Dr. Jack L. Arnold

Genesis

Lesson 10

The First Four Days Of Creation

The First Four Days of Creation

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Genesis 1:1 gives an all inclusive statement that God is the Creator of the universe. From Genesis 1:2 to 1:31, we are given a record of how God created all things with attention shifted completely on the earth.

B. Genesis 1:2 gives a picture of the earth in its most primitive state in which primeval waters covered the earth. Up until Genesis 1:9, the earth was actually covered or surrounded by water.

II. THE FIRST DAY OF CREATION: LIGHT (1:3-5)

A. God, by a spoken word, called light into existence. The omnipotent God begins to create. Immediately it is seen that God is divinely powerful, intelligent and far above the level of His poor creatures (Psa. 33:9).

B. Light was the first and most essential element in creation, for until this time there was nothing but darkness. PROBLEM: How could there be light before the sun, which was created on the fourth day? ANSWER: The source of light may have been different than what we know it today. Modern science has shown the existence of light apart from the sun, as in the case of phosphorescence and the phenomena of the aurora borealia (northern lights). Probably it was at this time that other forms of energy, such as heat, ultraviolet light, radio waves, and atomic radiation sprang into existence. NOTE: The Apparent Age theorists do not have near the problem with light as do the age-Day theorists, for they must believe that there were millions of years of vegetation before there was a sun.

C. God saw that His creation of light was good (excellent) and he divided darkness from Light and called it night and day. The evening and the morning were the first day. While the sun was not yet created, the succession of evenings and mornings indicates that the earth’s axial rotation had begun. The day was equivalent to what we know as a solar day,

III. THE SECOND DAY OF CREATION: FIRMAMENT (1:6-8)

A. The second most important creation was that of the firmament (expansion). This probably refers to the troposphere, which extends from earth upwards about 10 miles.

B. God divided the primeval waters into two great reservoirs. The waters above the firmament were most likely in the form of invisible water vapor (a water canopy), which is no longer in existence because of the rains in the Flood. The waters under the firmament still constituted a shoreless ocean. NOTE: This is the only creative act that is not concluded with “it was good.” Perhaps God thought the second day of creation incomplete without the third day.

IV. THE THIRD DAY OF CREATION: LAND, SEA AND PLANTS (1:9-13)

A. Land and Sea. God now caused the dry land to rise from the ocean and the ocean to retreat into lower basins forming a network of seas. The rushing of great amounts of water over the rising land would have caused great geologic change. The ninth verse surely teaches that what we call geologic formations took place in titanic and gigantic measure at a vastly accelerated pace in a truly miraculous creative work as astounding as the rest. God said this was good (excellent).

B. Plants. Now God creates vegetation upon the earth, for He is preparing the earth for habitation (animals and men).

1. In the creation of the third day, the earth becomes the mediate agent for all plant life, being commanded to produce whatever vegetation is necessary by a process of highly accelerated growth.

2. There are three basic classifications of plant life: tender grass (mosses and other plants designed to carpet the earth), herbs (the vegetables, or at least, generally speaking, everything between grass and trees and, without a doubt, the various grains), and fruit trees bearing fruit, nuts and cones and all bushes yielding berries).

3. It is important to realize that the herbs were already bearing seed and the trees already yielding fruit, as soon as they appeared. This also implies that the “dry land” which had just previously come from the waters was already prepared with suitable soils and nutrients for the plants. Everything was created in fully developed, completely functioning form. Everything had the appearance of age.

4. Each plant had its own seed and produced after its own kind, which sets a peculiar and definite limitation upon mixing of different kinds. This is contrary to the teaching of general evolution.

a. Organic evolution states that life originated from non-living material and that all living things developed from lower forms of life. In relation to plants, the evolutionists say that sequoia trees evolved from a single cell and virus The theory of evolution must hold that there can be no fixed limits to the possibilities of variation in living things, for the theory of evolution must hold that there can be no fixed limits to the possibilities of variation in living things, for the theory assumes that all living things in the world today, both plants and animals, have developed from a single-celled organism. NOTE: Yet, nature itself shows us that there are fixed limits between kinds or species of plants. EXAMPLE: It is quite possible to cross a peach tree and a plum tree and get a nectarine, for they are of the same general family. But no one has ever yet crossed an onion plant with a peach tree.

b. It is quite obvious that there may be variation within kind (species) in the plant world. If this is what some mean by evolution, than all creationists are evolutionists in a limited sense, for all creationists believe that from any species (kind) in its wild form there may be various genetic possibilities But there is no hybridizing (interbreeding) between distinct species. EXAMPLE: Cabbage has many varieties, such as wild cabbage, kohl-rabi, Brussel sprouts, collards, kale, cauliflower, conical cabbage, Savoy cabbage and broad-leaved cabbage. These varieties are impossible to distinguish in the early stages of growth and the flowers, seedpods, and seeds are identical. The important thing is that the hundred or so varieties of this natural species cross readily with one another and produce fertile seed, but are unable to cross with any other natural species and produce fertile offspring. This is not evolution but merely segregating out the various genetic possibilities, which were latent in the original wild form.

V. THE FOURTH DAY OF CREATION: SUN, MOON AND STARS (1:14-19)

A. The light source established on the first day was next concentrated in two great “light-bearers,” one for the day and one for the night (the sun and the moon). The “light-bearers” (lights) were set “in the firmament of the heaven (the atmospheric expanse of space) to light upon the earth.” The stars were also made at this time, their function also being to illumine the earth, as well as to serve for “signs and seasons, for days and years,” NOTE: It is somewhat confusing to know what the real meaning of “signs” are. Barnes, in his Commentary of Genesis, says,

They are “signs” to devout faith, declaring the glory of their Creator (cf. Psa. 8 and 19). They are “signs” by which men get their bearings, or the point of the compass by day or by night. They may convey “signs” in reference to future events (Matt. 2:2; Luke 21:25). They furnish quite reliable “signs” for determining in advance the weather to be expected (Matt. 16: 2-3). They may be “signs” of divine judgments (Joel 2:30; Matt. 24:29).

B. There are two main views about the creation of the sun, moon and stars, One holds that though the heavenly bodies were created in the beginning their light was not able to penetrate through the mists until the fourth day; the other, that the sun, moon and stars came into action on the fourth day as the lights of the universe. It is possible that on the first day the heavens were created in the rough, with the heavenly bodies in vast spaces not yet functioning as they were made to do on the fourth day.

VI. WHY IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HARMONIZE GENESIS ONE WITH THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY.

A. Genesis puts the creation of all basic types of land, plants (including fruit trees) in the third day, two days before the creation of marine creatures, whereas evolutionary geologists insist that marine creatures came into existence hundreds of millions of years before fruit trees.

B. Genesis tells us that God made the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day, after the creation of plants, whereas evolutionists assume that the sun existed before the earth was formed.

C. Genesis states that the birds were created on the fifth day with the fishes, but the geologic timetable has birds following reptiles (which were not created until the sixth day).

D. Genesis puts the creation of insects (“creeping things) in the sixth day, three days after flowering plants were created; but this would be impossible if the days were ages, for pollination requires insects.