1 IN the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
The God who made the heaven and the earth was
no other than Jesus. How could that be possible, seeing that he
was not born for many thousand years yet? Would it surprise you to hear that
before Jesus was born, he lived as a God in his Fathers presence? Well, he did!
As the pre-mortal God Jehovah, Jesus lived in
the courts of his Father, the supreme ruler of the universe. God the
Father saw the goodness and perfection of his son, Jehovah, and gave him
command over all his spirit children, and the subsequent creation of heaven and
earth for them. You and I were there too.
On the
earth, at the time of Jesus, the Jews were forbidden to use the name Jehovah
lightly. So, in talking of him, they would use other terms to signify the
creator of the world, the God of Abraham, etc. One of these terms was: “The Word”.
1 IN the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The
same was in the beginning with God.
3 All
things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
(John 1:1-3)
2 And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
If the
earth was without form it was neither round nor flat. It wasn’t even square or
lumpy, for all these things are descriptions of different forms. It is also
described as being void, meaning empty. In other words; At the time called "the beginning" the earth was not created
yet! If it would have been created, it would have had a form, and it could
certainly not have been empty! And darkness was upon the face of the deep. In
other words; in the three dimensions in which the heaven and earth was going to
be placed, there was darkness. We will return to that later.
First we
have to look at this statement: “And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”. What would the purpose of
God be to move upon the face of the waters? God never does anything without a
reason or purpose. And another question; where would such a surface of water
be, if there is no earth created yet? It is not likely that a body of water,
with a surface, would float around in space. Time to turn to
the original texts. And in the Hebrew we find that the Spirit of God
could have been translated to:” the mind of God”, or “the thoughts of God”. A
perfectly good translation of the Hebrew could have been: “And the thoughts of
God were upon the waters”, or as we should have said it today: “And God planned how to solve the water-issue”.
Remember that this is only a hypothesis, at this stage, but wait, we shall see
if the hypothesis holds water (no pun intended).
3 And God said, Let there be light: and
there was light. Genesis 1:3
Do you
recall that I promised that we would return to the darkness upon the face of
the deep? It’s time for that now! You do remember that “God” in the creation is
Jesus? This is important at this stage, because what happened in verse three is
quite amazing! If you look in verse five
you will see that this happened in the
first day of the creation. But it was in the fourth day that he created the
sun, the moon and the stars, to give
light to the earth!
14 And
God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And
let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the
earth: and it was so.
16 And
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 And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon 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 And
the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-19)
So that which happened on the first day of
creation was something totally different than creating light for our eyes to
see. And now it gets exciting! Let us turn to St John
again;
4 In him was
life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the
light shineth in darkness; and the darkness
comprehended it not.
6 There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 The
same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that
all men through him might believe.
8 He was
not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
9 That
was the true Light, which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. (John 1:4-9)
…And
darkness was upon the face of the deep… What was missing in those three
dimensions was light, and in John 1:4 we
read that the life was the light of men. And so it was with the deep. Before Jesus appeared to the scene there
was no life in any of the matter of the vast deep to become the universe. And if there was no life, neither could
there be any light. And the first thing that had to happen in the creation
was to make sure that there were life in all matter, for how could dead matter obey the call of Jehovah? So before he gives any commandments to any
matter in universe, he had to fill all that matter with life, or light, for
they are synonymous, or at least inseparable. So, when Jesus gave life/light to
all matter of the deep (the universe), why didn’t the darkness comprehend it( V.5)? Because darkness has no life! Every man is built
of the matter that is given light by Jesus. So the light of Christ is in all of us.
4 And God
saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God
called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the
morning were the first day. (Genesis 1: 4-5)
What is this day and night, then, if the light
of the first day is the light of Christ, giving life to everything in universe?
There is a day of creation for everything, but it is not at the same time. God does
everything in perfect order. We, our world, our universe exists in the day of
creation. Everything that awaits its
turn to enroll in such a grand master-plan, is right
now in the night of no creation. And as far as matter goes, it doesn’t make
any difference, since it has no light, life, and comprehend it not.
6 And God
said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters.
Now, there is a day of creation, in which all
matter has life and light, and therefore will obey his voice.
Jehovah/Jesus immediately uses this by making his first commandment to matter.
And this is exciting again! Do you remember the hypothesis that God was
planning to solve the water issue, before any other creation took place. Well,
of course that makes sense, since everything living would die without it. But
look at the beautiful way he solves the problem! He had all the matter present.
Every chemical imaginable, water included, but it was spread out in clouds of
ice, or mists or whatever. Now, see what Jehovah does. He commands a solid earth to be formed (let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters). What happened when Jesus caused a huge ball of rock to
form? Yep! You’re right! Gravity happened! And as gravity happened, waters
started to fall down on the earth to create the big seas. Let’s look at the
commandment again. I will make some changes, and you will see how great this
is!
And God said, Let their be a planet in the
midst of the waters of the atmosphere that will attract the water, so there
will be some water on the actual planet, and some water in the sky above.
You see,
there must be two waters, one on the earth for all living organisms, an one in the atmosphere to cool the earth and protect it
from the sun, and to refill the water-sources with clean, sweet water as the
old evaporates. Further; the Hebrews had
two firmaments as well. One was the
earth, obviously, and the other was the sky, that they saw as a firm. It is
important to know in order to understand verses seven and eight.
7 And 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.
8 And God
called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second
day. (Genesis 1:7-8)
Verses
seven and eight should be read:
7 And God made the earth, which divided the
waters which were under the heaven from the waters which were above the earth:
and it was so.
8 And God called one of the firmaments Heaven.
And the evening and the morning were the second day.
This page
has only looked at two days of the creation of the universe and the creation of the earth. Believe me, there is a lot more
exciting stuff to learn about the glorious work of Jesus – the Creator. Perhaps
we will return to the other five days of creation in the future…