Genesis
1:20-2:1-7 Part 3
Genesis 1:20-“And God said, Let the
waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and the fowl
that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created
great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 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 the fowl multiply in the
earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let
the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping
thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the
beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything
that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And
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 fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God
said unto them , Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold I
have given you every herb bearing seed, which upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall
be for meat. And to every beast of the field, and to every fowl of the air, and
to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have
given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw everything that he
had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day.”
As we enter into the fifth
and sixth days of creation I’m reminded of a question asked of me some time ago.
“Why do you always use the King James Authorized Version instead of a later
version with contemporary English which is so much easier to read and
understand than the old Victorian style
of English”.
My reply is:
1. I
grew up with the KJV and have become accustomed to it, granted other versions
are more palatable to some.
2. When
publishing I don’t need permission from publishers as the KJV is over 75 years
old and therefore Public Domain. Newer versions require permission which may
prove monetarily costly, depending on the length of text being used.
3. In
my studies I often research a passage using a more modern version, my favorite
being the Amplified Version.
Fifth Day (yom)
In verses 20-25 we discover God making, or bringing forth
from the waters, living creatures of all manner of aquatic life and also the
fowl that are to fly in the heavens.
·
Everything after his kind. Every species
known to man was created the fifth day (yom).
·
Interestingly the fowl of the air came from
the waters as well. This includes prehistoric flying amphibians from the
dinosaur age. Remember that a day (yom)
is a 24 hour period of time, and not presupposed thousands, millions, or
billions of years.
·
There are no mutations or” freaks of nature”.
Everything was created after his kind. So called freaks of nature are come after the fall in Genesis 3 because all
nature became affected by the fall and await the
Sixth
Day (yom)
In verses 24 to 31God changes His creative focus to the
earth and its production of cattle, every creeping thing, and every beast of
the field. Once again all is declared to
be good.
Verse 26 changes God’s focus to making of man. In this
context God makes both male and female with at least equal dominance. They are
to work together.
·
Man is made in God’s image unlike the rest of
creation.
·
As opposed to the rest of creation which has
instincts, man is crafted in similar fashion as his creator.
·
God has intelligence, reasoning, emotions,
the power of choice, so also does man.
·
By instinct horses and cattle turn their
backs to the storms, they have no creative intellect to build shelters. Likewise
beavers, by instinct, build dams to seek protection from their enemies and the
elements of nature. They have not the intellect to construct condos or
townhouses. Birds of the air likewise live in nests built from sticks, weeds,
and mud—by instinct. Whereas man constructs from wise planning and manufactures
new materials to make new and better products.
So man is the Crown Jewel of God’s creation. And as such
man is given dominion over all of God’s creation vs. 28. This is again unlike
any of God’s other creations. Turn to Acts 17:26 and discover that all nations
were made of one blood [separate from the animal kingdom]. I firmly believe
that when a person’s conscience has been aroused [and it is painful] that they
often revert to such defense mechanisms, as stated above, to escape the painful
confrontation of conscience. For that individual I believe there is still hope
as it is a sign that God is still working on them to bring them to
repentance.
Because man was crafted in God’s image he is given the
daunting task of keeping order in the earth in the animal kingdom as well as
the aquatic kingdom.
Contrary to the sci-fi movie
Planet of the Apes, and others, the
animal and aquatic kingdoms do not have dominion over man.
One of my favorite reasons
for reading the Genesis account is that it has dinosaurs cohabitating with man
as opposed to evolutionists who believe the dinosaur family live thousands,
millions, or billions of years before man. Remember the comic strip Alley Oop? Well I liked that strip
because it placed humans and the prehistoric creatures as lining together.
Alley even had a pet dinosaur named Dino. The strip was recreated into the Flintstones’s movie, with Fred and Wilma
and his pal Barney and his wife. Though they might be considered science
fiction I personally believe they represent more fact than fiction.
Reference
Books
I highly recommend Answers in Genesis by Ken Ham and Scientific Creationism by Henry
Morris. The Answers in Genesis Organization
offers a series of books for all ages while Henry Morris has written a
number of books related to the topic. These are two great scholars on the book
of Genesis.
Genesis
2:1-7
Genesis 2:1-7 “Thus the heavens and the
earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made; and he rested from all his work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations
of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the
Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And every plant of the field before it
was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God
had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of
the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul.”
Numerous lessons jump out of this brief
passage. The first three verses primarily focus on God’s work being finished or
complete.
The remainder of the chapter ascribe the creation in more
elaborate details, and do not purport a “second creation” as some attempt to
assert. From time to time someone might
say that God is still working in the creative process. These three verses
assert that that is not the truth. Evolutionists are still proclaiming some new
species: but in reality they are still trying to fill a void left in their
understanding by refusing to acknowledge and glorify God for who He is. There
are those who straddle a razor wire fence while attempting to embrace both the
Genesis account and evolution. Once again allow me to redirect you to Romans
1:17-31.
Truth:
·
All of God’s creative work has been finished
and completed leaving absolutely nothing to be accomplished.
·
God rested on the seventh day and has never
begun again where He stopped, because all creations work was accomplished –once
and for all. Ecclesiastes 1:9b and there
is nothing new under the sun.
Seventh day (yom)
Here we come to the conclusion of all God’s work. It is
finished! Albeit an exact quote from Jesus as he gave up the ghost on Calvary.
While God rested from creation’s work, Jesus rested from the work of
redemption. There is nothing to add to the redemption process save one
thing—our acceptance and embracing of salvations message. As Paul said in
Romans 1:16, For I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Those
who do not embrace the Genesis account are, in reality, declaring that they are
ashamed of the gospel of creation. You see the creation story is also good news
in like fashion as the salvation massage. Why? Because it is the very
foundation upon which the whole of Scripture is founded. The creation story is
bedrock to the Christian faith. For a Christian to deny the Genesis account and
embrace evolution is contradictory. A person may once have embraced evolution,
but when they turn to Christ they must be educated in the creation story that
they might also embrace it.
Verse 4
An interesting term in the KJV arises in this verse—generations.1 At first glance one might miss it, but
in a study such as this, it stands out like a sore thumb. Most often in
Scripture the term generation is
referring to a genealogical progression, as in tracing one’s ancestors,
however, in this context it makes no sense, in fact it may literally cause a
fracture in one’s beliefs. In this
context the term is more properly rendered history
or account. It makes more sense
as we have been studying the history of
the creation story and not our ancestral heritage, save for man.
1 NIV and Amplified render generations as history; New English Bible renders generations as account. Either history or account is a more acceptable rendering.
Verse 5-6
Declares that God planted every plant and herb before it grew. For two reasons:
1. God
had not yet caused it to rain. Many assert that the earth was surrounded by a
watery canopy.
2. No
one [man] was yet around to till the soil necessary for planting.
Author’s note: many also assert that there
was a terrible worldwide catastrophic event which destroyed the earth and
further asserting that God had to re-create the earth. [That heresy usually
begins with the term replenish in Ch.
1:28. However, it is not substantiated by the whole of Scripture.
Which came first—the chicken or the egg?
I believe that vs.5-6 conclude, by the very language,
that the tree came before the seed, likewise every living thing [cattle, etc.]
came as fully grown and matured and not as a seed. The same is substantiated by
the creation of man. Man’s offspring are not mentioned until sometime after man
is banished from the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 4; furthermore God calls them
man and woman, not children or boy and girl, children, or babies. God created
them man and woman thus signifying fully grown human beings, capable of working
the garden, naming the animals and procreation etc. For a God to be able to
create the whole world including the heavens in six literal 24 hour days, why
then is it so preposterous to think that the same God is able to plant mature,
fully grown trees and vegetation and even mature human beings without first
being born or enduring a proper germination period?
Once again it is due to our finite minds being accustomed to germination
periods and human conception which it so difficult to believe. Once God
originally created the heavens and earth He changed His original into that
which we are accustomed. For instance: Man, Adam was created from the dust of
the earth, later woman, Eve was taken and formed from Adam’s rib, however, they
did not procreate and have children until after they were cast out of the
Garden. From then on the natural method of childbearing was changed. Gen. 4:1-2
Verse 7
The making of, man is the subject of verse seven. It
demonstrates how God took extra special, hands on, care in his making. After
all, man was created in the image of God vs.1:26-27. In this case God did not
merely speak, rather the text presumes that God actually formed man from the
dust of the ground and molded him in His own hands, furthermore, rather than
speaking life into man, God blew life
into his nostrils. To me this is extremely exciting! It speaks of God’s
loving concern for His Crown Jewel,
in that He took extra special care to insure that man was in fact made in His
image. Being fashioned from the dust of the earth man’s chemistry consisted of
every mineral existing in the earth. Does it not strike you as strange that we
humans need potassium, iron, zinc, mercury and the whole host of existing
minerals, albeit in proportional amounts, to survive?
Note that man [masculine] was made before woman
[feminine]. Woman wasn’t made until later, and she came forth from the rib of
the man, Adam, vs.2:21-23. She also was designed with the great and loving care
of the Creator. She was different in physical appearance, and attributes yet
the same in that both are the workmanship of God in His image.
Create verses made or make
Depending on your source of reference, create means to bring something into
existence or reality which previously was not-existent.for simplicities sake, I
prefer to distinguish between create or
make or made as follows:
·
Create is
the act of planning. Gen. 1:2c And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. It is similar to an
architect drafting a blueprint onto paper for a building. The ideas are
formulated onto paper. Ps. 136:5a To Him
that by wisdom made the heavens… Jer.
51:15 He hath made the earth by His
power, He hath established the world by His wisdom, and hath stretched out the
heaven by His understanding.
·
Whereas made
or make signifies the actual
physical act of bring something to pass; as in Gen. 2:7 And the Lord God formed man…Gen. 2:21b and He took one of his ribs… This
is similar to a contractor taking the architect’s blueprint and crafting it
into existence.
Faith
Building Practice and Review
1. How
do we know the chicken came before the
egg?
2. What
does yom mean?
3. What
is the difference between create and made or make?
4. In
Gen. 2:4 what does the tern generations
suggest?
5. What
is a better rendering for generations?
6. How
is generations rendered in your
version?
7. What
does the author believe is the main reason for unbelief in the creation
account?
8. How
does the making of man vs.7 strike you?
For what two reasons
did God plant the herb
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