what God really says happened. The problem with most young earth Bible teachers is that they do not study the Bible in its completeness allowing God to teach us what else we need to know on the full subject. So I have spent the time and will try to point you to other verses in the Bible that you need to know about that teaches the earth is much older than 6000 years. Let’s start by reading the second verse and then continue the lesson:
Gen 1:2 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.
As you can read in the 2nd verse of Genesis 1, it starts with the statement “And the earth was without form and void…“. I want to start by saying there are many Hebrew scholars that know the language better than I do. But, according to some of them that I have listened to, this statement could very easily have been translated as “the earth became formless and void”. You can see this repeatedly demonstrated by the word usage throughout Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and many other places in the Old Testament Bible. The word almost always demonstrates a change from the previous status or state to a new status or state of the given object being described. In this case in verse 2, the given object is the “earth” and the stated transition is to become formless and void from some other previous state that was not formless or void. What is the opposite of “formless and void”? I guess that is what we need to learn today.
This is an incredibly important and informative statement about the condition or state of the planet at that time in the creation of our world and it helps us to establish the reason why God did everything else that He did in the rest of the chapter. You see, I believe that God gives us the current earth status in verse 2 to differentiate it from from the original earth status from the beginning of creation which was clearly stated to have occurred in verse 1. Do you understand that no where in this entire chapter dialog did God ever create the earth by saying “Earth Be” and then the earth was? This direct omission of creation appears to inform us it did not occur during these 6 stated days of God’s divine work. Notice how this work took place in Genesis 1. We will soon observe in the rest of the chapter that whenever God desired to create something that He would speak to the problem area and the the problem area would be bring forth a change, transformation or correction. This problem of their being no missing earth that was spoken to to cause an earth to be, is a major clue to understanding Genesis 1, did you notice that? This leads me to believe that the earth was not a problem originally in verse 1 when God says it was created. What Genesis 1:2 appears to imply, is that there was a potential vast expanse of unstated time in between verses 1 and 2 where something drastic happened to cause the state of the world to become a desolate and uninhabitable planet. We will soon see verses that will confirm this. This belief for a long time has been labeled as the “Gap” theory, but as we continue to study the Bible in more depth, we will discover that God gives us many very important clues that can technically mean nothing else but this gap had to actually occur.
There are several great factual reasons why I do not believe in a young earth theory, but instead of reviewing any scientific evidence and reasoning, let’s just stick with what the Bible says. You see I am not interested in debating the subject with you and I could really care less about any of your opinions on the subject of when creation occurred. I only want to know what God has said to us and only that truth will overrule all my opinions and yours.
What does it mean to be “formless” and “void”? These are actually very important words that help us to confirm what has transpired up until this point in time. The Hebrew word (H8414) translated as “without form” means to “lie waste”, “a desolation”, “desert”, “wilderness” and “empty place”. Doesn’t sound very good does it? The Hebrew word (H922) translated as “void” is a word that means “an undistinguishable ruin” and “emptiness”. All of these synonymous terms describe an uninhabitable environment after an implied destruction not do they conform to the creation event that was clearly mentioned in verse 1. This would mean that something must have occurred to cause the earth to become uninhabitable. I know you can very easily reason away my logic saying God is just transitioning creation from a formless blob of mass to make it inhabitable. However, I believe that by reading just the first part of this verse and studying the definitions of the words, we can conclude that something catastrophic occurred to cause this situation or state of all matter on the earth to fail and I’ll try to explain why I said that next.
Here is a valuable lesson that will help you with correct Bible interpretation. No single verse, single phrase or single word in the Bible is “an island” and stands alone by itself. In other words there are no isolated or independent verses of scriptures in the Bible. The Bible is ONE BOOK by ONE AUTHOR and He says more than ONE THING in it about the same subjects. We must learn to use the entire Bible to interpret any single verse in the Bible and when we do this by researching the subjects and the words that we find to look for them in other places and this helps us to define them or explain them. Here is an important fact. God is the b best Commentator of His own Work. God explains every problem and issue somewhere else in the Bible to resolve our potential conflicts. God through His infinite foreknowledge anticipated our every question in His Word and placed them scattered randomly though out the book for us to find like a puzzle solving word search game. God chose every word in the Bible with great precision, on purpose and by His divine sovereign design. For example, if we search the Bible for occurrences of the Hebrew word H8414, which is translated as “without form” we will find a very key verse in Isaiah that will shed tremendous light on the subject of what has happened in Genesis 1:2.
Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
You see in Isaiah 45:18, it specifically says that God does not create anything that is “without form”. I know the word was translated as “vain” in this verse, but it is the exact same Hebrew word and refers to the same state. So if we are smart just a little bit, we can see clearly that in Genesis 1:1 that when God created the heavens and the earth that it had to have been in an inhabitable state when it was first created in verse 1. You see God is giving us all a direct commentary on verse 1 of Genesis 1 here in Isaiah. We only found this verse by searching for God’s usage of the same Hebrew word. Since God is again speaking of the creation of heaven and earth we know it has direct association and meaning to our study subject. People who are not thinking correctly try to explain this verse in Isaiah away as being a Genesis 1 transitional phase of the creation account in Genesis 1. You see because Genesis 1 ends in an inhabitable form, they have reasoned that it first started uninhabitable and then became inhabitable by God’s design. They have further reasoned that Isaiah is stating the overall summary account of the end of Genesis 1 and that Genesis 1 is the detailed account of how it became this way. However that logic has some great flaws in its reasoning.
I want to stop here and ask those that believe in a young earth, “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” Did God create a formless blob of cells and then He spoke to these cells for them to become a chicken or did God create the fully formed chicken that laid the egg that became another chicken? You see you have to believe in a evolutionary transition if you believe in a Genesis 1:1 lifeless and formless entity evolving, transitioning or becoming a life form supportable type of truth. You are trying to mix apples and oranges teaching that you do not believe in evolution but yet embrace an evolutionary concept of lifeless substances becoming life substances and that is clearly an inconsistent approach to correct Bible interpretation. You see I am forced to believe in a Genesis 1:1 life supporting planet as being a fully formed, inhabitable earth because I also believe in a God that created a fully formed chicken and not a transitional blob of cells that became the chicken. You of course can believe whatever you like and remain mixed up and inconsistent.
In verse 2 of Genesis 1 it says the earth was now or became”without form” and “void” and I believe based upon the Biblical evidence in Isaiah that this represents a change of state from the original matural creation state where it was inhabitable. To deny this is to say that God was not able to create the final product and was forced to create it within phased limitations. Therefore, we can logically determine that based upon Isaiah 45:18 that something or someone destroyed the original creation inhabitable planet and made it or caused it to become a place of utter destruction. The only person in the Bible that qualifies for this type of destruction to God’s creation is Satan in my opinion. Satan is the one that Jesus described in John 10:10 as the thief who had come to “kill”, “steal” and to “destroy”. That fits the description of Genesis 1:2 very well.
Why would God need to hide an almost random and remote verse somewhere else in the Bible within a major prophet named Isaiah (45:18) in the Old Testament that speaks to us clearly about creation and teaches us a new perspective on the things that we suspected, but yet we did not see in the original writings of Moses in Genesis? Why did we have to go and search to find this reference if the verse was truly connected to what was written in Genesis 1? Why did God not just plainly tell us the whole factual truth at the beginning of the Bible? Why does God do things like this to spread out information? To me that is truly a mystery, yet God does this by His divine sovereign choice and by His intelligent design of His written Word. I have suspected that God has hidden this information in the Bible for a couple of reasons. First, so that we could learn to search for His truth in the word as it says in Proverbs 25:2. Then second so that He could reveal what was hidden to us at the appropriate time. Third, I believe that God has hidden the truth in His word to allow any human the right to believe in a lie. If God would have placed every truth in clear understandable words, no man would have any right to believe anything else. I strongly believe that we must use the Bible to interpret the Bible, if we don’t, we are merely standing on our own opinions and those aren’t worth anything are they?
MORE OF GOD’S COMMENTARY ON CREATION
I want to take you to some additional verses found in the Psalms that gives us major insight into the works of God’s hand during creation. I would recommend that you read the whole chapter but for time sake I will not attempt to teach every verse found there. Start reading in verse 1 and see God describing His majesty and glory as being first and foremost above all else. Notice very plainly the order of mention because this reflects what occurred during creation in Genesis 1:1 to the end of the chapter. The chapter begins with only a description of God the Creator with no other beings that are mentioned to be equal to Him or even in existence. In verse 4 God suddenly mentions the angels as being created spirits. Then notice in verse 5 God declares that He laid the foundations of the earth so that it would never be removed but only after the mention of angelic creation that was clearly stated before this fact. I am trying to make a point that angels existed before the earth existed. What I want you to see is that now here in verse 5 of Psalms 104 these words correspond to verse 1 of Genesis 1 and that we can now be in sync with the same creation event being described in both from two different points of view. The stated order is God always existed, then came the angels and then the earth was created afterwards. Verse 6 is where I want to begin teaching since it is certainly about Genesis 1:2:
- Psa 104:6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. (KJV)
- Psa 104:6 You have covered the deep as with a robe; the waters stood above the mountains. (LITV)
I just gave you two translations of this verse . One is the KJV and the other is the Literal Bible translation. The Hebrew word (H3680) that was translated as “coveredst” or “covered” literally means to conceal, hide, cover or clothe an object. We can determine from the statement that the object being covered was the earth. I then want you to notice that this is a past tense statement declaring it to be a finished work of God. Yet we clearly look around us today and see the mountains not covered, don’t we? Then I want you to understand that in order for God to cover the mountains they must first have been uncovered! Uh oh! We are learning critical informed details that transpired in Genesis 1:2. What this description is teaching us is like when I make my bed. I can take my bedspread and cover the sheets and the mattress and they suddenly disappear because of the layer of covering. At night I can turn the covers back to reveal the bed and get into it and that is what is being revealed by God in this verse that occurred and in the verses that are about to come. Let’s read the next verse:
- Psa 104:7 At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.
Here in this verse there is a direct connect with the subject from the previous verse. The primary subject of the last verse was the waters that covered, but here God says it was by His rebuke of them that they fled away. What exactly is a rebuke? I seriously want you to consider that question before you jump out with an answer. According to the dictionary a rebuke represents a verbal expression of sharp disapproval or criticism. Now I want you to think again using God’s commentary on the Genesis 1:2 creation event. Why would God need to rebuke the waters if it was not how He wanted it in the beginning? Did God make a mistake at the beginning to have the earth covered by waters? Would God have created a state of chaos that needed to be rebuked? Why wouldn’t an all knowing God just have created it right the first time? Wow, those are great questions. Perhaps the next few verses will help you find the answers:
- Psa 104:8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
This is a description of what occurred in verse 9 of Genesis 1 at the beginning of day 3 of creation and we are technically getting ahead in the Bible study of the rest of the chapter but that is what occurs many times in deep Bible study. What I am doing is trying to teach you that if you want to find the truth that you are going to have to search for it. Quit reading one chapter in Genesis 1 and think that you know everything that you need to know. These are great verses that I am giving to you and I hope that you are seeing what they say. I think I am only going to give you one more verse in this chapter even though there are others that are applicable to what we need to learn. Please read carefully verse 9:
- Psa 104:9 Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
- Psa 104:9 You have set a boundary that they may not pass over; they shall not return to cover the earth.
I once more gave you two translations of the same verse from the KJV and the LITV for comparison. What does this verse say? Can you read? What does the term “pass over” mean? Is that not a transitional statement of before and after? If the waters passed over the mountains then the mountains were not covered to begin with! What does the term “again” mean? What does the term “return” mean? Both of these translations tell us that the water was not there and then it was there and now it is again not there and will never return again. Uh oh again! I mean this teaches us something that is ignored or not known by most Christians. Did you learn anything from it? Do you believe God? Learn to put 2 and 2 together correctly and see how that they consistently make 4 every time.
Let me end this Bible lesson on Genesis 1:2 with another question. If the “earth” was created in Genesis 1:1 and that Hebrew word translated as “earth” literally means dry land why was the earth’s dry inhatibable land now covered with water completely in verse 2 being totally destroyed and uninhabitable? I think that is an outstanding relevant question that many Bible teachers ignore or fail to ponder. I believe the original Hebrew language has demonstrated that the earth was there in the beginning and then changed states to become the formless and void condition that we have observed. This is clearly what God is revealing in His own commentary on the event that we just read in Psalm 104. What we need to know next is why did this happen and how did this happen? Only by attempting to learn can we discover the truth. The greatest enemy to us knowing the truth is when we believe that we already possess it. Thanks for studying the Bible with me and we will continue our lesson on Genesis 1:2 in the next lesson.
If you would like to continue to read in the Genesis 1 series you may proceed to “Part 4“.
Genesis 1:1 Part 2
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
(Ver 1.2) This is Part 2 in the series of Bible lessons on Genesis chapter 1. If you have not read this from the beginning I would suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1” first. Genesis 1:1 is not a long verse but yet it contains profound information about creation and the creator God as we learned in the first lesson. Bible scriptures can be viewed in at least two different ways and probably more than that, if you think about it. There are actually many ways to view every scripture, there is a natural perspective, a literal perspective, a symbolic perspective and a spiritual perspective to name just a few possible ways to interpret verses. There will always be explicit truths that are given in every verse as well as the implicit or implied truths that are indirectly derived from studying the verse. The first verse in the Bible tells us explicitly that there was a stated beginning and that it was initiated by a creator God. What we learn from this explicit definition is that the beginning of all time and all physical matter occured in this single verse. The implications of this verse are of course enormous and very significant for us to understand also. We can learn by implication that it would have required an all powerful being to create everything that we can see in our vast universe. We can further learn that it would have required a being of tremendous intelligence in order to create the complex systems, physical laws and all of things that we have learned through modern science and technology.
One of my goals to teaching the Bible, is to help you learn how to study the Bible correctly. That of course is a subjective statement that is open to many different opinions. I really can’t help that people see things diferrently reading the exact same words. Just because something is different does not make it accurate or true, in fact it raises the point that someone is definitely wrong since both views if they conflict cannot be simultaneously correct. 
Therefore, while I teach you a subject I will occasionally introduce you to new concepts, principles, laws that I follow for Bible interpretation to help you understand my approach. This might be beneficial to you based upon the old proverb that you can help a man temporarily by giving a man a fish, but to really help them long term you need to teach them how to fish for themselves. So me doing the study and telling you what I have seen is only a short term benefit if I don’t explain how I got to what I said. So today I will start by telling you two things that I observe in every verse that I study. First I pay attention to every word. I look up every word in the Strong’s dictionary to understand the definition of the word in the original language. I also search for that word usage in the Bible to see where else God used it to help me understand what else God says on the subject. Next, one of the key things that I observe is the order of mention. Every word of God is designed with purpose. Nothing is given to us int he Bible that is not important and the order of mention is many times as equally important or even greater to understand than the words that are mentioned. So let’s look at the words in this first verse of Genesis.
What else can we learn from this verse? Since we learned by explicit and implicit definition that there was a beginning to time, we can therefore conclude by logical definition that before this creation event of a stated time initiation point occured, the concept of time did not previously exist. Therefore prior to Genesis 1:1, God existed eternally and indendepntly outside of the constraints of the dimension of time when He created the time diemension. Modern astronomers have concluded from observation that the universe around us, is expanding at an astronomical rate of speed. They can look through their telescopes and see back into time literally millions of years or even longer. Several scientist have concluded that the universe can be mapped in reverse to a starting origination point they call the “Big Bang”. But, hardly any have concluded there was an external force that caused this bang to occur. What many of these same scientists call the “big bang”, the Bible just simply calls the beginning. Therefore, we can learn from science and from God’s Word that there was a single point event in the past where all matter originated from something which is not directly stated or revealed in this verse. This beginning was the stated central point of creation origination and most definnitely an explosive powerful event that was triggered by someone that we call God. We see three basic essential components for our existence in this verse of creation; these were space, time and all physical matter.
In reading and studying the Bible I often times observed that the words in a list of items are ordered or organized in either priority or time sequence. What I have derived from this information is that in verse one of Genesis, time is mentioned first (the beginning), space is mentioned second (heaven) and finally specific matter was mentioned last (earth). 
This would seem to imply that God created the concept of time first followed by the concept of heaven or space both before the concept of matter and our planet earth was created which makes the most logical sense to me. Therefore, the order of mention in a verse can have meaning. However, the concept of heaven is more complex than just a simple statement of space. This of course is a little difficult to discover in the Bible, but since I have spent significant time extensively studying the Bible I have discovered that there are three different realms or dimensions that are referred to using the same word translated as “heaven”. Two stated realms are physical and one stated realm is spiritual. While we can fairly easily understand what the “earth” repersenents in this verse, the term “heaven” could potentially refer to any of the other possible entities foud in the Bible; either the earth’s atmosphere, or the known physical universe or to the spiritual place where God’s throne resides today. This is where we need to introduce the concepts of contextual word asociation interpretation and consistent word interpretation so that we can correctly understand the meaning of one word by understanding the correct interpretation of another associated word in the same verse or chapter. Since we are on the very first verse in the chapter, we will narrow our interpretation to only other words found here.
Let’s take the the word translated as “earth”. This Hebrew word literally means “to be firm”. Thus it teaches us that it could be related to the existence of physical matter if viewed from a purely non-spiritual perspective. If the earth is a physical firm planet then the only correct interpretation of heaven in this verse must also be of the same like substance also being in the physical realm consisting of the surrounding bodies observable from the earth. If we tried to make both heaven and earth in this verse in spiritualrealm then we would need to ask where did God reside when He was making this spiritual realm? Since this does not logically make sense to me, I would have to conclude therefore, that heaven in verse 1 was not referring to throne of God in the spiritual realm since that is where God is when He created our natural realm. It is only logical to conclude that the spiritual God existed eternally somewhere before the creation of all physical matter and this must have been the spiritual realm called heaven which pre-existed the created heaven in verse 1.
There are other very basic implied opposite truths found in this scripture that we can learn from today. This is what I call the “law of antithesis” and there is much to learn using this logical concept throughout the Bible. This law of Bible interpretation states that for whatever truth that is directly stated in any verse, there exists an implied oppostie realm of truth that is not directly stated. This is a common theme of life. For every good there is an evil. For every negative there is a positive. For every east, there is a west. Therefore, if there was a stated beginning then there must also be an implied ending. We can also ascertain this by the direct hidden reference to the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet that we looked at in lesson 1 that describes the God who created everything. The implication is confirmed to us by what we read in Revelation when Jesus told us that He was the first and the last, the beginning and the end. There is coming an end and I feel very confident that it is going to be very soon. There is further the revelation that if time had a beginning that time will have an ending. Therefore, what exsited before time will be that which exists after time. Antithesis truth is really quite outstanding if you can see them.
I could have spent a lot of time looking up the Hebrew words and all of their references, but you can do that on your own. I feel that Genesis is one of those books that is greatly misunderstood. I have spent more time studying Genesis than almost any other book of the Bible. This book is rich with information that is essential to understand correctly. One key way to understand it is to see what God says in the other parts of the Bible where He gives us His professional commentary on the subject. This is called a “letting the Bible interpret itself” concept and that is a rarely found technique used by people to study the Bible. However, I have found that it is essential or you will remain in a isolated text mentality for Bible interpretation using only your failed human reasoning. I hope and pray that you are learning something about God’s Word today that you did not know before and not only that but are grasping new ways to study the Bible that will help you to see what God has given to us. God Bless you until next time.
If you would like to continue reading in this Genesis 1 Series you may go to “Part 3“.
Genesis 1:1 The Missing Word
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
(Ver 1.4) This is Part 1 in the Series of Bible lessons on the first chapter of the Bible called Genesis 1. I will be stepping through the chapter almost verse by verse talking about specific things that I found interesting. I believe Genesis 1 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. I have read this chpater repeatedly and continue to see and learn new things that it says. In this series I will be emphasizing the importance of studying this information. I will further go into several important concpets on how to study this information properly. Finally I will be addressing the significance in getting the correct interpretation of the information in order to understand correctly what was written. Genesis is the first of the five books of the law written down by the prophet Moses. All of the law was originally recorded in the Hebrew language. The law is often called the “Pentateuch” which is a Hebrew word that means “five books”. The name of the book “Genesis” comes from the Greek Septuagint which was the Greek translation of the original Hebrew text. The first occurrence of the Greek Word “Genesis” is found in Matthew 1:1 where it is translated as the “generations” of Jesus Christ. The book of Genesis is widely called the “book of beginnings” by the Holy Spirit and by many knowledgeable Bible teachers and scholars. The first chapter of the book of Genesis has been divided into 31 verses. Clearly the first chapter of Genesis reveals God’s personal involvement in the design and creation of our current natural world system. There is considerable hidden information found in this chapter and we will explore a significant amount of it in these Bible lessons. Before I start lesson 1, I want to bring in another N.T. verse statement that Jesus made speaking about the Old Testament verses that we will be studying to help you see what I just said about this hidden information:
John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
The first thing that I would like to point out about studying any book of the Old Testament is that these books contain one central subject theme even though this subject was well hidden on the surface text reading of the information as you will begin to discover in this lesson. What I am referring to is the hidden spiritual content of Jesus Christ, the concealed central theme found in every book of the Bible. If you do not understand what Jesus said in John 5:39, it is obvious to me that you will not understand the book of Genesis correctly. Jesus told us to search for Him in the scriptures. The implied statement found in that information is that Jesus was well hidden in the words that are recorded if it is necessary to search to find Him. What I am going to do today is to show you one of these hidden references to Jesus in the first verse of the Bible.
Today’s lesson is the beginning of the discussion on verse 1. Verse 1 is not a long complex verse, but like many other verses God can say a lot using a very few select words. There is an amazing revelation found in the first verse of Genesis that most have never seen. Unless you can read and write in the Hebrew language you probably have not ever seen what I am about to talk about before. The fourth Hebrew word of the original Bible text is omitted and not translated into English. We can only assume that translators didn’t know how to translate the word so they ignored it completely. You see the problem is that this word is not a word at all and didn’t spell anything that they were familiar with. However it says something that is very profound when you understand what it is and what it means. Genesis 1 is comprised of exactly 7 Hebrew words and seven is the number associated with God. The number 6 is a number often associated with man. Therefore the omission of just one word changed the meaning of the verse dramatically. This omitted word falls between “In the beginning” and “God” in the English translation. So it appears to be an adjective that qualifies the noun “God” which is the Hebrew Word “Elohiym”.
This word is made up of just two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The first letter is called the “alef” and second letter is called the “tav”. This still doesn’t appear to have any significance until you begin to understand that these are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet and that changes everything doesn’t it? The verse should read something like this in the English “In the beginning the A-Z God created….”. Who is the A-Z God? Well of course this A-Z God can only be Jesus Christ who created all things. Let’s find the key that unlocks the mystery in the New Testament:
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
You should begin to see that the O.T. pattern discovered in Genesis 1:1 for the first time is now repeated and even explained to us in the book of Revelation. In the first chapter of Revelation and the 8th and 11th verses, Jesus makes the following statements: “I AM, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending”. Jesus repeats this statement in Revelation 21:6 and in Revelation 22:13. Since it occurs 4 times in the book of Revelation, it must have some very significant meaning to somewhere else in the Bible. We can quickly see if we become familiar with the Greek alphabet that Jesus has just identified Himself as the creator God. The Greek letters of “Alpha” and “Omega” are the first and the last letters in the Greek alphabet. Being a Hebrew, Jesus would have spoken this in His natural language and said I am the “Alef” and the “Tav”. But, since the N.T. Bible was written in Greek, it was recorded as the “Alpha” and the “Omega”. Jesus has just informed us that nothing happened or started in the world without Him and nothing will end in the world without Him either. Jesus confirms He is the reason we exist and that He created everything that we see. Jesus was intimately involved in the creation everything that we have and can do in this world and nothing will come to an end that He has not already done. So the first verse in Genesis 1:1 should read something more like this:
“In the beginning the A-Z God created the heaven and the earth.”
Now we can understand that the God of creation being revealed in this verse was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega! I find that very important, informative and quite comforting information that everything that we can find in the rest of the chapter was done by Jesus our Creator. Keep this in mind as we continue to study through the rest of the chapter. We will eventually find Jesus hidden in other verses in this chapter also, but we will get to those soon enough. God Bless!
If you would like to continue to read and study in the first chapter of Genesis you may go to “Part 2“.
The Agapegeek Blog 