The Foundation Laid

STUDY OF GENESIS

CHAPTER 1

Good evening and welcome to my blog. Well tonight we get into the Book of Genesis proper. In the beginning, what do you think of when you hear those words? I think of the creation of the universe and every in it spoken into existence.

The account of the creation, its commencement, progress, and completion, bears the marks, both in form and substance, of a historical document in which it is intended that we should accept as actual truth, not only the assertion that God created the heavens, and the earth, and all that lives and moves in the world, but also the description of the creation itself in all its several stages. If we look merely at the form of this document, its place at the beginning of the book of Genesis is sufficient to warrant the expectation that it will give us history, and not fiction, or human speculation. As the development of the human family has been from the first a historical fact, and as man really occupies that place in the world which this record assigns him, the creation of man, as well as that of the earth on which, and the heaven for which, he is to live, must also be a work of God, i.e., a fact of objective truth and reality.

(from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

Chapter 1 AT A GLANCE:

The first day's work-- the creation of the heavens and the earth, v. 1-2.

The creation of the light and its separation from the darkness, v. 3-5.

The second day's work-- the creation of the firmament, and the separation of the waters above the firmament from those below it, v. 6-8.

The third day's work-- The waters are separated from the earth and formed into seas, etc., v. 9,10.

The earth rendered fruitful, and clothed with trees, herbs, grass, etc., v. 11-13.

The fourth day's work-- the creation of the celestial luminaries intended for the measurement of time, the distinction of periods, seasons, etc., v. 14.

The sun and the moon illuminate the earth, v. 15.

A distinct account of the formation of the sun, moon, and stars, v. 16-19.

The fifth day's work-- the creation of fish, fowls, and reptiles in general, v. 20.

The creation of great aquatic animals, v. 21.

They are blessed so as to make them very prolific, v. 22-23.

The sixth day's work-- wild and tame cattle created, and all kinds of animals which derive their nourishment from the earth, v. 24-25.

The creation of man in the image and likeness of God, with the dominion given to him over the earth and all inferior animals, v. 26.

Man (Adam), a general name for human beings, including both male and female, v. 27.

Their special blessing, v. 28.

Vegetables appointed as the food of man and all other animals, v. 29-30.

The statement which God passed on His works at the conclusion of His creative acts, v. 31.

(from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)

NOTE:

The foundation of all religion being laid in our relation to God as our Creator, it was fit that the book of divine revelations which was intended to be the guide, support, and rule, of religion in the world, should begin, as it does, with a plain and full account of the creation of the world-in answer to that first enquiry of a good conscience, "Where is God my Maker?" (Job 35:10). Concerning this the pagan philosophers wretchedly blundered, and became vain in their imaginations, some asserting the world's eternity and self-existence, others ascribing it to a fortuitous concourse of atoms: thus "the world by wisdom knew not God," but took a great deal of pains to lose him. The holy scripture therefore, designing by revealed religion to maintain and improve natural religion, to repair the decays of it and supply the defects of it, since the fall, for the reviving of the precepts of the law of nature, lays down, at first, this principle of the unclouded light of nature, That this world was, in the beginning of time, created by a Being of infinite wisdom and power, who was himself before all time and all worlds. The entrance into God's word gives this light, Ps 119:130. The first verse of the Bible gives us a surer and better, a more satisfying and useful, knowledge of the origin of the universe, than all the volumes of the philosophers. The lively faith of humble Christians understands this matter better than the elevated fancy of the greatest wits, Heb 11:3.

(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

The themes in this chapter are: Creation of the universe, the earth and all in it including man.

GOD CREATES:

God is mentioned 32 times in these 31 verses.

Gen 1:1 ('Elohim) is the usual word for "God" in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. It is actually plural in form, but it is used with a verb in the singular. Perhaps the plural is best explained as indicating "plentitude of might" or exceptional dignity and unlimited greatness. In this One are united all the powers of eternity and infinity.

The Bible begins with God. Gen 1:1

God is the Creator of all things. From the outset in the Book of Genesis, the focus of the strong light of revelation turns upon the Almighty. He is the Beginning, the Cause, the Source of all that is. He brought into being all the things and the persons that were to fit into his plan for the ages. All the matter necessary for his later working, he miraculously created.

(from The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press)

Many attempts have been made to define the term "GOD". As to the word itself, it is pure Anglo-Saxon, and among our ancestors signified not only the Divine Being, now commonly designated by the word, but also "good"; as in their apprehensions it appeared that God and good were correlative terms; and when they thought or spoke of him, they were doubtless led from the word itself to consider him as "THE GOOD BEING," a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence toward his creatures. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived, and who, from his infinite goodness can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind.

(from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)

[In the beginning] Before the creative acts mentioned in this chapter all was ETERNITY. Time signifies duration measured by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: but prior to the creation of these bodies there could be no measurement of duration, and consequently no time; therefore in the beginning must necessarily mean the commencement of time which followed, or rather was produced by, God's creative acts, as an effect follows or is produced by a cause.

(from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)

Gen 1:1 assumes the existence of God, for it is He who in the beginning creates. It assumes His eternity, for He is before all things: and since nothing comes from nothing, He Himself must have always been. It implies His omnipotence, for He creates the universe of things. It implies His absolute freedom, for He begins a new course of action. It implies His infinite wisdom, for a kosmos (NT:2889), "an order of matter and mind," can only come from a being of absolute intelligence. It implies His essential goodness, for the Sole, Eternal, Almighty, All-wise, and All-sufficient Being has no reason, no motive, and no capacity for evil. It presumes Him to be beyond all limit of time and place, since He is before all time and place.

It asserts the creation of the heavens and the earth; that is, of the universe of mind and matter. This creating is the omnipotent act of giving existence to things which before had no existence. This is the first great mystery of things; as the end is the second. Natural science observes things as they are, when they have already laid hold of existence. It ascends into the past as far as observation will reach, and penetrates into the future as far as experience will guide. But it does not touch the beginning or the end. This first sentence of revelation, however, records the beginning. At the same time it involves the progressive development of what is begun, and so contains within its bosom the whole of what is revealed in the Book of God. It is thus historical of the beginning, and prophetical of the whole of time. It is, therefore, equivalent to all the rest of revelation taken together, which merely records the evolutions of one sphere of creation, and nearly and more nearly anticipates the end of present things.

(from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

EARTHS AGE:

Since the word is without the article, `in beginning'-i.e., it signifies some remote era in past duration, hid in the depths of an unknown and incalculable antiquity. Knobel renders it `at first,' `first of all.'] The expression is very vague and indefinite: no specific period is here stated. Had Moses expressly told us that this period, when the "heavens and the earth" were brought into existence, was about 2,500 years before the time in which he wrote, then there would have been an almost insuperable difficulty in reconciling the discoveries of science with such a statement. But no such assertion, either directly or by implication, is made. On the contrary, because anything that the inspired narrative says, ten thousands of years, nay, millions of ages, may have elapsed since the first portions of matter were created in various parts of the universe.

No limit is set to the time which may have intervened between the period when the elementary materials of our world were created and the time when it begin to be reduced to that state of order and beauty in which we behold it. We are left to consider the period referred to in this verse to be as remote as science may lead us to interpret the evidence furnished by the book of nature; and thus the Word of God will be found concurring, with beautiful harmony, with the works of God in bearing one and the same testimony. In neither the one verse nor the other is it stated WHEN "THE BEGINNING" was; and, however far back we may carry our imaginations along the line of past duration, that "beginning" may be concealed in the depths of an eternity compared to which a million of years may dwindle into a moment.

Only admit the truth and correctness of this exposition-and we cannot conceive any valid objection can be brought against it-the way is paved for bringing this statement of Moses into perfect harmony with the doctrines of modern philosophy on the antiquity of the earth. It may be, as science tells us, that this globe existed millions of ages ago; that it has been the habitation of numerous and varied races of animated beings; and that it has undergone many great revolutions before it was brought into its present state: none of these views are in the least discordant with the statement of the inspired historian, that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

This first verse is a general introduction to the inspired volume, declaring the great and important truth that all things had a beginning; that nothing throughout the wide extent of nature existed from eternity, originated by chance, or, according to the pantheistic doctrine, was developed by powers inherent in matter; but that the whole universe owed its being to the creative power of God

(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

GOD MAKES MAN (GEN. 1:24-28)

We have here the second part of the sixth day's work, the creation of man, which we are, in a special manner, concerned to take notice of, that we may know ourselves. Observe,

That man was made last of all the creatures, that it might not be suspected that he had been, any way, a helper to God in the creation of the world:

Man's creation was a more signal and immediate act of divine wisdom and power than that of the other creatures. The narrative of it is introduced with something of solemnity, and a manifest distinction from the rest. Hitherto, it had been said, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament," and "Let the earth, or waters, bring forth" such a thing; but now the word of command is turned into a word of consultation, "Let us make man, for whose sake the rest of the creatures were made: this is a work we must take into our own hands." It should seem as if this were the work which he longed to be at; as if he had said, "Having at last settled the preliminaries, let us now apply ourselves to the business, Let us make man." Man was to be a creature different from all that had been hitherto made. Flesh and spirit, heaven and earth, must be put together in him, and he must be allied to both worlds. And therefore God himself not only undertakes to make him, but is pleased so to express himself as if he called a council to consider of the making of him: Let us make man. The three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, consult about it and concur in it, because man, when he was made, was to be dedicated and devoted to Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

There is more difficulty in deciding in what the likeness to God consisted. Certainly not in the bodily form, the upright position, or commanding aspect of the man, since God has no bodily form, and the man's body was formed from the dust of the ground; nor in the dominion of man over nature, for this is unquestionably ascribed to man simply as the consequence or effluence of his likeness to God. Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature. of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust of the earth, became a living soul.

(Note: "The breath of God became the soul of man; the soul of man therefore is nothing but the breath of God. The rest of the world exists through the word of God; man through His own peculiar breath. This breath is the seal and pledge of our relation to God, of our godlike dignity; whereas the breath breathed into the animals is nothing but the common breath, the life-wind of nature, which is moving everywhere, and only appears in the animal fixed and bound into a certain independence and individuality, so that the animal soul is nothing but a nature-soul individualized into certain, though still material spirituality."-Ziegler.)

The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously free Ego; for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence. This consists rather in the fact, that the man endowed with free self-conscious personality possesses, in his spiritual as well as corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the holiness and blessedness of the divine life. This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin; and it is only through Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence (Heb 1:3), that our nature is transformed into the image of God again (Col 3:10; Eph 4:24).

(from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

THE END OF THE CREATION PERIOD (Gen. 1:31)

When the Lord looked upon the completed result of his creative acts, he expressed peculiar delight and extreme satisfaction. Everything in the universe, from the biggest star to the smallest blade of grass, brought joy to his heart. It was a beautiful symphony. The Creator's satisfaction is here expressed in terse yet vivid language.

(from The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press)

In the simple anthromorphic style of this history, the Creator is represented as an artist, and in all the successive stages of the creative work as pausing to survey its progress, which He pronounced to be "good." But on the completion of it by the creation of man, he declared it to be "very good;" not only each separate part, but as a whole, adapted to be the habitation of a race of intelligent and moral creatures, the scene of all the various plans and operations which were to be developed under that economy of providence which he was about to commence.

(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

This chapter shows the folly and sin of the worship of light, of sun, moon, or star, of air or water, of plant, of fish or fowl, of earth, of cattle, creeping thing or wild beast, or, finally, of man himself; as all these are but the creatures of the one Eternal Spirit, who, as the Creator of all, is alone to be worshipped by his intelligent creatures.

(from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

Summary:

• Gen. 1 reveals the unity, power and personality of God (Rom. 1:20)

Creation is God’s original revelation.

• Gen. 1 Denies – a. polytheism – one God creates

b. eternity of matter – “In the beginning”

c. pantheism – God is before all things and apart from

them

d. fatalism – God acts in freedom of His will