By Gary Ray Branscome
The First
Day
Holy
Scripture describes the first day in these words, “In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and empty; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon 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.
And God called the light Day, and called the darkness Night. And the evening
and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:1-5).
The
expression “in the beginning” refers back to the moment this world began to
exist. There was no “beginning” before that moment, because God does not have a
beginning. And, there was no pre-existing matter before that moment, because
nothing outside of God existed. The words, “God separated the light from the
darkness,” tell us that when God created light He caused it to shine on one
side of the earth, so that there was an, “evening” and “morning”. And, God
specifically tells us that “the evening [dark] and the morning [light] were the
first day,” because He wants us to know that the first day was the same kind of
day as any other day with an evening and morning.
Note: The words, “He that descended is the same
also that ascended up far above all heavens,” describe the dwelling place
of God as being “far above” what was created on the first day (Ephesians 4:10).
As it is written, “Lord… Before you brought the mountains into existence, or
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are
God” (Psalm 90:1-2).
The
Second Day
Holy
Scripture describes the second day in these words, “And God said, Let there be an open expanse in the midst of the waters, and
let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse, and
separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters above the
expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And the evening and
the morning were the second day” (Genesis 1:6-8).
Moses
describes the expanse above the earth in two ways. When he writes, “Let
birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven,” he is describing
the lower expanse as it appears during the day (Genesis
The Third
Day
Holy
Scripture describes the third day in these words, “And God said, Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one
place, and let dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas: and God saw
that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring
forth grass, plants yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its
kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth
brought forth grass, and plants yielding seed after their own kind, and trees
bearing fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind: and God saw that it
was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day” (Genesis
1:9-13).
The words, “let dry land appear,” tell us that the entire
earth was originally under water. All of that water rushing off of the earth in
just one day would have stirred up a lot of sediment, and that sediment may
account for those layers of the earth’s crust that do not contain any fossils —
there could not be any fossils at that time because living things had not yet
been created. The words, “Let the earth bring forth,” are not saying
that plants just appeared, but that they “sprouted forth,” growing very
rapidly. In fact, on the very day they were created they were “yielding seed,”
and “bearing fruit”.
The
Fourth Day
Holy
Scripture describes the fourth day in these words, “And God said, Let there
be lights in the expanse of the heaven to separate the day from the night; and
let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them
be lights in the expanse 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
expanse 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” (Genesis
The
words, “He made the stars… to give light upon the earth,” tell us that
when God created the stars He created the light from the stars. And,
because God wanted that light to accurately reveal the stars He had created,
Adam and Eve would have seen the stars exactly as they were at that time.
The Bible plainly tells us that God created both the
earth and light before He created the sun, and all of the actual data agrees
with what the Bible says. Foolish men may claim that the earth was originally a
molten blob, but the earth’s continents rest on granite, and granite only forms
in the presence of water. In fact, if granite is melted it reforms as rhyolite. Furthermore, the earth’s granite contains trillions
of microscopic radiohalos caused by the breakdown of
polonium 218. Since polonium 218 atoms break down in less than three minutes
there is no way that granite could have formed slowly. It had to be hard within
three minutes of the time it formed or the radiohalos
would not be there. To quote Dr. John Theodore Mueller, “We know so little
concerning astronomical data that it is both foolish and unscientific to
supplement, correct, or criticize Scripture on the basis of human speculative
systems.” (“Christian Dogmatics,” page 183) The
opinions of men may contradict what the Bible says, but the facts never do.
The Fifth
Day
Holy
Scripture describes the fifth day in these words, “And God said, Let the waters team with living creatures that have life, and
let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven. And God
created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters
brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after its
kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,
and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the
fifth day” (Genesis
Not
only did God create the whales and birds before He created the land dwelling
animals, He created them all in one day, a day that had an evening and a
morning. Furthermore, the words, “God saw that it was good,” tell us
that His creative process did not involve suffering and death — because
suffering and death are evils, and what is evil can never be called good. (See
Deut. 31:17) The words, “Sin entered the world by one man, and death by sin,”
tell us that suffering and death is in the world because of man’s sin, not
because God made it that way (Romans
The Sixth
Day
Holy
Scripture describes the sixth day in these words, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind,
cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it
was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that
creeps upon the earth after its kind: and God saw that it was good. And God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle,
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male
and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And God said,
Behold, I have given you every seed bearing plant, that is upon the face of all
the earth, and every tree, with seed in its fruit; to be your food. And to all
the animals of the earth, and to all the birds of the air, and to every living
creature that creeps upon the earth, I have given every green plant for food:
and it was so. And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was
very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis
Scripture then focuses on the creation of man with
the words, “And the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
soul… And the LORD God caused a
deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and
filled up its place with flesh; And out of the rib, which the LORD God had
taken from the man, He made a woman, and brought her to the man“ (Genesis
2:7,21,22).
When
the Bible describes man as being made of clay, such as when it says, “O
LORD, you are our father; we are the clay, and you are our potter,” it is
using a metaphor (Isaiah 64:8). However, whenever the Bible describes what we
are made of without using a figure of speech, it uses the word “dust”. The word
“dust,” in the Hebrew language, denotes the smoke-like wisps of dust stirred up
by the feet when walking on a dry dirt road. Since many individual particles of
that smoke-like dust are too small to be seen without magnification, if we had
to translate the word, “molecules” into ancient Hebrew, we would translate it
as “dust”. Understood that way, the words of Genesis 2:7 are telling us that, “The
LORD God formed man from the molecules of the earth,” and the words, “Let
the earth bring forth living creatures,” could be understood as telling us that
God created land animals from the molecules of the earth (Gen. 1:24). That has
led some to wonder if all matter was created on the first day, and everything
else, including the sun, moon and stars, then created from that matter. But,
that is speculation, not something the Bible says.
The
words, “The LORD God… breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul,” tell us that man consists of two parts, body and
soul (Gen. 2:7). Some regard spirit as a third part (Compare 1Thess.
God’s
words to Adam, after he sinned, “Cursed is the ground for your sake… Thorns
also and thistles will it bring forth to you,” tell us that animals and
plants which are harmful to man only became so after the fall (Genesis
The
fall of man is closely related to the creation account. And, the fall of man,
along with the results of that fall, is the reason Christ came into the world.
For that reason the Biblical record of creation and the fall lies at the very
heart of the Gospel. For, “Just as sin entered the world by one man, and
death by sin… even so through the righteousness of one the free gift abounds to
all men bringing justification and life” (Romans 5:12,18). I am not saying
that a person cannot be saved unless he believes that God created the world in
six days, but I am saying that rejection of what the Bible says about
creation is inconsistent with faith in Christ, and destructive to faith. And,
if it does not destroy a person’s faith, it is only because his thinking is
inconsistent. That is why Jesus said, “Had you believed Moses, you would
have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe what he wrote,
how will you believe my words?” (John 5:46-47).
The
words, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,” tell us
that those who are truly Christ’s disciples will not reject what His Word says,
look outside of that Word for the truth about Creation, or interpret His Word
in the light of ideas that come from outside of His Word (John 8:30). The
words, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,”
and the words, “Those who know God accept what we say,” tell us that
Christ’s sheep will accept what the Bible says (John