Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 1:1 | Date: July 25, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Origin of the Universe

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed and its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

All right, by way of charting out the main sections of the chapter: verses one and two, we have the origin of the universe. And then verses three to 31, we have the progression of creation week, the seven days. So verses 1 and 2, the origin of the universe. Verses 3 to 31, we have the progress of creation week in the seven days. And then chapter 2 in verse 1, we have a summary comment, “thus the heavens and the earth were finished.” That’s days 1 to 3. “And all the hosts of them,” that’s days 4 to 6. And then verses two and three of chapter two, we have the seventh day where we have God resting—a rest of enjoyment that we’ll see next week.

All right, let’s pick our way through that a little bit more closely, working through, hopefully, the whole chapter in just our time this morning. Verses one and two provide the background to Creation Week. It’s kind of a preface to what follows in verses 3 to 31. So verses 1 and 2, the origin of the universe; verses 3 to 31, we have the seven days of creation week.

Verses 1 and 2: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. The spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” The heavens and the earth—that’s what we call a hendiadys, one thought through two things. You give the two polar extremes, heaven and earth; everything in between is what’s included. He made everything that is, that’s the idea. Everything celestial, everything terrestrial, he made it all. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This is the beginning of all matter, time, space; this is where it all begins. And so we have God’s initial act of creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That’s verse one.

Verse two then gives us the condition, the original condition of creation. “The earth was without form and void. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” So we have the main verb, verse one, “God created,” and then verse two, the condition of the earth as it was created. So the initial act of creation, verse one; the initial condition of the earth, verse two.

Now, I’ll just mention this quickly. Many have argued—a minority, but they have argued, tried to argue strongly, and it showed up in a couple of translations—that verse one should be a dependent clause. You know what that is? Okay, a dependent clause. As it is, it’s an independent clause. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” stands by itself. And so many have tried to argue that there should be a dependent clause: “When God began creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void,” and so on.

Now, the difference is very important, because if you have that as a dependent clause—”When God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was all formed,” starts like that—then you have no account of the origin of all matter. And in fact, when this topic is picked up later in the scriptures, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the inspired writers tend to pick it up just like the traditional translation has it, and that is as an independent clause: God created the heavens and the earth. So we have the beginning of time, the beginning of all matter, the beginning of everything that is, the original stuff of creation in verse one. Everything—the universe, celestial, terrestrial, the earth, the planet, everything in it—it’s all there. Down to the atoms, electrons, the neutrons, quarks, there are leptons, all of it. He did it all. That’s verse one.

Now verse two then, we have the initial condition of the planet. It was without form. And it was void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. So this is what we have in verse one then, and then what verse two is clarifying for us is that the original stuff of creation wasn’t completed yet. It was without form, it was empty, and it was dark. And verse two, at the end of the verse, the Spirit of God was at work to form it now according to God’s intended purpose for it. He was hovering over the face of the waters. That word “hovering” is obviously some kind of a metaphor that’s used elsewhere in scripture of an eagle rustling up her nest, hovering over her nest, fluttering over her young, that kind of thing. The idea is that God’s spirit now is carefully preparing the earth to be what God has created it to be. At this point, it’s just the original stuff. And now the spirit of God is there to make it what it’s intended to be.

The Progress of Creation Week

All right, that’s verses one and two. Then verses three and following, we have creation week. And here we have the details of the formation, making the earth habitable, making it such that it fulfills God’s intended purpose in creation. How much time there is between Genesis one and two and the first day, Genesis one, three, I don’t know. It might have been immediate. It might have been space. We don’t know. A space of time, I don’t know. It doesn’t say.

But we have here that “God said.” And there we have that phrase that is repeated throughout the narrative. In fact, this kind of structures the narrative of chapter 1, the creation narrative. “And God said” tracks out now the main sequence of events throughout chapter one. Each day begins, “and God said,” and then it’s followed by—well, in the case of the first day, verse three, “and God said ‘there was light,’ and there was light.” Throughout the rest of the structure, it’s “and God said,” narrates what he said, and it ends up with “and it was so.” And God said, and it was so. God said, and it was so. So that’s how the structure of the passage goes, and then each day is marked by that recurring phrase, “the evening and the morning.” You have the evening and the morning, for the first day, the second day, and so on, until we get to the seventh day where that is not said.

All right, so then in verses three to five, we have day one. God creates light and darkness. And then verses six to eight, we have day two. God creates the sky and the sea. Verses nine to 13, we have day three. We have the land and the sea and vegetation. And then verses 14 to 19, we have day four. Here God creates the light bearers in the heavens. Verses 20 to 23, we have day five. He creates sea animals and the flying creatures. And then verses 24 to 31, finally, we come to day six, and here God creates land animals and humans. And then chapter two, verses one to three, day seven, God’s rest.

All right, there’s a quick flyover. Now look again at verse two: “The earth was without form and void.” That’s the original condition of the earth, and that kind of previews for us what’s going to happen throughout the rest of chapter one. So, it’s without form and void. Formless, or wasted, and empty. Formless and empty. Now, days one to three answer the formlessness, and he brings things into order and form. And here he creates the light, day-night cycle, the firmament, the two bodies of water, and the dry land, and so on. So the formlessness is answered in days one to three, and then the emptiness of it all is answered generally in days four to six. We have the fullness and the harmony to creation where he makes the sun, the moon, the stars, the fish, the sea animals, the land animals, humanity, and so on.

Now, if I had the PowerPoint here, it would probably be better if I had done that to show you the symmetry here in chapter 1. But try to follow with me here. In days 1 to 3, you have light, day-night cycle; you have the firmament, the two bodies of water; you have the dry land and plants. That’s days one to three. Days four to six, you have the sun, moon, the stars; you have the fish, sea, and the mammals; and then you have the land animals and humanity in day six. So day one and day four are parallel. Day two and day five are parallel. Day three and day six are parallel. So in day one, he creates the light in the day-night cycle. Day four, he creates the light bearers in the heavens. Day two, he creates the firmament, the two bodies of water. In day five, he creates the fish and the sea mammals and the birds. Day three, he creates the dry land and the plants. And day six, he creates the land mammals and humanity.

So there’s an obvious parallel going on in the way that the days are structured. What to do with that? I’m not entirely sure. There have been some explanations of the meaning of days of creation that lean heavily on this observation. I’m not convinced it’s right. But I think it’s worth noticing anyway. So you have the three days, and then the next three days parallel to each other, and then the seventh day when God rests. There’s obvious symmetry built into it.

Zooming In For Specific Details

Now then, we get to chapter two, verses four and following. We didn’t read that yet this morning, but we’ll look at that in a couple of weeks to come. There we have what’s often called the second creation account. And I think that’s very misleading to call it that. What we have here is not a second creation account. We have a zooming in to give some details of what we see in chapter one. So chapter one, we have days one to six. Chapter two now beginning with verse four, he zooms in to give us some details and to provide the setting necessary for when we get to chapter three and the temptation and the fall.

So in chapter 2 verses 4 and following, we have the setting, that is Eden. It gives us some remarks about its location and its environment and what it was like. We’ll have to work through some of those early verses 4, 5, and 6 in time to come. Chapter 2 also details for us the creation of man and woman, details the responsibilities given to them. So chapter one on day six told us that God created male and female. Now in chapter two, he tells us how that all came about—that man was formed from the dust of the ground, that the woman was created from his rib, and so on. We have those kinds of details filled in, and all of this that we’ll see in chapter two becomes necessary background for understanding chapter three.

So chapter one, we have the creation account in broad strokes, symmetry built into it, and then chapter two verses four and following, we have some zooming in for some specific details. What is important here to notice, whether there’s significance to the literary structure of Chapter 1 or not, what is important, I think, to notice is there’s an obvious sense of progression of God’s work that’s built into the narrative, that’s made prominent for it. There are successive stages of work, and we have to keep that into account when we discuss the idea of the meaning of the days in Genesis 1. Which discussion I’m sure will make no one happy and everybody happy and I don’t know what it’s going to do. Because it’s one of those subjects that everybody has an opinion and they tend to be held pretty strongly. And well, I’ll talk more about—I’ll make that problem when I get to it.

Differentiation

All right, so we have step one. Verses one and two again, creation out of nothing. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void. Darkness was over the face of the deep.” The original creation, the absolute beginning of time, the beginning of all matter. Verse two again, the initial condition of the planet, not yet pronounced good. He’ll do that beginning with day one in verse three. So we have here what Francis Schaeffer calls bare being. God made the original stuff and it’s without form. There’s no differentiation between the parts of it yet. That will come in verses three and following. Verse two, the spirit of God is at work to do just that.

So then verses three and following we have—we’ll call this differentiation. That is, throughout verses 3 to 31, God is not doing the work of original creation. He’s already got the original creation, verses 1 and 2. Verses 3 to 31, he says, “now let this be this way, let that be that way, let this be this way, let that be that way.” And he’s sorting things, he’s differentiating throughout his creation while he makes what is made. In fact, you’ll see that word looking through the narrative, that word “divided” or “separated”—that marks the narrative as well. Five times—verse 4, verse 6, verse 7, verse 14, verse 18—God separated this from that. He separated this from that. He separated this from that. He’s differentiating between what he has made to bring it to the form that he wants for his creative purpose.

So verses three to five, God divides light from darkness. This is day one. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light, and God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, the darkness he called night, and there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.” Day one, he divides or separates light from darkness.

Now verses six and seven, this is day two, God creates the space between what is below and what is above. He creates the expanse, the sky. “God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ God made the expanse and separated”—there’s our word again—”separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse and it was so.” So he creates the firmament or the heavens. In verse 14, the same word “firmament” is identified as the place where the moon and the sun and the stars are—the sky. But then in verse 20, this firmament is identified as the place where the birds fly. It’s the air, the sky, broad strokes.

Then we have verse nine. This is day three. He divides the land and the sea. “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place and let the dry land appear.” Now here, rather than saying divided or separated, he says “gathered together.” But the sense then is the same. This is how God made the land appear. He said, “let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place.” Now how that came about, we’re not given any more details. Don’t have it. God said it, it happened. We do have a couple of related remarks later in scripture. Job chapter 38 speaks of the mountains rising. Psalm 104 and verse 8 says, “the mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them.” Well, that’s what he did on day three.

Verse 11: “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.” So here we have now a differentiation between life and non-life. Here’s the first appearance of life on the planet. God said, “let the earth sprout vegetation.” So he’s continually refining the creation that we were introduced to in verses one and two.

Verses 14 to 18 now, we come to day four. And here he makes the lights in the day-night cycle in the seasons. “God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate'”—there’s our word again—”‘to separate the day from the night. Let them be for signs, for seasons, for days, for years. Let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth,’ and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.”

We’ve already mentioned this earlier in the series, but I think it’s just fascinating to see how the narrative reads about God. God put the lights there. He put the lights there. “Now you function this way and you function this way,” and it’s done. There’s a marvelous picture of the greatness of God. And the purpose of it is stated over and again: verse 14, “to separate the day from the night. Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” Verse 15, “let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.” Verse 16, “to rule the day, to rule the night.” God has purposes for each step of creation that he has done. So we have now the light, we have day-night cycle, we have the seasons—all of that will become important now when we come to the book of Exodus and Leviticus when we have holy days established according to the lunar calendar and so on.

Then we come to day five, verses 20 and 21. Here we have a distinction between creaturely life or animated life and the plant life. “God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures. Let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.'” The word here translated “birds” means literally “flying things.” So this would be birds, insects, bats, whatever, the things that fly. “Let birds fly over the flying things, fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good.” So here’s the distinction between what we would call lower forms of life and now creaturely or animated life. We have it both in the waters and in the air. God creating animated life. And again, it’s emphasized: “each according to its kind.” We had it started with the plant life. The seed is in itself. We have it continued with creaturely life. Now they reproduce after their kind. So God provided not only for them initially, but for their perpetuation as well.

And then finally we come to verse 24 and we have day six. Here we have creaturely or animated life on the earth or on the land. “God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.'” So here we have a further refinement, God perfecting creation according to his purpose.

Now one further, very important differentiation remains and this is the climax of the passage: God makes man, day six. Verse 26, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'” Let’s create, God said, let us make man. The Hebrew word there, you already know: Adam. Adam. This becomes a proper name now for the first man, Adam. He is man. So here God differentiates man from all the rest of creation. And in fact, he does so in such a way that sets humanity over the rest of creation. And we’ll look at that in some detail later with regard to the creation mandate, verses 26 to 28. So here we have the climax of the creation narrative. Man himself is the crown of creation. He’s made in the image of God. We’ll look at that sometime in a few weeks to come as well.

And then chapter 2, if you’d like to glance ahead, chapter 2 verse 7 adds a detail: “The Lord God formed the man from the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature.” So throughout verses 3 to 31, God is taking the original stuff and saying, “let this be this way, let that be that way,” making differentiations and making the planet to be inhabitable for his purpose. And he separates the light from the darkness, the waters above from the waters below, separates the dry land from the waters. He makes the luminaries in the heavens for night and day cycles and all of that. He makes animated life, creaturely animated life, and then humanity as well to rule over it. He makes distinctions between opposites and assigns each that he has made for its own sphere. God setting the world in order for his purposes. Making the world habitable. Answering to verse two, it’s without form and void, dark and soft. Now he’s at work making the world habitable to fulfill his purpose.

And all of it still is by divine fiat, command. “Let this be this way. Let this be this way. Let that be that way.” God commands, and it happens. It’s there. So verse three, “let there be light.” Verse six, “let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters. Let it separate.” Verse nine, “let the waters under the heavens be gathered together to one place. Let the dry land appear.” Verse 11, “let the earth sprout vegetations.” Verse 14, “let there be lights.” Verse 15, “let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens.” And it was so, and it was so, and it was so. Again, verse 20, “let the waters swarm.” 21, “let birds fly.” 24, “let the earth bring forth living creatures.” Verse 26, “let us make man. Let them have dominion.” So God is speaking. He’s commanding. Things come to be and come to pass according to his will.

So again, verses 1 and 2, you have the creation of the original stuff. Verses three and following now throughout the narrative, the progressive steps that God took in refining the creation to serve his purpose. Verse 22, “God blessed them saying, ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let birds multiply on the earth.'” Verse 28, “God blessed them. God said to them, ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'” God blessed them, that is he enabled them to do what they were commanded and created to do. He’s equipping his creatures to function in the way that he’s created them to function. In other words, it’s more of everything made according to his purpose, designed to do what he wanted them to do.

Well, there is the creation narrative in brief. I wanted to take time to go to Psalm 104, but we really don’t have time for that. Any questions? Yes, as to when the angelic hosts were created.