Genesis 1

Also read Isaiah 40:21-22; 25-26; 28-31. Job 38-40

Some Definitions

• Elohim- General God term. One true God.
• Yahweh- Establishes authority over all other deities (gods).
• Create- Not of human activity or design. Divine design.
• Heavens and Earth- Everything (Isaiah 44:24).
• Creation- Creating. Being created. God’s creating of the universe. Product of imagination. Art (Remember? We are God’s Magnum Opus. His greatest creation or work of art). Making, beginning, start, origin.
• Creator- Person who creates. God. Originator, author, architect, designer, framer, maker.
• Design- Plan (Jeremiah 29:11), purpose, intention.
• Image- Representation of an object. Statue. Appearance in a mirror. Likeness, reflection, impression, form, perception, double, copy. Just like a copy, we are a poor resemblance of our original (God). Verse 27- We are made in God’s image. 1 Corinthians 11:7-12- Thought this was very interesting: #1 We should not be ashamed, we are created in the image of the true God. #2 Man & Woman authority.
• Earth- Planet. Land and sea, distinct from sky. World. Earth should not be understood as land without further examination.
• Hover- Wait close at hand. Linger. God was waiting over his creation. The Message uses a parallel to a brooding bird. A brooding bird is a mother bird who has chicks and is very protective of her chicks.

———————————————————————————-~Find Some Answers~

Q1) What came first? Water, land or both? Even though it says God created the heavens and earth, this ‘earth’ does not mean land. ‘Land’ is not even mentioned until verse 9- “dry ground appears” (see Psalm 136:6). Verse 6 is already talking about separating the waters. Verse 2 says “hovering over the deep”. What is the deep?

Q2) According to Genesis 1, what is day? What is night? Day is when there is light. Night is darkness. What would 2am be considered? 5pm? 4am?

Q3) Evening came before morning? Now that we understand the difference between day and night in Genesis, this makes sense.

Q4) Was everything vegetarian or not? Why? The first mention of ‘food’ is in verse 29, “Then God said, ‘ I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.’”

Q5) What significance do the sun, moon and stars play? Verse 14 ‘separate the day from the night’ ‘ serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years’. Day- earth spins 1 full rotation around the sun. Month- the phases the moon is in. Seasons- the way the earth is tilted on its axis. Year- when the entire process repeats. What do all these have in common? -Based on earth & sun. Because all these were created, this completely destroys seeing them as sun, moon or star gods. They only govern time. Nothing else. These, as some might treat as gods, have a creator. God still has dominion over them and they are subjects to the Creator.

Q6) What defines a week? Only the Bible explains us having a 7 day week. How long was the full creation process? 6 days of creating and 1 day of rest (what could be recognized as the sabbath). There is no cosmic reasoning for separating the 7 days. The Bible is the only unit of measurement for the week.

Other Notes:

• Verse 1: The first 4 words- Our first step of faith. Simple verse, major controversy.
• Verse 2: Now! Almost as if, ‘Now that you know the first 11 words, you can read the rest of my (God’s) words. Isaiah 45:18- He formed the world for a reason. He already had us in mind.
• Verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31: Good and Very Good. When we were created God saw his creation no longer as ‘good’, now it was ‘very good’.
• Verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31: Evening came before morning? (As mentioned above).
• Verse 26: Already we see God as in the 3 in 1 (John 1:1-3). Also, see verse 2 (the Spirit of God).
• Verse 30: Everything was vegetarian. No animals were sacrificed yet. No need for a sacrifice. No need for blood to be spilled. No need for forgiveness or redemption.

The ‘God’ (Elohim) used in Genesis is not the same ‘God’ (Yahweh) that is used in other parts of the Old Testament and New Testament. Refer back to definitions. Elohim did not need to be called Yahweh. In the beginning there was only one, true God. God did not have to prove himself. He did not have anyone to be compared to. He did not have to compete with anyone to be The Great High King. He already was. There was no downsizing the terms to describe our Creator. How I used ‘The Great High King’, the same significance would be in me saying ‘The King’. The ‘God’ of Genesis 1 is the universal God. When kings would name things or persons, they were placing their authority and dominion over those subjects.

The Supremacy of Christ- Read Colossians 1:15-19. Myths about creation gods depict that when something was formed, it was a direct result of either a battle between the gods. Or when a god needed something, they would create it for their own benefit. Their creation was formed from destruction. However, our God did not need anything and no battle needed to be fought for us to be his reason for creating us. God has always been- Read Psalm 90:2 and John 1:1

Interesting….

One thing I forgot to mention: The number of stars is 10 to the 21st power that we know of. That is, there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. There are enough stars, for each person in the world to own 1.4 trillion stars. And we find new stars every week!!

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Tags: 1 corinthians 11, jeremiah 29 11, psalm 136