Genesis 1:1-5 One Day

Intro

Today we are going to make a giant leap forward in our time in Genesis and cover all the way through verse 5! These verses contain the account of day one of creation and so we really do need to seek to take them up all together and see how they function as a unit.

It is important that we remember where we have come thus far though as we get started. We have of course seen the who of Creation, that this act of creation was undertaken by the eternally existent, timeless, changeless, God who alone has existed for all of eternity and who alone created all that is whether visible or invisible, that nothing exists outside of that which He created save Himself alone. We saw the when of creation, that this took place in the beginning as the text says but that this beginning is the true beginning of all things.

Now in our next time together we are going to take a look at some of the dating evidence in the Bible and seek to show from the text of scripture approximately how old this creation is. I wanted to try and get that in today but we just don’t have the time.

However, as I have said several times now, we believe and teach that the creation event that is historically recorded for us here in these first two chapters of Genesis took place over 7 literal 24 hour days just north of 6000 years ago. I am well aware that this rubs against the long age dogma of the day but we believe that this is so important to biblical fidelity and faithfully holding to the truth of scripture that we have included this truth in our Elder Affirmation of faith. Those who would teach the scriptures in this body must affirm this biblical chronology.

We will, today take up the task of surveying some of the main long age compromises that you will run into in the church today. While I will not say that adhering to these compromises means that someone truly isn't a Christian, there are in fact several pastors and leaders in the church as a whole who I have greatly benefited from and yet never the less I believe they have dangerously compromised here in these opening pages of Scripture. While this is not, properly speaking, a gospel test, I do believe that compromising here is wildly dangerous and has the capacity to bring ruin to your faith and if not you then someone dow stream from you. This is preciesly why I wanted to be sure to take some time to review these compromises and refute them.

Lastly then we have seen the how of creation. That God created ex nihilo, out of nothing all that is. As we will see again this morning as we consider the creation of light, that God did not pinch off a piece of Himself to create, the word is not made of God, the creation itself is not some part or even a whole of the divine. Also that God did not use some preexistent stuff. This would have bound God to the properties of that stuff just as we are bound in our creative efforts by the properties of the stuff that we use. God as the creator ex nihilo of all that is was totally free in creation and thus has the sovereign power to rule over all that He has made and not only this but we considered the great comfort that we can find in the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, comfort that the world that exists is precisely the world that God intended to create. There was not deficiency in the stuff of creation that caused the world that we live in, God’s sovereign plans and purposes are being fully and faithfully worked out in all that He has made.

And so now we come to Genesis 1:1-5 here we read:

Genesis 1:1–5 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And 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, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

As we jump in here I want us to first consider the text itself and what it has to say about this creation and then we will take up some of the compromising positions that are proposed by those who would seek to make science the interpreter of scripture.

Heavens and the Earth

After beginning, God, and created we find “the heavens and the earth.”

This phrase is what is known as a merism. This is a figure of speech where two opposites are joined together to express the whole of the thing considered. Here the heaves and the earth express all that is.

Some commentators will point out that the ancient hebrews could not have understood the universe as we do. When they say heavens they were not thinking the vast expanse of the universe billions and billons of light years away edge of the observable universe and the cosmic microwave background radiation that we observe there. Likewise when they said earth they weren't thinking of the molten spinning core of the earth that we know about today. Never the less these things are encompassed because for the Hebrew, though they did not know of and likely could not have even imagined these things, yet the merism simply, for the Hebrew, ment all that is. We don’t have to say that they were only taking about the things they could observe and know about, as we look deeper and see frther yet we are still in the rhelm of the heavens and the earth that were created.

Earth

The text then zooms in a bit and the focus shifts from the heavens and the earth to just the earth. Here, where the ESV says “now” the best way to translate this is to use and, and the earth was without form and void.

One of the important points we will see this morning is that it can be really important to not see the verse numbers as inspired and original to the text. Many of the compromised positions we will consider this morning start by seeing a gap between verses when the text itself moves on without pause.

Here we see that the textual focus shifts to a direct consideration of the earth as the place where most of this creative focus will take place.

We need to see this because all of what we read in the following verses is going to need to be seen from the perspective of earth. When we consider the creation of the sun and the moon and the stars and the vast expanse of the universe we are going to deal with some of the supposed challenges made to a 6000 year old earth by the deep time of space. As we will see there as well as our consideration of the day timeframe here in this text, the creation account from this point forward is meant to be viewed from an earthly perspective.

We see some unique descriptions of the earth as it was there in the dawn of this first day of creation as we read:

Genesis 1:2 ESV

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Without form and void. This will become important in a bit when we consider the gap theory.

The Hebrew here is tohu va bohu. The picture is simply of a blank canvas. There is no light and while the text doesn't explicitly say this I think we can gather that the earth itself was likely a spinning mass of water. We can gather this from the next statement about the darkness over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. The implication is that, at least the surface of this ball was covered with water.

2 Peter 3:5 tells us:

2 Peter 3:5 ESV

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,

The writers of scripture seem to take this view that what existed was a mass of water that God began to form and fashion in verse 6.

We will also see that it is important for the day here in this verse that this form be round and spinning, as we stated just a moment ago, this text is, from here on out meant to be read from an earthly position.

We also see significantly here that the Spirit of God is hovering over the face of the waters. In our last time together I mentioned that it is important to see that God immediately enters into His creation. This is one of the great mysteries of the divine nature that a timeless God can enter into and interact with a time bound creation but we know this is the case because we see bot God’s timeless nature and His presence in creation from the very opening verses of scripture.

Interestingly enough this same word is used in Deuteronomy 32:11 to describe an eagle hovering over her nest to care for it.

It is also important to note here that this description of God sets Him far apart from the gods and creation myths of the ancient pagan people. The gods, with a little g, of these myths are often challenged by and in fear of the primordial, they wage war against it and master it. Our God does no such thing. There is no tension in these verses as though the Spirit has some need to fear or go to war with this unformed mass. He is hovering in care and in preparation of what is to come.

“And God said…”

Now we come to verse 3 and the first recording of God’s authoritative and creative word. The text does not tell us how the heavens and the earth came to be, it does not tell is that they were spoken into existence. This could again be due to the nature of the text and the shift to a focus on creation from an earth bound perspective. Now that earth exists, now that there is stuff in this space for God to form and fashion we now hear His creative word ring out through this universe. This is at the very least a plausible explanation for our waiting until verse 3 for God to speak.

At any rate we must not hustle to quickly past this word due to familiarity. How we must learn to stop and linger. This we must teach ourselves. I find this to be a struggle myself in my regular bible reading time. I have a set of verses to read and a set time to read them in, sometimes not enough, and it can be easy to just read the words. Now this is important and I want to encourage you to be at the delightful task of daily reading God’s word, however we must also learn to linger over it.

That God speaks at all is amazing due to His timeless and eternal nature. God now is not just hovering in a caring and protective posture over the word but it unleashing His creative power in it.

God speaks and light fills the world.

Let there be light!

We read simply, “There was light.”

When there is nothing that can hinder the declarative will of God.

Now, we are given very little information about this light. The sun and moon and stars are formed on day 4 and so this was not light that originated in these sources. This was simply light. Now it is also clear that it was or at least became directional. There was light and darkness. It could be that when it says God separated the light from the darkness that this was when the directionality was ordered, that light had filled the world in an instant and then part of the glob was moved into darkness by the ordering of God.

The important thing is that we see the ordering and naming here. God orders and then God names. We read:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night

Ordering and naming are the hallmarks of rule and reign. God names both the light and the darkness. We don’t read that darkness was created, rather it is the result of the directionality of light, the absence of light however we see that God names them both.

A caution is needed here. It would be easy to try and say something negative about darkness. It is the absence of light. We see darkness cast in a negative light, pun intended, in scripture. However, there is no reason to assume anything negative here. God is preparing a world that will be perfect to reflect and explain the spiritual realities that He will manifest in it but darkness itself is nothing to fear, night is nothing to fear, God names it.

(Word to children) Children and even adults are often afraid of the night, of darkness. We ought not be, God rules and reigns over it and it was part of His very good creation. Though evil now often inhabits the darkness in our world we need not fear the darkness or the evil that inhabits it because our God is sovereign over it and shows us this is so by forming it and naming it.

Day

Finally, we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 1

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

An understandable but also, not totally the best way to translate this.

We are getting close to exploring the compromise positions and understanding day here to mean a literal 24 hour period is super important and in fact the text goes to great lengths to show us that a day really is a day!

First we have the use of evening and morning.

Now Moses starts with evening because this is the close of the first day and the dawn of day 2. This is how the text carries the narrative first. This does not mean that we ought to, like the hebrews, start our new day in the evening.

This is the literary device that carries the account forward and this is why evening and morning are used for all the other days. The truly important thing is to know that when evening and morning are used with the word day in the bible it is always a 24 hour day.

Yes, day can at times mean other things. We see the light being called “day” in this verse and understand that this is the time during the day when it is light out. We could talk about back in the day, or the coming day and we understand that this is not a literal 24 hour period, however, when it is structured this way in conjunction with a number and/or a night and day it is always a literal 24 hour day!

Jonathan Sarfati points out in his commentary that when day is used with a number as it is here in Genesis 1, and this happens 410 times outside of Genesis 1 that it always means a literal 24 hour day.

When we read of evening plus morning with or without the word day, 61 times in scripture, it is always a normal 24 hour day.

Night with day appears 52 times outside of Genesis 1 and always references a 24 hour day.

Therefore, the onus is on those who would try to make day something different to prove their case from scripture and I will maintain that it can not be done.

Additionally, even the structure of the numbering and how the numbers are written here seems to indicate the author himself understood that it was important to show that all of the days including and importantly this first one as it sets the pattern for the rest, are literal 24 hour days.

While the ESV here translates this as the first day, the text actually reads “and there was evening and there was morning, day one, in the Hebrew this is called a cardinal number, meaning a one, two, three, etc, not a ordinal number, 1st, 2nd, etc. Days 2-7 use the ordinal number and day 6 and 7 do so but also slightly differently also likely signifying the significance of the day man was created and the rest day at the end of the week.

One day, why would the author so structure the wording this way. He could have said, the first day as many translate it but he didn’t. Very likely it is because this day one is to become definitional of what a day is. Evening and morning, one cycle of light and darkness, one day!

Basil the Great who lived from 329-379 said this:

‘“And there was evening and there was morning: one day.” Why does Scripture say “one day the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day”, it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.’”

The very structure of the text seems intended to drive the reader to that reality!

How foolish then it would be to argue that a day here means something other than a literal day. Does the bible say that one day is a a thousand years with the Lord? Yes it does, however that contextually has nothing to do with the intent of verses 3-5 of Genesis 1 which are intended to show God’s creation of light and darkness, day and night, and His setting of the day night, daily structure for all of time!

Compromise

What then are these compromise views that we need to consider? Why would someone even arrive at this desire to read Genesis as something other than a literal week of 24 hour days following immediately upon the beginning of all things as the text clearly leads us to.

The only conceivable answer is that they are driven to this as a way to make the account of scripture compatible with long age geological or evolutionary science in one form or another. Now those who do this will often claim that people like Augustine also did not hold to a literal 7 day view of creation and while there is some truth to that, the bedrock truth is that none of the early church fathers and no church man up until Charles Lyell and his efforts to free the world from Moses by postulating deep geological time argued for a creation over millions and billions of years, they may have argued that God created in less than a week but not more, and certainly not millions and billions!

Now, I would like to be charitable here but it is hard. I listened to a couple of videos by Gavin Ortland. You may have herd of Gavin or one of the other Ortlands like his father Ray. If not that doesn't really matter. However, Gavin is a reformed believer with a podcast and a following of some size called “Truth Unites.”

Now Gavin claims over and over again that it is the text itself that drives him to question the young age of the earth and even things like the global flood of Noah and the unique creation of man and woman as the first humans. However, I maintain that had science not set out to free the world from Moses, and that was Charles Lyell’s stated aim, if science did not say millions no person looking at the text of scripture would.

Gap Theory

The first of the compromising views is the gap theory. The gap theory in short postulates a gap of time between Genesis 1:2 and 3. In this time many believe there was an original creation with a garden ruled by Satan and that when he fell and took some of the angles with him God destroyed that creation with a global catastrophe and that this is what it means when it says that the earth was formless and void.

This view is derived in large measure by a faulty view of the use of formless and void in Jeremiah 4:23

Jeremiah 4:23 ESV

I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.

Here Jeremiah sees a vision of judgement and this judgement has rendered the land without form and void. If Jeremiah sees judgement then perhaps these words need be associated with a judgement.

The issue is that the words are not necessarily connected with judgement, something doesn't have to be destroyed to become without form and void. Consider a blank word document on your computer. It could be blank because you got frustrated and deleted everything or it could be blank because you just opened up the document to begin to write. The state of the page doesnt direct you to how it got that way the context does. And as we can see there is nothing in the context of Genesis 1:1-2 that would lead us to define without form and void as anything other than a bank starting canvas.

The gap theorist also uses God’s command to Adam and Eve to fill the earth which is in some translations “replenish” the earth to say that the earth once had inhabitants and needed replenished. However, this word at one time in english didn't mean to fill again but simply to fill and so in this way the ESV finally gets a check mark in its advantage this morning by translating 1:28 as fill and not replenish.

There are other problems with the gap theory, the main being the failure to find any support in the rest of scripture. So where did it come from?

One of the earliest proponents was Thomas Chalmers who lived from 1780-1847 who said that he intended to show that millions of years was compatible with scripture.

The insurmountable problem for the gap theorists, besides the textual challenges from scripture which are paramount, is that their theory doesn't actually bring their understanding of creation into alignment with the bible, it doesn't do what they hope that it would do, and as Sarfati says the teaching of this view actually endangers young believers, he says:

“And since their christian leaders had effectively made science authoritative over scripture in creation issues, these students took the next logical step: since science says that dead men don’t rise, virgins don’t conceive, adultery and homosexual behavior is natural, then…”

A constant theme here is that we must not in any case make anything other than scripture authoritative over scripture. Not science, not experience, not any other supposed expert in anything, we must test all things by scripture and we must interpret scripture with scripture and when we do this the gap theory utterly falls apart.

Day Age

Another view is that each of the days in genesis represent a long age. This view gained acceptance in the mid 1800’s. As you can probably tell this view falls flat in light of the literary interpretation of day being lock securely to a literally 24 hour day. This view also struggles because in addition to being carless with scripture it also leads to doing all kinds of weird things with the creation days themselves to make what science says was the progression of the formation of the world and the evolution of the species match with the creation day ages.

The biggest proponent of this in our day is Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe and despite the apologetic sounding name of his ministry I would caution you to stay far away from their stuff.

Jonathan Sarfati wrote refuting compromise which we have back there and it is specifically written to address Ross’s arguments.

Framework Hypothesis

Another view is the framework hypothesis. This compromise postulates that the account we have in Genesis is poetry and that the days of creation can be divided up into three sets of 2.

Day 1 Light - Day 3 Lights

Day 2 Sky Waters - Day 5 Fish and Birds

Day 3 Dray Land Plants and Trees - Day 6 Man and Beasts

If the entire chapter is merely poetry ment to teach us something about God rather than a historical account of creation then there is no issue with squaring the account with evolutionary theory. We don’t even have to try.

You can read more on Creation.com and find many refutations of this theory. At the end of the day we have seen and will continue to see that this account, even if it did have some sort of poetic structure is meant to be a historical account of origins specifically given to the people of God as God moved to form them into His redemptive people. God’s interactions with and covenants made with His people weren't grounded in poetry, they were grounded in the real historical account of the creation of the world!

Historical Creationism

Lastly I will mention Historical Creationism. This is a view held by John Piper and may other in the reformed tradition and it saddens me.

This view believes that in verse 1 God makes the entire world, everything and then the creation account is not God’s creation of the world but rather His preparation of the Garden for man. This view holds to a literal Adam and Eve which some of the others do not but regrettably Piper says this about the view:

“So that has the advantage of saying that the earth is billions of years old if it wants to be—whatever science says it is, it is—but man is young, and he was good and he sinned. He was a real historical person, because Romans 5 says so, and so does the rest of the Bible.”

Whatever science says it is! This is the theme. What ever science says about the age of the earth who am I to speak against that? I am certainly not a scientist.

Well, we are believers, we are those who have faith in God and trust in the authority, authenticity, and accuracy of His written word! As we have seen if we say that scripture has to bend the knee to science then, in what other places does it have to bend the knee. Piper is certainly not willing to bend the knee when it comes to a literal Adam and a world wide flood. Science would deny those with the same fervency it purports to say the universe is billions of years old.

Closing

The theme for this morning is that we must remain grounded in the truth of scripture that is brought to us through God’s Word!

The world continually brings challenges against God’s word and God’s authority to say how things are to be in His world. As a Christian you will be challenged time and time again to compromise, to bend things just a little. To like Piper say “science, psychology, human kindness, love, what ever it is says what is says, but… and stick in what ever piece we think ought not be bent. This is how it works, we try and find all the places where we think we can bend and twist while remaining faithful to the next thing that we believe is essential.

Southern Baptist and even our state convention are wrestling with this right now as recently the director of the Alaska Baptist Resource Network called efforts to clearly limit the office of pastor in churches to men as the word of God clearly outlines, petty bickering.

Now as we pursue faithfulness we must o so with kindness and grace, we must not bicker and backbite and name call but we must also speak the truth clearly and resolutely, we must not bend and capitulate and compromise and as we all know that to some measure or degree we are prone to do this, all of us are prone to do this, we must continually come to God’s word to assess our positions and we must also rely on our church families and those within the faith to help us to see when we are potentially seeking these kinds of compromise positions.

When we take a resolute stand here in Genesis we will be in a much more firm position standing on a much more solid foundation for remaining uncompromising and resolute in all that scripture calls us to!