Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: When did God create the heavens and the earth? Were the days of creation a literal 24 hours, or do they represent something longer? Welcome to Through the Bible. I'm Steve Schwetz, and in this study, our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, walks us through his thoughts on creation as we dig into Genesis chapter 1, beginning at verse 2.

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Heavenly Father, would you bless your word as it goes out into all the world? May those who hear your name be moved to respond in faith to the gift of your salvation. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Here's Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Genesis 1 on Through the Bible.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now we return back to the book of Genesis, and it looks as if we cannot get away from the very first verse. It's a majestic verse, it's a tremendous verse, and I'm of the opinion that this is the door into which you will have to walk into the Bible. You have to believe that he is the creator. He that cometh to God must believe that he is. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

Now, let's look at the little verse for just a moment. In the beginning—and that's a beginning you cannot date. You can put it down as billions of years, and I think you'd probably be accurate, but who knows how many? Man certainly does not know. And God created, and the word create here is *bara*. That means out of nothing.

And actually, in the first chapter of Genesis, it's only used three times. There are really only three acts of creation that we have here. You have, first of all, the creation of something from nothing: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Then you have the creation of life: God created great whales and every living creature that moveth.

That's down in verse 21: Which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good. That's animal life of all kinds. And then the third act of creation you find in verse 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.

You have the creation of something from nothing, you have the creation of life, and then the creation of human life, of human beings. And believe me, theistic evolution is not the answer at all. Theistic evolution, of course, is rather untenable, but it attempts to follow creation until you come up to man, and then Adam and Eve were the products of some evolutionary process.

The theistic evolutionist makes the days in Genesis a period of time, a long period of time. And we do not believe, of course, that that is true. And I think that it's very clear that that is not true. God called the evening and the morning the first day. And I'm of the opinion that it's quite clear in this chapter, as we shall see in another place.

But now coming back to verse 1 again, he created the heaven and the earth. Now, the earth is separated from the rest of creation here. Why? Well, that's the hometown of man. That's where man is to be placed, and we're very much interested in him because we belong to this creature. We need to realize that we're a creature, and a creature of God, and as a creature of God, we owe him something.

Now, we have in this something that is very important. It was years ago that Herbert Spencer said that the most general forms into which the manifestation of the unknowable are redivisible, and this is the way he divided it: time, space, matter, force, motion. And many years ago, a very fine personal worker—it was George Dewey Blomgren—he was talking to an army sergeant who was a law graduate, and he was attempting to witness to him.

And this sergeant mentioned Herbert Spencer. And Blomgren said to the soldier, "Did you know that both the Bible and Spencer teach the great principles of creation?" And the sergeant's eyes widened and he said, "Why, how's that?" Well, he says he talked about time, space, matter, force, motion.

You have in the first verse of Genesis: time (In the beginning), you have space (the heavens), you have matter (the earth), you have force (the Spirit of God—and that's in verse 2, by the way), and you have motion (and that's moved upon the face of the waters). So in the first two verses of Genesis, you have these great principles that have been put down. And how important it is for us to see that.

I want us now to continue to move on down in this section. And we come here to something that we believe should be considered. 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. Now, we have here something that in recent years, there have been those that have attempted to discredit it. They say that you do not have a catastrophe mentioned here.

But I believe that a great catastrophe took place between verses 1 and 2. And I think there's an abundance of evidence for it. To begin with, to look out in this vast creation, something has happened to it. Man's trip to the moon reveals that that's nothing in the world but a wasteland up there. And how did it get like that? May I say that there came a catastrophe in God's universe.

Now, we have the earth mentioned because this is going to be the place where man lives, and it's the earth that became without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and that's the absence of God, of course. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, you have a statement that is made in Isaiah 45:18.

Isaiah says that God did not create this earth *tohu va-bohu*. Now, that's the Hebrew there. And that means that God did not create it without form and void. That's not the way God created. God created this universe a cosmos, not a chaos. And that is the thing that Isaiah, of course, is attempting to make clear.

Let me turn and read Isaiah 45:18: "For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else." Now, that is important to see. He created it not *tohu va-bohu*, but the earth became *tohu va-bohu*.

He formed it to be inhabited, and it is God that came into this wreck and attempted to, not only attempted, he did it. He made it a habitable place for man. Now, all of this study of space reveals that you and I live in a universe that as far as human beings are concerned, this seems to be the only habitable place.

And what we have here is the fact that the earth became without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And I think this earth was just like the moon, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, the entire universe came in under this great catastrophe. Well, what was the catastrophe?

We can only suggest, and I'm not going into details here at all. We probably will when we come to other passages of scripture. But apparently, there is some pre-Adamic creature that was on this earth, and apparently all of this is connected with the fall of Lucifer, son of the morning, who became Satan, the devil, as we know him today.

I think all of that's involved here, but God has not given us details. Fact of the matter is, he's given us very few details here. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved. And the word for moved is brooded, brooded, like a mother hen over the little chickens, brooded upon the face of the waters.

And the Holy Spirit begins a ministry here that we see him doing again and again: recreation. He comes into this scene and he recreates. And that's what he does for us. You remember the Lord Jesus said, "Ye must be born again." And not only that, you must be born of the Spirit. And that which is born of the water and of the Spirit. And the water is the word of God, the word of God. Now, if you want to make baptism the symbol, fine, that's all right. But the water means the word of God, and the Holy Spirit is the author of it.

This is very, very important for us to see, friends. Now, something happened to the earth. You have here the six days of renovation. Or I've divided it like this: verse 1, creation of the universe; verse 2, convulsion of the earth; and then construction of the earth in six days, verses 3 through 31. And I believe that what you have here is that development.

Now, there are several things here we'd like to call attention to. It says in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and that is Exodus 20:11. And there is nothing there in that word about creating. It's really making. And God is taking that which is already formed here, and in these six days, he is not creating, but he's recreating, if you please.

He's making out of that which already exists, the matter that he had probably called into existence billions of years before. Now he created life and put it on the earth. And he also created for the earth, man. And that's the creature that you and I happen to be one of them today, and that makes the story intensely important for us today.

Now you'll notice something else here. It says that God said—that's verse 3, and we come now to day one, and that's light. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Just like that, my friend. God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And my friend, that must be a 24-hour day. I don't see how you could get anything else out of that. But the important thing is, as we move down in here, God said, "Let there be light." Ten times in this chapter, it's "Let there be." If you go down to verse 6, "Let there be a firmament." Verse 9, "Let the waters." We'll call attention to the others. Ten times in this chapter we have "Let there be."

And as someone has called this, the Ten Commandments of creation. This is a divine decalogue that you have here. First, "Let there be light," there was light. And God called the light day, the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. This is the first time, by the way, that God spoke. This is something to note. God said, "Let there be light."

Now, verse 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, this firmament is *ruach*, that's these air spaces. And God divided the waters from the waters. What does that mean? Well, he divided the waters first perpendicularly. There's water above us, water beneath us.

Out in the Hawaiian Islands when we were out there, did you know that five inches of rain fell in Honolulu in just a very short time? I started to say a few minutes, and I think I'm accurate on that. But they told us that over 200 inches of rain falls in a place where we were. My friend, there's a whole lot of water if there's 200 inches of it that can get above you like that. Well, that's what God did.

God divided the waters above from the waters that are beneath. And God called the firmament heaven. Now, this is not heaven as you and I think of it. There are three heavens that are mentioned in scripture. The Lord Jesus spoke of the birds of heaven. I think that's what you have here, the heaven as mentioned here. And then there's the stars of heaven. And then there's the third heaven where he dwells. And so the first layer up there, the first deck, is the deck where there are clouds and where the birds fly also. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And then we come to day three. And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so. God called the dry land earth, the gathering together of the waters called he seas, and God saw that it was good. Now you have a horizontal division made of the waters. First, the waters above from the waters beneath. Now the waters separated from the land, from the earth.

And that division is made. And may I say to you, there's nothing unscientific about this. They tell us that every spot on topside of this earth in which we live today was covered with water at one time. That was evidently a judgment that had come upon the earth way back sometime in the dim and distant eternity of the past, and we know practically nothing about it. Anything we say is speculation.

You see, God has really told us very little here, but he told us enough that we can believe him. That's all. God called the dry land earth. Now, what's he getting ready to do? Well, it looks like he's getting ready to make a place that he can put man, that'll be habitable. Man's not a water creature, although there's some of these evolutionists think we came out of it, the seaweed we mentioned, you remember. Others think we came out of a slop bucket. May I say to you, now how absurd can you possibly be?

Now, will you notice: God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be divided." Now, that's day three. And God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed in itself upon the earth," it was so. Now, God is putting plant life here because man until the flood was apparently a vegetarian. He's going to eat nothing but fruits and nuts.

And we could make a comment about that, I guess, but we shouldn't. So we should move on. And we read here: "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Now that was the evening and morning of the third day.

Now we come to day four. And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night." Now, God didn't create the sun and the moon at this time. They were already up there. God just brought them around in position, one of them to take charge of the day, and the sun does it pretty well, and the moon by night. And the moon does a good job by night.

I do not know about you, but I proposed to my wife by moonlight, friends. That moon has a lot of influence over the night, I can assure you. And then he just says here in a clause at the end: He made the stars also. That was a pretty big job, by the way, but not for God. As John Wesley said, that God created the heavens and the earth and didn't even have to try. He made the stars also.

And then it says God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 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. And if you'll notice, it's God that does the dividing here. You know he still does that. There are those that say today, "What's the difference between right and wrong?"

What God says, friends. God's drawn all the lines. Somebody says, "How do you know what's right?" What God says is right. God has put down certain principles. God divides the light from the darkness, and it's just that much distinction between the two, by the way. He's the one that makes the difference, and he still does it.

Now in verse 20, he says: "And God said, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.'" Now you do have here a certain amount, and don't misunderstand me now, evolution. Now, if you mean by evolution not just everything came from one little cell, but that God made one of each creature. And you'll notice it says he made each one after his kind.

And that doesn't mean species, as even Darwin said. It means more than that. The word is *philia*. I have been reading what one scientist has said, and he's been looking around for another word. Well, I had a professor in seminary, very brilliant man, he gave the name *philia*. And if you look that up, that would include not just one horse, but it'd include every animal including the zebra, everything that belongs to the horse family. God created one like that.

Now there's been development from those, by the way, and I believe that that is true. But to say that everything originated from one little amoeba and God is not the creator, that's the thing we object to. There's been tremendous development, I think, and also development, and that means it went downward.

God created great whales, 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 you notice that? When God does it, it's good. And God blessed them saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters in the sea, let fowl multiply in the earth."

And by the way, this scientist said that if we're going to teach the creation story, we ought to teach the stork story. Believe me, the Bible certainly gets rid of the stork story if you read it very carefully. These animals had to bring forth, and it'll be true of man also. You don't find Little Willie under a stump, and the stork didn't bring Little Susie either.

But God did create the heavens and the earth, by the way. Now will you notice: "And the evening and the morning were the fifth day." Now we have the first five days. "And God said"—this is sixth day now—"let the earth bring forth the living creatures after his kind, the cattle, the creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind," and it was so.

God made the beast of the earth after his kind, his *philia*, and cattle after their kind, everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good. Now, God separates animal life, plant life from man, because we'll see next time that God says, "Let us make man in our image." We want to look at this creature God made because he happened to be your great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother here. And he's mine also, and that means that you and I are cousins. Maybe not kissing cousins, but that means the whole human family's related. And since Adam fell, we are related. We are brothers, really in sin. That's the picture of man we're going to see in Genesis. We'll begin right there next time. May God richly bless you.

Steve Schwetz: Don't forget, our Bible companion for Genesis is ready for anyone who wants to spend more time in this great book. You can download a free copy from our app or at ttb.org, or call 1-800-65-BIBLE to order a paperback version. And if you'd like to be in touch, well, you can always write to us through our app.

You can email us as well: biblebus@ttb.org, or send that letter to Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. And then be sure to join us next time when Dr. McGee unpacks what it means to be created in the image of God. Our text is Genesis 1:26 to chapter 2, verse 3. Read it before you hop aboard the Bible bus, won't you? You'll be amazed at how much more you get from God's word. Well, I'm Steve Schwetz, so grateful to be on this journey Through the Bible with you.

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.

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