The Progress of Creation: Day One and Day Two

Let's just go ahead and begin, or I will begin by reading verse, verse 2.

! And what we're going to do is just kind of highlight, you know, we could spend literally melving into some of the science and some of the speculation and some of the questions.

Because certainly, Genesis chapter 1 does produce some questions. Because God doesn't give us all the details. And we just simply trust Him. But He gives us all we need. And really, when you think about it, it's an incredible thing that in just one chapter, basically, we can have an account, a detailed enough account, of the creation of all things. Something that, you know, I think it would take a man, if he had such a knowledge, it would take him volumes, infinite volumes to try to describe. Then again, God's not trying to give us or desiring to give us every single detail of it. But what He gives us is just incredible.

So, I said all that to say that we're not going to spend, you know, just a lot of time, and probably will not answer all the questions you may have about some of the features of the account, the account of creation. So, we'll move through this here tonight, Genesis 1 and verse 2, and I hope to get all the way to verse 8 tonight. And here's what the Bible says, the earth was without form, without form, and void. I realize right off the bat that we don't all have the same version of the Bible, so yours may read just a little bit different, and that's why we're going to kind of, hopefully, kind of explain some of these words.

Let me go ahead with the verse, and darkness, the Bible says, was on the face, some of you might have the word surface, of the water or the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, or the surface of the waters. Alright, so there's verse 2.

Now, the six days of creation, let me start here with verse 2, as we kind of launch into each day, the six days are now going to be described from what really is technically called a terrestrial perspective. That means, basically, that we're looking at it from man's viewpoint. We're allowed to look at it from that view, from an earth perspective, a terrestrial perspective, kind of like a man who is allowed to watch as the great God, great creator God of the universe, creates all things, and so kind of in this sense, we can sit back and just enjoy the view as it's being unfolded for us in the next, well, in this chapter. And so, it's kind of like beginning with a blank canvas, though, as I pointed out, I think, last time or the time before, God created the canvas too. Alright, so He didn't start with some materials already there, and then kind of like you would put together all the ingredients for a cake, He created all the elements as well. In fact, basically, what we're going to be understanding from verse 2, that's what He's doing. He's forming the very elements of creation, putting these things together, but it is similar to, we have kind of a blank canvas, you know, this formless and void globe. And then the earth, He says, is to be, He said, is said to be without form, or you might have the word formless, same thing, without form. And void, void, I don't know, some might have the word empty. Now, what does that mean? Well, simply put, it means that the matter, the material that God used to create all things, that the matter is unproductive.

It's without form. It's without form. What is existing at this point, day one, that God has created, is kind of a watery mass, or a blob. You know, if we could just kind of picture that, you know, maybe like we see slow motion filming of a drop of water, and we see that, you know, that just blob of water, you know, kind of sphere of water, it kind of looks like jello. I don't have any idea what it looked like, but that's basically what we have at this point. And so what has been created at this point is unproductive. It's without form.

And therefore, it is uninhabitable. That's how we need to picture what God has created to this point. So it's formless. It's unproductive. It has no form. And as such, then, it's uninhabitable.

That means you could live on this, what the earth was at this point. And so we're going to see that God then organizes His work over the next six days. It's just going to take six days. And I mean, literal 24-hour days. And He takes three days. I mean, you can divide it this way. It's very neat. Three days to make the earth habitable. And He takes three days to fill the earth. That's pretty simple, that's basically. And then when He's done, He says it's very good. It's perfect in every respect. All right, so the Bible says there in verse 2, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And then when you get on into verse 3, then God said, let there be light, and there was light. That's a very interesting part of the account. Because we're just kind of beginning the process, or I really like to think of it in terms of the progress of it, of the creation. And we have here described the Spirit of God hovering. That's the word that's in most English texts. Hovering over the face of the deep, or over the face or the surface of the waters. Now the Spirit of

God is the Holy Spirit. I really believe this is a reference to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Godhead. God, the Holy Spirit. And as I think I have said at least a couple of times since we started this study, every member of the Godhead was involved in the creation. And is implied, well, not just implied, but very explicitly revealed here. Every member of the Godhead is involved here from God in the beginning, God created. And the Spirit of God brooded or hovered over the face of the deep. And then it says, and God said. That's all three members of the Godhead. Spirit of God. Spirit of God is very explicit. That's the Holy Spirit. But then when the Bible says, then God said, or spoke, literally, let there be light, that's a reference to the second person of the

Trinity. God the Son. John 1.1. The Word. The Word of God. So all three members are involved here. Also, we can come away with something else from this phrase. Something really, really quite interesting, I think.

That is the idea that God enjoyed creating all things. That He received great enjoyment, gladness from creating all things. When it says that the Spirit of God was hovering, that's a very interesting word, hovering, in the Hebrew language. The root of the word means to be affected emotionally.

With feeling. With feeling. Does God have emotions? Feelings? Certainly. We do. We were made in His image. And so, this word hovering suggests that, that there were feelings involved. In fact, it is used in some contexts, in some places, to convey the idea of tender love. Now think about that. Isn't that amazing?

Here is the Spirit of God hovering or brooding over the creation and the progress of creation. And He's doing it with great joy and with great emotion and tender love over everything that He's creating. I like that. But now, the grammatical form, I mean, we can take it a step further. The grammatical form of the word, as it appears in the original text, adds another element. And that is a desire to protect.

And we know that about God in relation to His creation. Not just you and I, His human creation, His special created beings. But over all of His creation, that He has a desire to protect. It's a protective hovering. And that's why I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I didn't go back and check some of the other translations, but I do believe there are some that use the word brooding. Kind of a brooding. It's a kind of a protective kind of thing. And so, over the process of creation and the progress of it, He has this desire to protect it. And then another observation here, the hovering over the face of the water. The word face is in the King, I think, I don't know if it's in the King James. No, it's in the New King James.

I believe it's in the New King James. I believe it's surface in other versions of the Bible. So He's hovering over the surface. And that is the idea, the face of the surface.

that there seems to be an allusion to the creation of gravity with just that one word in the text.

The implication is gravity. Because, see, the earth has moved from formless, kind of like a blob, to something which has a surface now.

And a surface requires gravity. So God has created that. And then we get into verse 3. Then God said, let there be light. And guess what?

There was light. He said it and it happened. He just spoke it into existence. Now, the question is, what was this light?

That's the usual question. I mean, if the sun, moon, and stars were not created until day 4, and that's what it says in the Bible, then what was this light that God created on day 1?

That's a pretty good question. And what's the answer? Well, the answer is, don't have any idea. Not really. Well, I have some ideas.

You've already looked ahead at your notes and would suggest one. This has come from me. But one very clear possibility is what I'm going to suggest to you.

We know what, by the way, we do know what it is not. We're not talking about the stars. It's not stars at this point, because very clearly that's created, mentioned and created on day 4.

Not the moon, not the sun. So we know what it's not, and so we may just have to leave it there. But here's the possibility. God may have created the existence of light.

But that's what he created at that point. Making light a created thing. Not just the source of light, like the sun.

Of course, the moon is a source of light in the sense that it reflects light. Or the stars, which are just other suns. Not just the source of it, but light itself was a created thing.

And the speculation is that we're speaking here about atomic matter. You know, there's a physical light in this room, right?

That's how we can see one another. And we're very grateful to have physical light. And we look at the source of the light. It's these bulbs up here.

And so light bulbs, they kind of shoot out a beam of light. And fills a room, or fills a stadium, a football game, or something like that. And so we don't really give it much of a thought about the origin of that light.

Or what that light really consists of. Is it just simply something that comes from its source? Or is it that and something else?

Or even if you consider the source, how does that become light? Now, there are some scientific principles involved in that.

And we can go to a certain extent and explain the light. But I'm going to suggest to you that we don't really know. Totally.

So where did it come from? So what is this light that God created? It could be that it is just simply the atomic, something in atomic matter in an atom.

And more than just a beam from a light bulb. And the light scientists tell us originate from the atom. From an atom.

Somehow. Some way. They say electrons dance. That's how I've got to describe it. Dance up and down between various energy levels. And when they drop from a higher level to a lower level, they emit a beam.

Beam of light. And we call that a beam of light. But we don't really know what it is. Really. And it's physical light. We see it.

And God created it. Now, is that the light God created on day one? Could be. Could be. If you have a better idea or a more plausible guess, then you might tell me about it.

But other than that, we don't know. It just says God said, let there be light. And there was light. And no mention of any source of the light until day four.

And so light was a created thing. If we don't know anything more about it than that, it was a created thing on that day, day one. All right. Now, let's go on to verses four and five.

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. All right. So, that's interesting, isn't it? Or maybe it's not. Pretty straightforward.

There's not much, you might think, not much to consider about it. But I think it means that God simply created a process of rotation.

You say, really? Yeah. Day and night. Light and darkness. A process. He now created light as a part of his creation.

But in connection with that light or that process of light, he created a rotation. Day and night.

A principle of light and dark and light and dark. Day and night and day and night. And he did this before the sun was created. Okay. Day and night and day. So, what does all that mean? Well, we know today that there's a rotation of the earth.

The earth rotates on its axis. And we know that makes day and darkness. You know, night and day and darkness and light. And when an astronaut goes up, you know, in one of these shuttles and rotate, you know, goes in an orbit around the earth and starts moving at really very fast speeds as it rotates around, goes around the earth, that he moves, that astronauts move through periods of dark, night and day and darkness and light because both the astronaut and the earth are rotating.

And so we know that, but why does this happen? You may think that scientists know why this happens, but they don't really.

This rotation. They don't really know. Don't have an answer for it. And it's an intriguing problem in science as to why everything, by the way, in the universe revolves.

Everything. And it rotates. And science has long been seeking the explanation. Well, now they have a name for it. They call it angular momentum.

That explains it, doesn't it? Now, one of the difficult problems of science is not only to explain why everything rotates, but to explain also why occasionally they find things that rotate in the wrong direction.

Well, whatever wrong is, in the opposite direction. And there's some moons that do that, that revolve around the planet, and they rotate in the opposite way that the planet rotates.

And there are some planets themselves that rotate in the opposite direction. They call that retrograde motion. And you want to make sure you get that down because you're going to want to use that sometime.

Now, some science, Christian scientists, creation scientists, Christian creation scientists, they believe this about what happened on day one.

God, of course, is creating matter. That's what he's creating. And he's giving it form. All right? That's pretty straightforward.

Who can explain it? And within matter, the elements of matter, he creates a force.

Not the Star Wars kind of force. But there's a force. And it's kind of like gravity or gravitation. And it causes then, God created this.

It causes two bodies that approach one another to revolve around a common center. And the result is the existence, not just what we experience today, day and night, but the very existence of a rotating light and darkness as a principle that God created.

And we just, you know, it's just very common to us. And we say, well, sure, you know, earth is rotating. And, you know, when we go on the opposite side from the sun, it's night.

And when we come back around, it's daytime. And it's just about that simple to us. But the whole principle of that revolution and the revolving and the interchanging of light and dark is something God created on day one.

And so, everything in the universe, everything, I mean everything, without exception. And this is not speculation, scientists know it. Everything, whether it's a huge blazing sun out there in the vast expanse of the universe, or it is a supersonic electron in a tiny little atom that you can't even see through a microscope, they all rotate, all of them.

Why? And how does that work? And how does it happen? God created it. It is the created principle behind day and night.

Something that's very valuable to us, obviously, in life. Even the electrons, they're orbiting, they're spinning too. They're even spinning themselves.

Spinning inside spinning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing, isn't it? Genesis 1.5, God called the light day and the darkness He called night.

So the evening and the morning were the first day. Now, keep in mind that this creation of day and night, light and dark, occurred before the sun was created.

And so this is something different. This is something God has specially created that is built into every particle of His creation.

Every particle. Even the tiniest of particles. And really, we don't even know, you know, we think we know, you know, the various elements of an atom and how they revolve, how they work.

But we can only go so far with that. And even some of that is speculation. But we take God's account here and it's very clear that God created these things.

And so what He's saying in verse 5, of course, is just the marking of time and the way the Jews describe the end of the day. And you're going to see that appear, you know, at the end of each day of the creation.

It's just simply a designation of the end of the day. Morning and evening. Evening is the end of the day. Officially, it ends at 12 midnight.

That's how we mark time still today. And so, thus, there's the end of a calendar day. Now, day 2.

Genesis 1, 6-8. Then God said, Let there be a firmament. 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. And so the evening and the morning were the second day. That's very, very interesting. Now, some of you might have the word expanse in there.

But really what he's saying here is very straightforward. And it's not complicated. Though it's not all that easy to maybe identify exactly what the Bible is talking about there.

Although, really, again, it's pretty simple. The firmament or the expanse, if you have that in your version of the Bible, he called the heaven here or sky.

Or we might even call it the atmosphere. And so evidently, we just take it straightforward just as it appears in the text. Water formed the face of the earth.

All right? We've already seen that described. But also, water, maybe in the form of a very thick kind of fog, really I think even more than that, was also just above the face.

A watery face and then a watery kind of fog or canopy. And God made a separation between the two.

Now, just exactly what each one consisted of, it's not described. Especially that kind of watery above the face of the deep.

It's not described, really. But we have water and we have water. And God separated them and He created an envelope. It would be the best way to maybe define it.

An envelope of breathable air. An envelope there so that plants and animals and man could survive. See, He's making the earth inhabitable.

That's what He's doing in these first three days. So He makes that separation between the two. And so, above the firmament, this kind of envelope of breathable air, above that we have water.

And we don't have that there now. But that's what was there when God first created. And in my opinion, I think it was there until Noah's flood.

And that accounted for the great amount of water that completely flooded the entire planet. But we'll get to that when we get to Noah's flood. So we have water up above.

And it's a canopy. Really more than just a fog. It's certainly not clouds like we would see today.

But a watery canopy. That shield of this earth, I think, allowed plant life to grow like it could never grow today.

And this all occurred prior to, I think, to the flood. All right. This canopy may have served multiple purposes. And I've included this in our notes.

And I'll end with this. This comes from Henry Morris, the late Henry Morris. A tremendous scientist and theologian. Henry, I believe, was the founder of ICR.

And that ministry continues today. And you can see that website. But he gives five purposes for this canopy. Number one, it would serve as a global greenhouse, maintaining an essentially uniformly pleasant, that packs a lot of words in there, uniformly pleasant temperature all over the world.

That's number one. Number two, without great temperature variations, there would be no significant winds. And the water slash rain, water rain cycle could not form.

There would be no rain as we know it today and destructive storms like we have them today because of this. Number three, there would be lush tropical-like vegetation over all the world, fed not by rain, but by a rich evaporation and condensation cycle resulting in heavy dew or ground fog.

And he makes reference to Genesis 2 there. Number four, the vapor blanket would filter out ultraviolet radiation, cosmic rays, and other destructive energies bombarding the planet.

These are known to be the cause of mutations, which decrease human longevity, human and animal lifespans could be greatly increased. And that's another reason why some would say that that canopy was there until the flood.

People lived long, you know, long lives. Now they did to some extent after the flood, but not anything like they did before.

And one of the reasons may be because of how it filtered out the ultraviolet rays radiation. And number five, a vapor blanket would provide the necessary reservoir for a potential worldwide flood.

And otherwise, where would all that water come from? So there is the thought about that. Okay? Okay.