Compare versions, study bible search, cross reference verses & post List of Bible Translations & Parallel Versions to Compare with Strong's Numbers Previous Biblical Book Top of Online Bible Translations List & Parallel Bibles to In Genesis Isn't it possible that in saying darkness was over the face of the " deep".
Table of contents
- David Guzik :: Study Guide for Genesis 1
- The Doctrinal Value of the First Chapters of Genesis by R. A. Torrey
- Treasury Of Scripture Knowledge
- Select a book of the Bible
Ruth 1 Ruth 2 Ruth 3 Ruth 4. Lamentations 1 Lamentations 2 Lamentations 3 Lamentations 4 Lamentations 5. Joel 1 Joel 2 Joel 3. Jonah 1 Jonah 2 Jonah 3 Jonah 4. Nahum 1 Nahum 2 Nahum 3. Habakkuk 1 Habakkuk 2 Habakkuk 3. Zephaniah 1 Zephaniah 2 Zephaniah 3. Haggai 1 Haggai 2.
Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting Psalm Some are troubled by the questions, "Where did God come from? This is demonstrated in several passages of Scripture. LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Edwin Orr used a memorable definition of God, which was thoroughly Biblical: God is the only infinite, eternal, and unchangable spirit, the perfect being in whom all things begin, and continue, and end. God was in three Persons before the beginning, and the Persons shared a relationship of love and fellowship: Before the beginning, there was an eternal purpose in the heart of God Ephesians 3: God's purpose was to "resolve" or "sum up" all things in Jesus, as if Jesus Himself were the answer to a great and complex problem God wrote out on the "blackboard" of the universe.
Before the beginning, God had a specific plan to fulfill this eternal purpose, with many different aspects revealed to us:. The mission of Jesus was foreordained before the foundation of the world: He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.
Eternal life was promised before time began: The mystery of the gospel the cross was foreordained before the ages: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory. The grace given unto us was given before the world began: Believers in Jesus Christ were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world: At some time before the beginning, God created the angels, because they witnessed the creation of the heavens and the earth Job The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
David Guzik :: Study Guide for Genesis 1
The earth was without form, and void: Some translate the idea in this verse as the earth became without form and void. Their thinking is the earth was originally created not without form and void , but it became without form and void through the destructive work of Satan. However, this is not the plain grammatical sense of the ancient Hebrew. Those who follow this idea look to Isaiah Based on these ideas, some have advanced what has been called the "Gap Theory.
Most "Gap Theory" adherents use the theory to explain the fossil record, assigning old and extinct fossils to this indefinite gap. Whatever merit the gap theory may have, it cannot explain the extinction and fossilization of ancient animals. The Bible says plainly death came by Adam Romans 5: Darkness was on the face of the deep: This may describe a sense of resistance to the moving of the Holy Spirit on the earth.
Some speculate this was because Satan was cast down to the earth Isaiah Leupold on the Spirit of God was hovering: The verb reappears in Deuteronomy When God created the earth, He quite likely built an "old" earth, creating things in the midst of a time sequence, with age "built in. For example, Adam was already of mature age when he was created; there was age "built in.
Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. Let there be light: The first step from chaos to order is to bring light. This is also the way God works in our life. Paul speaks about the light brought to us by the gospel: But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
God did not have to fashion light with His hands. It was enough for God to merely speak the words, " Light be! Because God created things by speaking them into existence, some have said we can operate on the same principle, speaking things into existence by faith. This is based on a wrong understanding of Hebrews Instead, it says it is by faith we understand God created the world. Also, some have a wrong understanding of Mark But the words Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God" cannot mean this, because faith, as Hebrews What does God "hope" for?
What does He not see? An omnipotent, omniscient Being certainly does not need faith. He is the object of faith. Genesis tells us that light, day, and night each existed before the sun and the moon were created on the fourth day Genesis 1: This shows us that light is more than a physical substance; it also has a supernatural aspect. In the new heavens and the new earth, there won't be any sun or moon. God Himself will be the light Revelation The darkness God sent upon the Egyptians Exodus This demonstrates a certain supernatural element, which can be related to light and darkness.
So the evening and the morning were the first day: Many wonder if this was a literal day in the sense we think of a day or if it was a geological age. Some say that God created the world in six days, and others say He created it in six vast geological ages. Though there is disagreement among Christians on this, the most plain and simple meaning of the text is that He created in six days as we think of days.
Does He trade in inaccuracies, however edifying? The question hinges on the proper use of language. Reputable dictionaries … know nothing of this notion. Hebrew dictionaries are our primary source of reliable information concerning Hebrew words. God makes an atmospheric division. Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. Let there be a firmament: The waters of the land are separated from the water vapor in the sky. The waters which were above the firmament: Here, the Bible recognizes the existence of water vapor in the sky. It would serve as a global greenhouse, maintaining an essentially uniformly pleasant temperature all over the world.
Without great temperature variations, there would be no significant winds, and the water-rain cycle could not form. There would be no rain as we know it today. There would be lush, tropical-like vegetation, all over the world, fed not by rain, but by a rich evaporation and condensation cycle, resulting in heavy dew or ground-fog.
The vapor blanket would filter out ultraviolet radiation, cosmic rays, and other destructive energies bombarding the planet. These are known to be the cause of mutations, which decrease human longevity. Human and animal life spans would be greatly increased. A vapor blanket would provide the necessary reservoir for a potential worldwide flood.
Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the 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. Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.
The Doctrinal Value of the First Chapters of Genesis by R. A. Torrey
And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. So the evening and the morning were the third day. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together: The idea is that before this, the earth was covered with water.
Now the waters are gathered together into one place , and dry land appears. Let the earth bring forth grass: All this happened before the creation of the Sun the fourth day of creation, Genesis 1: This means the plants must have had sufficient nourishment because of the light God had created before the sun and the moon. Those who propose these days of creation were not literal days, but successive "ages" of slow, evolutionary development have a real problem here.
It is hard to explain how plants and all vegetation could grow and thrive eons before the sun and the moon. No modern evolutionist would argue plant life is older than the sun or the moon, but this is what the Genesis record tells us. Many wonder how the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day when light including day and night was created on the first day.
Treasury Of Scripture Knowledge
Many have suggested the problem is solved by saying these heavenly bodies were created on the first day, but were not specifically visible, or not finally formed, until the fourth. But Revelation tells us of a coming day when we won't need the sun, moon, and stars any longer Revelation There's no reason why God couldn't have started creation in the same way He will end it. And it was so: This is the beginning of life on planet earth, directly created by God, not slowly evolving over millions of years.
Some scientists now say life on earth began when immense meteorites carrying amino acids impacted earth at a time when the sun was cooler and the earth was a watery ball covered with ice up to 1, feet thick. The idea is that a meteor hits the ice, breaks through, and "seeds" the water underneath with the building blocks of life, which assemble into an "organic soup. It takes more faith to believe this than to believe in Genesis.
The fossil evidence also demonstrates life exploded into existence on earth, instead of slowly evolving. The earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed … and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself: The plants were created not as seeds, but as full-grown plants each bearing seeds. They were thus created as mature plants, having the "appearance" of age.
The chicken really did come before the egg. According to its kind: This phrase appears ten times in Genesis chapter 1. It means God allows variation within a kind , but something of one kind will never develop into something of another kind. And God saw that it was good: God knows what is good. He is not some vague moral neutral. He knows what is good and organizes His creation to result in something good. God does not call the earth good until it has become habitable, a place where man can live.
Let the earth bring forth … every herb that yields seed … the herb that yields seed according to its kind … And God saw that it was good: Some use this passage to justify the use of drugs especially marijuana because grass and every herb came forth at God's command. But certainly, not every herb is good for every purpose.
Hemlock is natural, but not good. In fact, the use of drugs in this manner is nowhere approved and is always condemned in the Bible. The wrong use of drugs is often associated with sorcery and the occult. Sorcery is universally condemned in the Bible Exodus In both the Old and New Testaments, the word sorcery was connected with the making and taking of drugs. Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
Then God made two great lights: He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Let them be for signs and seasons: God made the sun and the moon - these lights in the firmament of the heavens to be for signs and seasons.
Since the beginning, man has used God's provision of the sun, moon, and stars to mark and measure time and direction. God set them in the firmament of the heavens: God knew exactly how far to set the sun from the earth. A few million miles more or less and life as we know it would be impossible. The intricate balance of our ecosystem argues strongly for the existence of a Creator. We live in a very complex world. Ginzberg quotes a Jewish legend connecting the movement of the sun to the praise of God as in Psalms And this song alone makes his motion possible. Therefore, when Joshua wanted to bid the sun stand still, he had to command him to be silent.
His song of praise hushed, the sun stood still. When God set the lights in the heavens to be for signs , it probably includes what we commonly call the zodiac, but was called by the ancient Hebrews the Mazzaroth Job Significantly, the sequence of the zodiac is the same in every language and culture, even if the specific names of the constellations change.
Also, we know the figures of the constellations suggested to us don't look like those things at all, and, they never did. Yet the names for the figures of the constellations are the same in all cultures. This points to a common, pre-Babel beginning for all these things, before the truth of the constellations was corrupted.
These prophets may be the stars themselves. Astrology is a satanic corruption of God's original "message in the stars," a message outlining His plan of redemption. Because astrology is a corruption, it is to be avoided always by man Isaiah He made the stars also: With all the other stars in our universe, we often wonder if there is life on other planets.
When you take into account all that is necessary for the sustenance of life as we know it, there are few planets able to support life. Taking into account factors such as our galaxy type, star location, star age, star mass, star color, distance from star, axis tilt, rotation period, surface gravity, tidal force, magnetic field, oxygen quantity in atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, and 20 other important factors, the probability of all 33 occurrences happening on any one planet is one in 10 to the 42 power.
The total number of possible planets in the universe is 10 to the 22 power. It might be wiser to spend the money cultivating intelligent life in Washington. Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures: We see the great variety of birds and sea creatures were created at the same time, not evolving slowly over millions of years.
Even though plant life was created before animal life, animal life was not created out of plant life. Among the diversity of animals, many share similar structures: This argues at least as persuasively for a common Designer as it does for a common life source. All life did not come from the same primordial cell, but it did all come from the same Designer. According to their kind: Again, all animal life is created according to its kind. God deliberately structured plenty of variation within a kind, but one "kind" does not become another. For example, structure among dogs is diverse.
The teacup poodle is very different from the Great Dane, but they are both dogs. However, they won't become mice, no matter how much breeding is done. Evolutionists often give convincing examples of microevolution , the variation of a kind within its kind, adapting to the environment. For example, the ratio of black to white peppered moths may increase when pollution makes it easier for dark moths to escape detection; or finches may develop different beaks in response to their distinctive environment. But the moths are still moths, and the finches are still finches.
There has been no change outside of the kind. The glorious Being of God comes forth without explanation, and without apology. It is a revelation of the one, personal, living, God. There is in the ancient philosophic cosmogony no trace of the idea of such a Being, still less of such a Creator, for all other systems began and ended with pantheistic, materialistic, or hylozoistic conceptions. The Divine Word stands unique in declaring the absolute idea of the living God, without attempt at demonstration. The spirituality, infinity, omnipotence, sanctity of the Divine Being, all in germ lie here.
The later and more fully revealed doctrine of the unity of God in the Trinity may be said to lie here in germ also, and the last and deepest revelation to be involved in first and foremost. The fact of God in the first of Genesis is not given as a deduction of reason or a philosophic generalization. It is a revelation.
It is a revelation of that primary truth which is received by the universal human mind as a truth that needs no proof, and is incapable of it, but which being received, is verified to the intelligent mind by an irresistible force not only with ontological and cosmological, but with teleological and moral arguments. Here we have in this first verse of Genesis, not only a postulate apart from Revelation, but three great truths which have constituted the glory of our religion.
One of the theories of modernism is that the law of evolution can be traced through the Bible in the development of the idea of God. The development of the idea of God? Is there in the Scriptures any real trace of the development of the idea of God? There is an expansive, and richer, and fuller revelation of the attributes and dealings and ways and workings of God; but not of the idea of God. The God of Genesis 1: God only is eternal. One can well believe the story of a Japanese thinker who took up a strange book, and with wonderment read the first sentence: That single sentence separates the Scriptures from the rest of human productions.
The wisest philosophy of the ancients, Platonic-Aristotelian or Gnostic, never reached the point that the world was created by God in the sense of absolute creation. In no cosmogony outside of the Bible is there a record of the idea that God created the heaven and the earth, as an effort of His will, and the fiat of His eternal, self-existent Personality.
Ex nihilo nihil fit , [Out of nothing, nothing comes-Ed. The highest point reached by their philosophical speculations was a kind of atomic theory; of cosmic atoms and germs and eggs possessed of some inexplicable forces of development, out of which the present cosmos was through long ages evolved.
Matter was almost universally believed to have existed from eternity. The Bible teaches that the universe was not causa sui [caused of itself-Ed. In glorious contrast to agnostic science with its lamentable creed, "I believe that behind and above and around the phenomena of matter and force remains the unsolved mystery of the universe," the Christian holds forth his triumphant solution, "I believe that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The first verse of the Bible is a proof that the Book is of God. And so with regard to the subsequent verses. Genesis is admittedly not a scientific history. It is a narrative for mankind to show that this world was made by God for the habitation of man, and was gradually being fitted for God's children. So in a series of successive creative developments from the formless chaos, containing in embryonic condition all elemental constituents, chemical and mechanical, air, earth, fire, and water, the sublime process is recorded, according to the Genesis narrative in the following order:.
Next we have in this sublime revelation the doctrinal foundation for the beginning of mankind. Man was created, not evolved. That is, he did not come from protoplasmic mud-mass, or sea ooze bathybian, or by descent from fish or frog, or horse, or ape; but at once, direct, full made, did man come forth from God. When you read what some writers, professedly religious, say about man and his bestial origin your shoulders unconsciously droop; your head hangs down; your heart feels sick.
Your self-respect has received a blow. When you read Genesis, your shoulders straighten, your chest emerges. You feel proud to be that thing that is called man.
- Ten Golden Rules for Good Health (Natures Best).
- A Christian Cougar.
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Up goes your heart, and up goes your head. The Bible stands openly against the evolutionary development of man, and his gradual ascent through indefinite aeons from the animal. Not against the idea of the development of the plans of the Creator in nature, or a variation of species by means of environment and processes of time. That is seen in Genesis, and throughout the Bible, and in this world. But the Bible does stand plainly against that garish theory that all species, vegetable and animal, have originated through evolution from lower forms through long natural processes.
The materialistic form of this theory to the Christian is most offensive. It practically substitutes an all-engendering protoplasmic call for the only and true God. But even the theistic supernaturalistic theory is opposed to the Bible and to Science for these reasons.
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Further, we have in this sublime revelation of Genesis the doctrinal foundation of: The unity of the human race. The fall of man. The plan of redemption. Finally, we have in Genesis 2 the doctrinal foundation of those great fundamentals, the necessity of labor, the Lord's Day of rest, the Divine ordinance of matrimony, and the home life of mankind. The weekly day of rest was provided for man by his God, and is planted in the very forefront of revelation as a Divine ordinance, and so also is marriage and the home.
Our Lord Jesus Christ endorses the Mosaic story of the creation of Adam and Eve, refers to it as the explanation of the Divine will regarding divorce, and sanctions by His infallible imprimatur that most momentous of ethical questions, monogamy. Thus the great elements of life as God intended it, the three universal factors of happy, healthy, helpful life, law, labor, love, are laid down in the beginning of God's Book. Three other remarkable features in the first chapters of Genesis deserve a brief reference.
In an age, therefore, when the critics are waxing bold in claiming settledness for the assured results of their hypothetic eccentricities, Christians should wax bolder in contending earnestly for the assured results of the revelation in the opening chapters of Genesis. The attempt of modernism to save the supernatural in the second part of the Bible by mythicalizing the supernatural in the first part, is as unwise as it is fatal. But if you believe not his writings, how shall you believe My words? Since the text and audio content provided by BLB represent a range of evangelical traditions, all of the ideas and principles conveyed in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry.
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We would therefore postulate the following propositions: The Book of Genesis has no doctrinal value if it is not authoritative. The Book of Genesis is not authoritative if it is not true. For if it is not history, it is not reliable; and if it is not revelation, it is not authoritative. The Book of Genesis is not true if it is not from God.