Genesis 1:9-19

Genesis 1:9 “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.”

1) The earth was still nothing more than water. For dry land to appear out of the water, chemical reactions had to start occurring to transmute all of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms into the elements that would become solid ground. As the land formed, underground reservoirs would accept the water run-off, and the subterranean chambers of waters in reserve for the flood would be created. At this time the land would have been one land mass. Even secular scientists agree that the continents were once connected (like a jigsaw puzzle if you pushed the continents we now have together). They have named this the pangaea. This pangaea would have not had the high mountains (Rockies, Himalayas) and low ocean valleys that we have now. It might have had rolling hills, but that is all. Scientists know that the very high mountain ranges are the result of the tectonic plates pushing against each other and heaving the land masses up and down. When we get to Noah’s flood, we’ll see how catastrophic that was for the world.

Genesis 1:10 “And God called the dry land Earth: and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.”

1) “And God called the dry land Earth” - since God made the dry land from the original water, God chose to call the dry land by the same name as the waters which we first created(Gen 1:1).

2) “and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas” God renames the waters. The odds are, there were only seas, not the huge oceans we have now, as the majority of water was either in subterranean reservoirs or in the water vapor canopy. The earth would actually have been a different size too.

3) “and God saw that it was good” - again God comments on the purity of his creation, untainted by sin.

Genesis 1:11-13 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”

1) Not only had rocks and minerals been formed, but there was fertile soil that contained the chemicals and nutrients from which God would call forth the complex plants and instill self-reproducing information or DNA within them. The term after his kind refutes evolution which goes from one kind to another. Species do not and cannot cross. They reproduce after their own kind. This is a problem for evolution since they can find no missing links. This original DNA would have a tremendous amount of data to allow for all the variations that we find within species. This information has gradually been lost over time, so that present day representatives of species would not have nearly the same amount of information present in their DNA that the original creation had.

2) There are three classifications of flora mentioned in the Bible. These particular classifications represent all of the flora we have. Grasses would refer to all spreading ground-covering vegetation. Herbs would include bushes and shrubs, and trees would include all large woody and fruit bearing plants. These were brought forth as full-grown plants with the seeds in them. They would have the appearance of age without actually having the age, just as Adam was created full-grown. Many of these plants required pollination to reproduce. Since insects were not made until the 6th day of creation, these days could not have been anything other than 24 hour days. They could not have been long ages of time as theistic evolution proposes, since the plants would die off before they had a chance to reproduce. As mentioned before, the flora would be very lush due to the greenhouse effect. Also it would grow very large as there was a continuous growing season. Fossils show that mosses that grow one or two inches today grew two or three feet tall. One particular moss that grows 1 ½ feet today grew 120 feet then. Cattails that grow 6 feet now grew to 50 feet then. An interesting story is of a Japanese man who has a love of miniature plants. He brought a cherry tomato plant into his house, specifically in his basement, to grow. Since he didn’t have lights down there and at work he had fiber optic cable, he got the bright idea of running fiber optic cable from his roof down into his basement and placed it over the tomato plant. Now fiber optic cable transmits the light without the ultra-violet rays, just as the antediluvian canopy would. After a while the tomato plant was so big he had to move it to his laboratory. As the plant needed more carbon dioxide at the size it was, he created a tube system around the stalk and pumped pressure into it to enable the stalk to absorb more carbon dioxide. This would simulate the barometric pressure that the earth would have had at the beginning. After two years, the tomato plant was a 16 foot tree with hundreds of baseball sized tomatoes. The tree outgrew the lab at work, so he moved it (as a tourist attraction) into the lobby of a hotel. Some years back, the tree was 40 feet tall and had over 5,000 tomatoes on it. I have personally seen photos of this amazing cherry tomato tree.

3) This completed the third 24 hour period.

Genesis 1:14-19 “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, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so. 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. And 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 the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”

1) “And God said, let there be lights” - God originally made light (Hebrew “or”), but now He made “ma-or” or light-givers. Light had been shining on the earth and now it was merely condensed into the generators that fill the universe. It did not take millions of years for the light to travel from distant stars. It already shone upon the earth from a full half-universe. Just as God created plants and animals and man full-grown, he created light-givers whose light was already in transit to the earth. The purpose of these heavenly bodies was to give light on the earth. They did so immediately. Also the tremendous distances that are cited for these stars are based upon questionable assumptions and hypothetical math in some cases. The speed of light which was always held as a constant for scientific calculations has been found not to be constant, so it creates an uncertainty in any calculations. Basically all we know of these distant bodies is not based on scientific facts, but on scientific assumptions and hypotheses. The Bible also tells us that God stretched out the heavens - Is. 40:22, 42:5, 45:12. Scientists tell us the universe is still expanding, so it is reasonable to assume that if God is still stretching out the heavens, that at creation things were much closer in proximity to the earth.

2) “in the firmament of the heaven” - this is obviously talking about the second heaven.

3) “to divide the day from the night” - originally light was on one side of the universe and darkness on the other. Now the light side is condensed into stars, set about the universe at different distances from the earth, and scattered around through the darkness so that all of space is now the same instead of being divided in two - light and darkness. Also, the sun shining on the earth would create a day and night as the earth rotated.

4) “and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years.” - the purpose of the stars, planets, constellations, etc. is to be for 1) signs - astrology is not meant here. The celestial bodies have and will be used by God as signs portending things he has told us to look for. There was a prophecy about a star concerning Christ’s birth in the Scriptures. That is why the wise men were led by the star. At the end of the age, we are told that celestial signs will herald the Day of the Lord. God uses these bodies to give us signs of things He is about to do. But usually He tells us what those signs are. There is a theory that is being promoted nowadays that the zodiac signs were originally given by God to tell the gospel in the stars (before mankind had the written Scriptures), but were corrupted by paganism. Jewish traditions tell us that the world was created in the fall around the middle of September. The constellation that corresponds to September is Virgo the Virgin or stands for the first coming of Christ. The last zodiac sign before Virgo is Leo the Lion, corresponding to Christ, the Lion of Judah coming as King of Kings at His second coming. Having done a study on this, (which one day I may present as a blog study) interestingly there is a tremendous amount of evidence that this may indeed be true, even to the significance of the names of the stars in the constellations, however other than the Bible mentioning the names of some constellations, we have no positive proof this is so, so this falls under the heading of speculation. 2) for seasons - even with a temperate climate, there apparently were seasonal changes and the movement of the stars would help them keep track of this. 3) for days and years - the marking of the passing of time was important. The moon would provide a monthly calendar and the passing of seasons would measure a year. The seven day week was instituted by God although it is not clear how long this was observed by mankind, before being re-instituted at the giving of the Law of Moses.

5) “And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so” - Obviously the main light-givers are the sun and moon, however the stars were put there to shine as lights also. This tells us that God did not create the rest of the heavens with an intent to have it inhabited. Earth was the first, main and most important or central creation (in importance, not in location). All else was created for the earth and us. There are no aliens on other planets. We are God’s first and foremost creation for whom the universe exists. We (by our sins and redemption) determine what happens to the entire universe. By our sin the entire universe came under the curse. By our redemption by Christ at the end of time, the curse will be lifted. An entirely new heavens and earth will be created at the end of the millennium on this planet. We are the only creation of this kind. We are the ones God created for fellowship with Him. There is no other creation on other planets. It would not fit with God’s plan as laid out in the Scriptures. Everything in the universe exists for our pleasure and purpose. We are not just another planet He created. The universe was created around this planet. To believe in aliens negates everything the Bible teaches from beginning to end. Alien manifestations are demons, fallen angels, or nephilim masquerading for purposes of deception to lead people from God (and to set up an end time delusion).

When God says “and it was so” He is saying that it happened exactly the way you are reading it. That it is not to be re-interpreted or changed, that the way He said it happened is the way it happened.

6) “And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day” - The sun was created to be the chief light and warmth giver. It was put at the exact distance from the earth so as to not burn or freeze it. The solar system’s order was set into motion here. Our orbiting the sun creates the seasons and allows us to view different constellations. At this time the entire solar system would have been fashioned with the other planets orbiting the sun also. Something that is not immediately known at this point, but becomes more evident as one studies the Scriptures, is with whom the sun is associated. At the beginning of Chapter 2 it says, “And the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.” We know that the heavens and the earth encompass everything that was made. What is the meaning of “all the host of them?" Some interpret this to simply mean all the vegetation, animals and Adam and Eve. If one looks at the Hebrew though, there is more meaning to it than this. It is the Hebrew word “tsaba” or (in the feminine form) "tseba'ah". It is a word which in other texts means to mass or assemble an army for war. The word used here literally means a mass of persons, in the military sense such as an army which is organized for war. Adam and Eve did not constitute a mass of persons and they certainly weren’t a military army. Whenever the word “host” is used in Scripture it is in connection with a mass of people that are acting as an army, and when referring to men, generally is connected with the battles fought. e.g. the captain of the host.

We know that angels were created to operate in the sphere of this universe. Their prime directive, as it were, is found in Heb. 1:14 - ministers to the heirs of salvation. They act as guards or bodyguards, Ps. 91:11, protectors - Dan. 6:22, rescuers - Acts 12:7, carry out judgment - Gen. 19:3, Matt. 13:41-42, messengers from God to man - Dan. 10:12, Luke 1:13,28; comforters - Gen. 21:17, territorial protectors - Dan. 10:13, 12:1, keepers or overseers of various elements of nature - Rev. 7:1, and they are associated with stars or keepers of them, Deut. 4:19, Judg. 5:30, Job 38:7, Dan. 8:10, Rev. 1:20, 12:4. In the last cases in Revelation, angels are referred to as stars.

Scripture also refers to angels as the host of heaven. Deut. 4:14-19, 1 Kings 22:19, 2 Chron. 18:18, Luke 2:13. So to call them "the host" is a common way of referring to them. It makes sense, since they are an army for God. They do battle with demon/fallen angels on our behalf. Daniel 10:12-14.

Since we know that this verse (Gen 2:1) is talking about a host that is an army of persons, we are left with the dilemma of who they are. Since they aren’t human (only Adam and Eve existed at that point), the natural conclusion is that they are the angels. And there are Scriptures to back this up. Neh. 9:6 divides God’s creation into the following categories: the heavens, the heaven of heavens with their host (the angels/stars) the earth and all that pertains to the earth (vegetation, animals, and man), the seas and all the life in them. It also adds that the host of heaven worships the Lord. This clearly puts the creation of angels in the creation week as this is what this verse is describing. It mentions the heavens (the initial creation of space-time-matter), the creation of the heavens and their host (stars and angels), the earth (and its inhabitants and vegetation), and the seas with its life. All of creation is contained in those four things. Job 38:4-7 says that the angels (morning stars) shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were laid, which would put their creation sometime during the first few days.

Since the Scriptures show that angels have jobs of overseeing people, nations, and nature, it is reasonable to believe that when they are called stars, it is because every star has an angel overseer that keeps it under control. This indicates that when the stars were created, the host were assigned to them. So now we have more evidence as to when the angels were created. This is important in that we have to consider Satan’s original role in creation. His name is Lucifer or light-bearer. He was second to God as far as importance goes. What in the universe is as important to earth as the light-bearer for the earth or the sun? The sun is the source of life for earth. Without it everything would die. It gives light and warmth. It is the center of our solar system. As the overseer of this body, Satan would be the most important person as far as earth is concerned, hence his pride. He saw himself as the ruler of earth (the sun does rule the day) and when God turned the ownership of earth over to Adam, he was probably furious. That Satan did not fall until after Adam was created is evident in that after creation was finished, God said everything was good (we will get to that verse shortly) and He rested for the day. Satan had to have fallen after that, probably soon after God told Adam he had dominion. We know from Ez. 28 that Satan walked in Eden in his splendor or unfallen state, so his fall did not happen before the end of creation week. By getting Adam to sin, the dominion of the earth was forfeit over to Satan. He now really was the Prince and power of the air. (Not only the power in the sense that he has actual power, but the sun also gives us power - solar power.) This is why God especially hates the worship of the sun by pagans. And it explains why Satan has them worship that particular body. Of all the pagan symbols, the sun seems to reign supreme, and for good reason. It represents Satan, because he is its overseer. That Satan is in charge of the sun and now has ownership of planet earth is crucial to understand, as without this knowledge, sections of Revelation are not nearly as understandable. It all hinges on this knowledge. This is why it is important to begin our study of the end times here in Genesis.

7) “and the lesser light to rule the night” - the moon was created to be a reflective light. There was a reason for this. We didn’t need another brilliant light or heat source as the sun was sufficient for earth’s needs. What was needed was a much more mellow light source for the night. Reflective light works nicely for that. Plus the orbit of the moon around the earth creates the phases of the moon which are important for marking time, as well as controlling the tides. When God gave the Israelites the laws, the New Moon was an extremely important sign to watch for to mark their months and celebrations. Incidentally, there are reasons to believe that initially the earth was in a different orbit and the moon took exactly 30 days to orbit the earth and the earth took exactly 360 days to orbit the sun. More on this much later.

[Addendum 1/8/11. When studying and posting about Revelation, and studying how Islam fits into the end times, it came to my attention that Allah was originally known as the moon god. That is the symbol they use - the crescent moon. Now it is easy to see why Allah plays such an important roll in the scheme of things. He is a reflection of the sun's "god".]

8) “he made the stars also” - God does not seem to place great importance upon them as compared to the earth or even the sun and moon. Another indication that they are uninhabited. They are also more simple in their make-up compared to the earth. Mainly balls of gases - hydrogen and helium for example. A very interesting piece of information is the work that has been done lately involving the “music of the spheres”. Kepler had suggested that the planets give off musical notes. All celestial bodies vibrate. Musical tones are simply regular vibrations. Scientists started measuring and recording these vibrations and indeed it is true. The planets and stars do give off musical notes. In fact as the planets make their orbits and their vibrations change with their wobbling, they produce a melody. There have been actual tape recordings made of this “music” which I will try at some point to tag along to this blog so that it can be heard. Missionaries in Alaska have said that there are times when they believe they can hear musical notes. There is a field in the sky up there made of ice crystals. This may act as a radio transmitter. The hydrogen canopy in its crystalline form would have acted as a crystal radio antenna and it is quite possible that in the mornings when the sun was rising, the vibrations hitting the canopy would have been audible and thus people would have heard the morning stars singing. God does tell us that all of creation praises Him, now we know scientifically that the very stars and planets sing His praises.

9) “And 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 evening and the morning were the fourth day. - It is reiterated as to what the purpose of the lights are. Perhaps God knew that in our day, there would be much speculation and belief that there is life on other planets, and He wanted to make sure we understood exactly what their purpose is. God again declares that all is good and perfect and untainted by sin. The fourth 24 hour period has elapsed.