Low Self Worth: Made in God's Image (Genesis 1:1 - 2:3)
The History of Creation
Genesis 1:9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. :10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. :11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. :12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. :13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
On the third day dry land appeared, initiated by the spoken word of God.
The waters under the heaven were told to gather into one place in order to let the dry land appear. The word land is in italics because it does not appear in the original text. The dry (Heb hayabashah) is the common term used to describe solid ground.
At the voice of God’s command, the waters obeyed; and it was so.
Not only did God call the dry land into existence; but He also named it Earth, and the waters He named Seas.
The dry land was called Earth (Heb ‘erets) because that word bears a meaning which may refer to that which is lower. It is in opposition to the firmament above, literally the heights of verse 8.
The Seas (Heb yamim) is used in the very broad sense to include every body of water, even lakes and rivers (cf. Ps 33:7–9).
Von Rad notes that “in the ancient oriental view the act of giving a name meant, above all, the exercise of a sovereign right (cf. 2 Kgs 23:34; 24:17). Thus the naming of this and all subsequent creative works once more expresses graphically God’s claim of lordship over the creatures” (Genesis, p. 53).
And God saw that it was good. The word contains less an aesthetic judgment than the designation of purpose and correspondence. It resembles, therefore, though with much more restraint, the content of Psalm 104:31; Psalm 104 tells not so much of the beauty as of the marvelous purpose and order of the Creation.
In association with the creation of the dry ground, God commanded, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself. This was the second work of God on the third day.
It was again initiated by the divinely spoken word, And God said. “The expression ‘let the earth bring forth’ does not allow, as some have contended, for evolution. On the contrary, the biblical order of trees before marine organisms contradicts the concept of trees evolving from marine organisms” (Davis, p. 63).
Whitcomb and Morris assert that according to verse 12 God produced a functioning and mature creation.
The plants were created as mature, self-reproducing biological units with their own seed. This would give an appearance of age, both to the plants, and to man (pp. 232–233). Each family could reproduce only after his kind.
There are fixed boundaries beyond which reproductive variations cannot go; but it is impossible to know whether kind is to be equated with families, genera, or some other category of biological classification. Moses uses the term kind in thirty out of the thirty-one times it is used in the Old Testament. Payne says that, “while miæn does not … require the separate creation of God of each species, it does require at least the separate creation of families within orders” (“The Concept of ‘Kinds’ in Scripture,” Journal of the American Scientific Affiliate, 10 (1958)).
Chapter 1 verse 12 records that God’s command was completely obeyed by His creation: The earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit … and God saw that it was good. Thus, at the close of these miraculous events, the evening and the morning were the third day.
Genesis 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; :15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.:16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. :17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, :18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. :19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
These verses record the formation of the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. Here again is a reversal of order from that proposed by the evolutionists. According to Genesis, God created the earth on the first day, and then the sun on day number four.
According to the evolutionist, the earth was thrown off from the sun or bore some other relationship to the sun. Nonetheless, God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. The threefold purpose of placing the light in the firmament was: (1) To divide the day from the night; (2) for signs; and (3) for seasons.
The light-dark sequence on the earth is now dependent on the sun, instead of the light created on the first day. Yet, some would distinguish between bara’ and ‘asah so as to say that at this point in time God merely instituted the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament to function in a particular way relative to earth. Yet, there is no distinction between these two verbs; nor if they were only to appear at this time, having been created on day one, Moses would have used the verb to appear as he did in verse 9. The signs are not those frequently appealed to by modern astrologists, but rather related to faith (Ps 8:1–4; Rom 1:14–20), weather (Mt 16:2, 3), prophecy (Mt 2:2; Lk 21:25), and judgment (Joel 2:30–31; Mt 24:29).
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. It is obvious that the writer is speaking from his vantage point here on earth, or from the standpoint of astronomy. The sun and moon are clearly not the greater lights of the universe. The language of appearance is common in the Old Testament and is in no way unscientific or prescientific. The moon is merely a light reflector, and the sun is only a medium-sized star. Yet, as the writer would gaze into the sky of the ancient Orient, he would note the sun dominated those skies by day and the moon by night; and his description of that phenomenon is perfectly acceptable. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Genesis 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” :21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. :22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” :23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
On the fifth day God created the fish and the fowl. Again, He brought them forth by His mere command, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth.
This command should not imply that the waters themselves produced marine life; but at the command of God, the existing waters suddenly teemed with swimming creatures.
Specifically, God created great whales, the largest animals that ever lived, including the great extinct reptilian dinosaurs. They are warm-blooded mammals. Scripture completely contradicts the theory of evolution, which claims that the first animals in the oceans were sub-microscopic, single-celled creatures.
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McDonald, Knoll, Farstad; Hinson and Knoll
