Wednesday AM Bible Study; July 9, 2025 – Genesis 1:3-31
Theme: God—by His spoken word—made the heavens and the earth into an orderly, well-arranged habitation in which to display His glory.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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In our last two lessons, we considered what the first three verses of Genesis 1 tell us about the nature of God, our Creator. We were told;
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light (Genesis 1:1-3).
These words tell us the basic truths about the origin of the universe and about the God who made it. We could say that one of the most decisive things about someone is whether or not they believe what these three verses proclaim; because everything else that someone believes truly flows from either an acceptance or rejection of the basic propositions found in them.
And now, having established the bases of what we believe about Creation and the Creator, we turn our thoughts to the story of His work. In the first verse we’re told of the fact of Creation; in the second verse, we’re told of the initial condition of the basic materials of Creation; and in verses 3-31, we’re told the story of how God formed that Creation into a habitable realm that He Himself declared to be “very good”. This passage is a very holy passage which describes something that it brought God pleasure to do and that brings Him great glory. It’s worthy of reading in full, and of embracing with a sense of reverence and awe. It says;
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus 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. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
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. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 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. 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. So the evening and the morning were the third day.
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; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 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. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 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. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
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.” 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. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 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. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day (vv. 3-31).
That phrase “and it was so” appears in verse 7 (for the work of the first day), verse 9 (for the work of the second day), verse 11 (for the work of the third day), verse 15 (for the work of the fourth day), and verses 24, and 30 (for the work of the sixth day). It’s a powerful phrase that signifies that when God spoke, it was immediately done. Together, this passage shows us that God—by His spoken word—made the heavens and the earth into an orderly, well-arranged habitation in which to display His glory. As Psalm 111:2-3 puts it,
The works of the Lord are great,
Studied by all who have pleasure in them.
His work is honorable and glorious,
And His righteousness endures forever (Psalm 111:2-3).
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Now; there’s much that we can learn from this passage—particularly in terms of what it tells us about our own origin in verses 26-28. But we’ll reserve that for the next study. In this study, however, let’s concentrate on what it tells us about the work of these six days as a whole.
It’s customary to refer to these as ‘the six days of Creation’; although in reality, they don’t describe the work of Creation itself. Properly speaking, the work of Creation—in the sense of all things being originated by God—occurred in verse 1. The Hebrew word used to describe that work is bara’; and it means ‘to shape’ or ‘to create’. In Exodus 20:11, we’re told that “in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them”; and the word that’s used there is a completely different Hebrew word,`asah. It’s a word that ordinarily speaks of ‘forming something out of something else’, or of ‘preparing something from something else’. It’s perfectly legitimate to speak of ‘six days of Creation’ … so long as we understand that those six days actually involved God’s work of forming and shaping the already-existing material of that Creation into a habitable place for His creatures.
So; what does this passage teach us about that work? It shows us that …
1. GOD’S SIX-DAY WORK WAS PERFORMED BY THE UTTERANCE OF HIS WORD.
As Genesis 1:2 tells us, “The earth was without form, and void” on the day of its creation. And the verses that follow tell us how God brought form and order to it by His spoken word. In fact, every significant stage in God’s creative work was specifically declared to have been brought about by the act of God ‘speaking’:
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (v. 3).
“Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters'” (v. 6).
“Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear'” (v. 9).
“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'” (v. 11).
“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night'” (v. 14).
“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'” (v. 20).
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind'” (v. 24).
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness …'” (v. 27).
Note that each “Then God said” statement marks a “day” in the six-days of work (with two such statements being made on the third day, and two such statements being made on the sixth day; indicating two main divisions in the six days of work), all for a total of eight divine creation utterances in six days.
Many have argued for what is called the Day-Age theory of this six-day story; meaning that each reference to a ‘day’ is actually a symbolic reference to a geological age of undisclosed length—thus allowing for the possibility of multiple hundreds of thousands of years to pass between each stage of God’s creative work, and thus allowing for the idea of what is often called ‘theistic evolution’ (an effort to bring the Bible’s story into conformity with contemporary evolutionary theory). But the plain sense of this passage doesn’t allow for a ‘day’ to mean anything else than a ‘day’ as we typically understand it. Though the Hebrew word for “day” can—in some instances—be interpreted as a specific period of undisclosed time, the overall context of Genesis 1 makes it clear that a “day” is to be understood as a literal twenty-four hours divided by “the evening and the morning” (see vv. 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31)—which division became particularly meaningful on the first day, when God created “light” (vv. 3-5). The understanding of the rest of the Bible is that a ‘day’ in this passage equals a twenty-four hour period divided by an evening and a morning. Consider the Sabbath commandment that we mentioned earlier from Exodus 20:11. It was a command to the Jewish people to rest on the seventh day of one week; and it was based on the idea that the six days of creation were literal twenty-four hour days. In other words, it isn’t a command to rest during ‘one period of time of undisclosed length’ out of ‘seven periods of time of undisclosed length’. Note further that the process of creation on each “day” is not presented as a long process, but as something that happened immediately—as suggested to us by the oft-repeated phrase “and it was so” after God’s said the words “Let there be …” We’re not told that God said, “Let there be;” and it then ‘began the long process of undisclosed length of becoming’. As Dr. Henry Morris has written,
If the reader asks himself this question: “Suppose the writer of Genesis wished to teach his readers that all things were created and made in six literal days, then what words would he use to best convey this thought?” he would have to answer that the writer would have used the actual words of Genesis 1. If he wished to convey the idea of long geological ages, however, he could surely have done it far more clearly and effectively in other words than in those which he selected. It was clearly his intent to teach creation in six literal days.1
Whether a reader accepts a literal six-day understanding of Genesis 1 or not is really beside the point, since a work of six literal days is clearly what the writer intended for the reader to understand by the words that were used. It really can’t be made to mean anything else without importing meanings to the Bible’s words that are either strained in definition, or that are contrary to the clear context of the passage … and of the Bible as a whole. As we’ve insisted before, if the reader begins with a full, whole-hearted acceptance of Genesis 1:1—and then accepts that God brought about all that was made by the mighty power of His spoken word—then a literal six-day work of making this world a habitable place is not difficult or unreasonable to embrace at all.
What else does this passage teach us? It shows us that …
2. GOD’S SIX-DAY WORK WAS DONE IN AN ORDERLY AND LOGICAL MANNER.
There’s a marvelous order discernable in God’s six-day work of forming His Creation:
- On the first day, God created and energized the universe as the arena of His creative and purposeful activity—making the property of light, and making a division between light and darkness. And three days later, He made the “lights”—that is, the luminaries that contain and exhibit the light that He called into existence on the first day.
- On the second day, He made a division between “the waters from the waters”—separating the waters below (that is, the seas and various bodies of water) from the waters above (that is, the cloud covering above the waters below), with an expanse (the firmament; called “Heaven” in verse 8) between the two. And three days later, He made the marine life to inhabit the waters below, and the bird life to inhabit the firmament above.
- On the third day, He caused dry land to appear; and the grass, herbs (bushes), and trees to cover the dry land. And three days later, He made the land animals to dwell on the dry land, and the man Adam to rule over them all.
The symmetry of God’s creative order of things can be shown as follows:
Day 1: Heaven and earth, light and darkness . . . . . . . . . . . Day 4: Sun, moon, and stars
Day 2: Separation of the waters and firmament . . . . . . . . . Day 5: Marine and bird life
Day 3: Dry land and plant life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Day 6: Land animals and Man
This also shows us the reasonableness and wisdom of God’s creative work—or, as we might call it—the logical ordering of the things He has made. Certain things were not created until after the conditions were first made that would be necessary for the existence and sustainability of those things. For example, the luminaries (the sun, moon, and stars) were not made until after the property of light had been made first. The sea creatures and the birds were not made until after the division of the waters and the expanse between them had been made first. Land animals, and Man himself, were not made until after dry land appeared and plant life for food was provided first.
In addition, an orderly continuation was preserved in God’s work of creation so that all things were not confused and did not degenerate again into the formlessness and void that characterized the Creation prior to the first day. Animal life was made to reproduce “according to its kind” (v. 21, 24); in which context they are blessed of God and commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” (v. 22, 28). They did not—and indeed cannot—become something else contrary to their kind; because each classification of ‘kind’ continued to reproduce “according to its kind” and not according to another kind. Note as well that plant life also reproduced “according to its kind”—existing on the day of its creation with apparent maturity so that “the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth” (v. 11). It would have had to have been bearing fruit and would have already had to have seed in itself for reproduction in order to feed the living creatures that God would have made only a day or two later, and in order for God to tell Adam and Eve,
“See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food” (Genesis 1:29-30).
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In all of this, our Creator God shows Himself to us to be powerful and wise in His work; and shows His creation to be orderly and reasonable. This places our worldview in sharp contrast to all other worldviews that view the universe as meaningless, confused, chaotic, and without purpose or direction. This brings glory to God the Creator. As the Bible declares to us,
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge (Psalm 19:1-2)
For thus says the Lord,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other (Isaiah 45:18).
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead … (Romans 1:20).
As Christians, then, we can affirm that true scientific inquiry and logical reasoning are possible because—and only because—God’s work of Creation was orderly in its interrelation, reasonable in its construction, and consistent in its perpetuation.
He spoke … and it was so.
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1 Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), p. 54.
AE