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GENESIS-Segment 2:
Chapter 1 Verses 3-19

All scripture is from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. Before beginning this study, I suggest you pray and ask God to guide you through this study. I also suggest that you do you own study of this material in order to ensure its accuracy.
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Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines it simply as a "repetition of conjunctions in rapid succession."

In other words, each clause beginning with "and" will stand on its own, with emphasis. But no one is so important that it overshadows the other. They are of equal importance. God created the world and did it well and all of His creation is important and very good (notice how I used polysyndeton in this sentence).

Notice in verse 3 that God created only light. The sun, moon, and stars are not mentioned. God is light, so this light was not new to God. But I don't believe, and this is my opinion, that flesh eyes could behold the light of God unshielded. I base this on several happenings in the Bible.

Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 1:28, could not stand on his feet when he beheld the shekina glory of God. He was unable to stand until the Spirit entered him and set him on his feet. The indwelling of the Spirit allowed him to look upon God Himself. When Isaiah beheld Yehovah, he cried that he was a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5). He was terrified until one of the Seraphs touched him with a live coal from the altar of God. When John saw the Living Christ in Revelation 1:17, he fell down as dead. He was unable to function until Jesus spoke to him. They all beheld the glory of God and were not able to function until a supernatural action was performed. For these reasons, I believe the light or glory of God cannot be beheld in the flesh without supernatural help. The light God created on that first day was light that we could look upon in the flesh.

Light is not only a substance we can see, it is also synonymous with wisdom and knowledge (see Daniel 5:14 for an example of this). Light is used of the righteousness of God (for example, Isaiah 2:5). Proverbs tells us that Wisdom was with God in the beginning (Proverbs 8:22-30). Light is also applied to the Word of God. His Word "is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path," (Psalm 119:105).

So light here refers not only to visible light, but also to the glory of God, to God's righteousness, to wisdom, to knowledge, and to God's Word. There are several other things that light symbolizes. A Biblical word study of 'light' will reveal other meanings.

The Hebrew word for "good" is towb and it means the best possible. Its root can be used to mean joy. Therefore, it implies that God looked on the light with joy.

Light and darkness don't mix. Wherever there is light, there is no darkness. The same is true of the righteousness. In a completely darkened room like a darkroom or a cavern, it is pitch black. But even the light of a luminous watch dial will provide enough light to see slightly. I have experienced this myself. I was able to see the outline of my hand in front of my face when the lights were switched off in the Florida Caverns. The light from my watch allowed me to see that outline. Darkness flees light.

Righteousness cannot mix with evil. So God separated the light from darkness. If He had not, there would be no darkness because light overcomes darkness. In the same way, we are to separate ourselves from evil. For examples of Biblical instructions to separate from evil, see Psalm 37:27 and 1 Thessalonians 5:22. Just as darkness cannot exist in the light, God is righteous and evil cannot exist in His presence. That is why we cannot go into His presence with sin upon us. We must be washed in Jesus' blood first.

The Hebrew for night islahil, which means a twisting away of the light, figuratively, it means adversity. The word for day is yom. It has many meanings, as it does in English. Examples are a twenty for hour day, an indefinite period of time, and the time of light. We Christians are people of the day while Satan, fallen angels, and Satan's children are creatures of the night. The Bible uses analogies between creatures of the night and the devil.

The day belongs to people of the light, the night belongs to those of the dark, like Satan. When prophecy is given concerning God's people, it is always given in days; when it concerns Satan or his demons or his people, it is always given in months, which are time units based on the lunar cycle, which happens at night. Here are some examples: Rev. 2:10, where Christians who remain faithful tested 10 days. In Rev. 11:3, The two Witnesses prophecy for 1260 days. In Rev. 9:5, Locusts come out of the abyss and torment men for 5 months. In Rev. 13:5, the beast speaks blasphemies for 42 months.

"And the evening and the morning were the first day." This is a good place to discuss the question, were the days of creation literal, 24-hour days, or were they long periods of time?

Here are reasons for them being 24-hour days: The Israelites reckoned their days from sundown to sundown. When evening begins and the sun goes down, a new day begins. The language of scripture carries forth this thought by stating that evening came and then morning came, indicating one day. God spoke and creation happened. There is no reason to doubt that He could have created all in six twenty four-hour days. He could have done so in an instant. Why didn't he? Because seven is a number that God uses to signify divine perfection and completion. God uses sevens intricately in his written Word. For more on this subject, see the works of Ivan Panin. There are seventy periods of seven in Daniel's prophecy. There are seven dispensations. There are seven days in the week. God used seven so that man could see His handiwork in creation.

Here are reasons for them being periods of time: Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years with us. The psalmist, Moses (yes, Moses wrote a psalm included in the book of Psalms), tells us the same thing in Psalm 90:4. There is no reason to believe that God did not create the world in seven thousand years. That would also fit the scripture.

The use of the phrase "And the evening and the morning were the ____ day" lead me to state that these days could not have been long, indefinite time periods, but must have been regular 24 hour days from sunset to sunset, one complete revolution of the earth on its axis. As stated in the last study, My opinion is that the earth may well be millions of years old, but this present creation is six to fifteen thousand years old. The earth itself, which became waste and void, may be much older.

One theory I cannot support is the worldly theory that God created the earth eons and eons ago and then set Darwinian evolution in motion. Surely, God could have done so had He wanted to, but the evidence just does not support this hypothesis. There is no real evidence that any species evolved into another. Yes, there are a few pieces of bone that were built up into possible missing links, but those in themselves are flimsy evidence. For example, evolutionary scientists from a single tooth deduced one complete skull and then a complete skeleton. This was supposed to be a missing link. That is flimsy evidence. No, the evidence is that God created all that we see now. By the way, science, that is true science, is beginning to abandon the old theory of evolution in favor of a created earth. The preponderance of the evidence supports it.

There can be no doubt about what this says. The translation is accurate and precise. God made the firmament (expanse), which is the sky or atmosphere, and placed in between the waters and divided the waters from one another. The problem is what were these waters? The next verse sheds more light on this.

OK. So there were waters above the sky and below the sky. It is easy to picture waters below the sky. Just go to the seashore and have a look. The sea is a body of water under the sky. But what of the waters above the sky? Well, the Bible assumes we know what is being said. It is simple, there was water surrounding the earth outside the atmosphere. The waters could have been liquid, but common sense and science tell us that is not correct. So the waters must have been in vapor form. While there is water vapor IN the atmosphere, the Bible says these water vapors were ABOVE the atmosphere. It is silent on this subject other than this verse. In my opinion, what the Bible says is literally true, that God placed a great water vapor canopy around the atmosphere which is no longer there. Why can only be opined. Some say that this is why the people before the flood lived such long lives--that the water vapor canopy shielded harmful radiation from the earth causing longevity.

I can't say why, but the effects are known. It is known that tropical conditions existed on the earth in much greater latitudes than they currently do. The remains of tropical plants are found in England, Iceland, and the tundra. The effect of a canopy of water vapor would be to stabilize the temperatures of the earth and protect it from extremes, in effect, making it tropical and subtropical throughout.

What is this Heaven? Should it have been capitalized? Heaven (the proper name - with a capital H) is physically where God is (see Revelation 21). Here we are talking about the firmament or sky. The Hebrew root word for heaven (or heavens) is shamayim. James Strong defines the word as lofty, or the sky. He also says that it includes the sky or atmosphere surrounding the earth as well as inner and outer space. So the entire universe is in the firmament. It should be noted, though, that when God is in Heaven, the same Hebrew root word, shamayim is used (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:39). The word, shamayim, is plural but it is used in both a singular and a plural sense. In answer to the question posed in this paragraph, it really does not matter. Either way is acceptable.

Here we have the word "earth" used to mean a portion of the planet, and not the whole thing. The Hebrew word for earth, 'erets, can mean the whole earth or any portion of it. It can also mean common, country, field, ground, land, nations, way, wilderness, and world. It is translated each of those ways in the KJV.

I don't believe the word "earth" should be capitalized here because as dry land it is only a part of the planet. When the word is capitalized, it refers to the entire planet. The use of the word here is the same as if it was called dirt or ground as in this sentence: "He dug for worms in the earth."

The seas were separated from the dry land, and they still are. Here again is the word towb or good. God looked upon it with joy.

These verses directly refute the Darwinian Theory of Evolution. The verse says let the plants of the earth bring forth seed, and let them reproduce their own kind according to the seed that is in them. And let them do it on the earth. The Bible makes it clear that life on earth did not start from primordial soup and through natural selection the species were produced. No it says God created as He wanted them and they are only to reproduce themselves, not evolve into another species.

Why is Evolution being taught to our children as fact? Because Satan wants to deceive the nations to believe that there is no God. What better way than to refute what God says in His word? This is just like the serpent deceiving the woman in the garden. He told her that what God had said was not true. He is now telling the world that what God says about creation is not true, therefore, there must be no God. Watch out for his lies; he is very crafty.

The word here for tree is 'ets. It comes from the root word, 'atsah, which is one transliteration out of several used for the single Hebrew word, The letter names are Heth ( soft h or uh), Tsadeq (ts or tz), 'Ayin (guttural soft hiss). Remember to read them right to left ('Ayin first). I use this example to let you know that the same word is transliterated 'atsah, 'ahtash, 'atseh, and 'etsah, and could also be pronounced 'ets. Each transliteration has a different meaning assigned to it in English. Some of these meanings are: to close or fasten, the human spine and body, trees, timber, prudence, advice, and counsel. It is interesting to note these things. The one I want you to remember is the spine and body. Remember this because in various places in the Bible, the Father, the Son, men, and Satan are symbolically referred to as trees.

Day three is done.

Here the Bible is talking about stars, actually the zodiac. NOW DON'T SURF OUT OF HERE. I am not into astrology. I am not talking about the zodiac used by astrologers to predict the future and whatever else they do. The word zodiac simply means the circle of stars and constellations around the earth. There is no evil there. Here, we are talking about the zodiac as designed by God for signs (as stated in verse 14). For a study of the zodiac as designed by God, read E. Raymond Capt's The Glory of the Stars. You can get a copy here. E.W. Bullinger also wrote a book on the subject, The Witness of the Stars. The book is currently available on line in its entirety at Philologos Online Religious Books.

Note that I am not a dispensationalist and Bullinger was. I disagree with him on that subject but there is value in reading his writings.

Bullinger and Capt both hold that the zodiac provided signs before the Word of God was written down. In fact, they say, God's word is contained in the stars. The zodiac begins with Virgo, the Virgin (Mary), and ends with Leo the Lion (Jesus) standing over a defeated Hydra, the serpent. The entire purpose of God is written in the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The sun, moon, and stars are given for signs and seasons. Indeed one can tell the season by looking at the positions of the constellations. As for years, there is what is called in Astronomy the precession of the equinoxes. If you read about the positions of certain stars in history, you can take those positions and use the precession of the equinoxes to determine the year that history was written.

Psalm 19 talks about the stars. Here is the structure of Psalm 19. It is alternation:

A | 1-4-. The Heavens

B | -4-6. "In Them" the Sun

A | 7-10. The Scriptures

B | 11 -14 "In Them" Thy Servant

Psalm 19:

The great lights are the sun and moon. The word for lights in this verse and in verses 14 and 15, is different from the word used in verse 3. There it was just light. Here it means luminous bodies. As mentioned before, prophecy about Satan is given in months (lunar time) and prophecy for God's children is given in days (solar time). Again it is stated that God divided the light from the darkness.

Four is the number of the Earth: the four seasons, the four winds, the four quarters, the four elements (earth, wind, fire, and water), the fourth body (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth), etc.

Segment three will deal with flesh, all flesh.

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