I am going to sort of cut this newsletter by chapters. But then, sort of not.
We’re calling this Genesis 1. It will go until God has created the animals.
The next devotion will be Genesis 2. It will look at creating humans, blessing them, and the Garden of Eden.
Purpose and Focus of Genesis
God chose to make the heavens and earth and all therein. He made it for His glory and us to worship Him.
This book was to show God’s power and honor Him. If Genesis is a book of instructions, why isn’t it more instructive? It doesn’t tell us the how of things. So how is that instructive?
Genesis 1 tells us the Who without telling us Who God is. It is supposed to be a religious book. It is supposed to grow our faith in the Creator.
God doesn’t try to convince us that He is Sovereign God. He just puts it out there that He created everything. It is all about having the faith to believe in the unseen and unknown.
God doesn’t want us to focus on the physical aspects of life. In Genesis 1: 1, God established that we would need faith in Him. He doesn’t introduce Himself. He doesn’t explain His actions.
It isn’t a social message. It isn’t just a message of love. It is a message of redemption and salvation.
A major reason for creation was to highlight His Son, Jesus. God wanted to show us Who Jesus really is. He wants us to focus on the spiritual condition of our hearts, which we can only do by accepting Jesus as our Savior.
That is what God is all about. To do this, He gave us His Word for our instruction. That is why the first five books in Hebrew are called Torah. Torah means instruction.
God doesn’t want us to rely on ourselves. He was us to understand His wisdom is far greater than ours.
Moses is credited with writing the Book of Genesis. But then, some question how Moses got the information on creation, the fall, and the flood.
It doesn’t matter who the human was who penned it. It is from God.
Who cares if Moses got help! I write every single word of these – unless I post one of Pastor Steve’s sermons. Pastor Steve and I sometimes talk things through. My sister and my Springfield Mom are my editors. Help is needed.
Great if Moses was writing down oral history. God thought we needed to keep that forever. He took the time and effort to write it all down.
Before the Foundation of the World
God created everything. To believe that, we have to accept that God existed before the foundation of the world. God’s Word tells us the Trinity was present at creation (Gen. 1: 1; Jn. 1: 1-3; Gen. 1: 2).
Only a Person such as He could do it. Creation didn’t happen on its own or by accident.
Even though God knew we were going to disobey Him, He created us anyway. The deal breaker would be who would be sorrowful about that gross ungratefulness and dishonor and who wouldn’t.
Not only that, He designed a Plan of Salvation to restore our relationships with Him. Before God created anything, He had the Plan of Salvation ready to go.
The foundation of our relationship with God is that we would mess up. Only He can offer the plan to fix it.
Before Creation
What was present before creation was barren and lacked order and, therefore, could not sustain life. It was described as chaos. The chaos itself could not create the order. Only God could do that.
However it was created, God created the universe. God created the plan; Jesus carried out the plan; the Holy Spirit hung out over the deep, waiting for instructions. He was probably at parade rest, not marching. This shows us the Trinity without naming it.
I believe there is a separation between in the beginning and let there be. This separation is the Holy Spirit hovered. We have no clue how long that separation was.
God lives outside time and space. He is Sovereign God. He can build the earth with anything He wants – any way He wants.
The Account of Creation
God Created
We have to stop worrying about the how and focus on the Who. We have to agree that God created everything in the universe — including us.
God didn’t come in and do everything in five minutes. The plan God had included that the universe was to be created in stages — six of them, in fact — which we call days. It is more the law of progress, not evolution. He always intended a hierarchy.
God could have created everything in five seconds. He didn’t. That makes us wonder if creation really appeared all put together when God said, “Let there be.” Why did He take six days instead of five seconds?
Things were created in a logical order. They didn’t appear finished by a long shot. God still had some work to do to make it inhabitable and to make it more inviting. The work got progressively, systematically more involved as He created the higher life forms.
It tells us in Genesis 1 that God spoke, and things were created. God is so powerful that His words are obeyed. We also know the universe was created through His outstretched arm (Jer. 27: 5; 32: 17).
Pastor Steve and I just had a great conversation about this. It popped in my mind that God’s outstretched arm could have been targeting where His powerful words were to go.
But I loved what Pastor Steve said. When the Israelites offered certain sacrifices, they had to place their hands on the bull to transfer their sins to it. God didn’t touch His creation, but He was transferring His purity and holiness to the world He was creating.
Bottom line is we don’t know exactly how God’s spoken words and outstretched hand were carried out in creating the universe. Maybe everything suddenly appeared before God. Maybe it was a reverse-Avengers snap, where things drifted together over an undetermined period of time.
God made a perfect universe. Humankind is the one who let in sin.
Light
Light had to contend with the darkness. Darkness had to be pushed back before God could begin the physical work of creation.
God enlightened the world with the presence and knowledge of Jesus, the Light. He put Himself in the creation before anything else. That way, when humankind was created, they could be good.
At this point, it was not the physical presence of Jesus that is seen here. He would take the form of man in the fullness of time. This is Jesus in spiritual form.
We can grow because Jesus (as the Giver of salvation) and the Holy Spirit (through Whom sanctification is completed) are the foundation of creation. But God took an active part in establishing the Light in the new creation. He is the One Who called Light to enter creation.
God wants good and evil, light and dark, day and night to be separated. However, good and evil are both be with us.
As disciples, we have been made new creations. But we are still in these fleshly bodies. We still sin.
Doesn’t evil come from us? Satan doesn’t make us choose to sin. We choose that ourselves.
We aren’t told when God created the physical light. Moses didn’t think it necessary to talk about since we can obviously see it was created. It shows us where our focus should be. The Light is much more important to us than the light.
Dome
Before the heavens and earth were created, a chasm wouldn’t have been needed. Now that earth would be inhabited — and by sinful creatures — the entrance to Heaven had to be secured. The ethereal vapors provided that, possibly creating the Crystal Sea.
The dome had been created, but things were still chaotic everywhere else. This was an important building block for work on future days. No life — be it human, plant, or animal — would be able to be sustained if this was not in place.
Land and Sea
Seas are important in providing for both plant and animal life.
Land had long been under water and not being used to its full potential. It needed to change — it needed to grow.
On Day 3, dry land appeared, and vegetation began to grow, including trees. We are told in Genesis 2 that bushes were not growing yet.
Bottom line, the earth can spin on without humankind if God wills it so be so. True, it may cause some decay. But only God is needed to sustain the earth. He has done it before on His terms and could do it again.
The first reason given for this delay was there was no rain as of yet to water the earth. Instead, it was watered by spring that came from the ground. Plants could have taken the water in through their roots. The spring could have created the mist, allowing those plants that take water in through their leaves.
The second reason given was there was no people to tend to it. Plant life was created on Day 3. Humankind was created on Day 6. There were two whole days in between, which in actuality could have been thousands of years.
As humankind wasn’t created yet, there was no need for food. God never does anything early or late. He always does it on time — His time.
But wild animals, birds, and small animals also were given plants to eat as food. Not all of the plants created on Day 3 would have been considered wild plants and grains. Animals would have been able to eat them.
God placed everything where He wanted it and set boundaries for them.
Sun, Moon, and Stars
Halfway through creation, God moved from forming the canvas to painting the masterpiece. The whole purpose was to make it a suitable place to live.
What a sight that must have been when the on switch was flipped on the sun!
Taken all together, the sun, moon, and stars show the majesty of God. God is the sun, shining in all His glory. Jesus is the moon that reflects God’s glory. The Holy Spirit is the stars that direct us to Jesus so that we can bask in God’s glory.
We are tasked to go and tell of Jesus. He is the Gospel. There is no Gospel if we leave Him out.
Animals
Just as God has authority, He has given humankind limited authority. God gave us dominion over fish, birds, and animals that scurry on the ground.
We have to watch how we interpret dominion (as the King James Version translates it). Some think that means that we have rule over all the earth.
Dominion doesn’t mean we have sovereignty or domination. I do think it means we have superiority over animals. While God does love His creatures, humankind has been given reign over animals because of our dual nature.
I think dominion means we protect the earth and the animals because all in it has a dependency on us. We are stewards of it.
Through His love and care for the bird’s, we see an authentic illustration of God’s goodness.
God wanted a suitable helper for the man to fulfill His purpose for humankind.
God had a very important task for the man — his first recorded act, no easy task. The man was to name all the animals. He had to have knowledge of the nature of each animal was so that he could give it the correct name.
It was more than that, though. This shows humankind’s authority over animals.
But he was multitasking. He was looking for a helper.
Does this mean God hadn’t originally intended to create the woman? No.
It means we sometimes have to be shown what is what. We have to be changed by the journey.
The man and animals were formed from the ground (Gen. 2: 19 ESV). I guess the part that is different is the breath of life part that separates us from other animals.
To me, this shows why our makeup is so similar to animals. We were all made with the same building blocks. That doesn’t mean we have evolved from animals.
But all this points out another discrepancy. Animals were created on Days 5 and 6 (Gen. 1: 18-27 NLT).
Since God made man first, did He create the male animals first? Then in the Garden, did God form the female animals out of the dust of the ground? Who know? God does.
Because animals were not a suitable helper does not mean they are inferior to us. Animals were among God’s creation that He judged to be very good (Gen. 1: 31). There was nothing wrong with them. They just weren’t what the man needed.
To read devotions in the Creating Everything theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Celebrating Creation’s Story series