Creating The Infrastructure For Life

Genesis 1:3-13

God initially created matter, the elements and physical things we see and know. Everything was shrouded in darkness and only God had any power to move. He was making creation for his enjoyment, and as initially created, offered little pleasure.

“And 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. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:3-5)

Light is a form of energy, which is converted to other forms to make things happen here on earth. The energy from light produces heat to cause the wind to blow, to enable plants to grow, and to enable us to live. Without light, life as we know it was not possible, despite the abundance of matter. The first step after creating matter was the creation of light. Had it not come first, no life was possible.

Along with the light, we find time created. As humans’ everything we know functions in a framework of time. Our lives have a definite time sequence that we cannot alter. According to II Peter 3:8, God is not bound by that limit of time. “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” As a result, he describes himself as “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” in Isaiah 46:10. Time is his invention, but it controls everything on earth and in our universe. The mention of the evening and morning as the first day seems to imply the earth rotating.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6-8)

The second day God spoke, causing gravitational attraction and centripetal force to cause stratification of the atmosphere and solid materials, leaving water vapor, or clouds above the atmosphere most living things require. It would appear that prior to this time everything was just floating around in space in a totally disorganized fashion. The power of gravity and the rotation of the earth would separate the different constituent materials and shape the earth into the globe we know today. In the old Hebrew, the atmosphere and space were all referred to as heaven, with the atmosphere sometimes called the first heaven, the stratosphere was the second, and so forth, for a total of seven.

Research indicates that the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere before the flood, the cloud layer, was much greater than it is today, and the separation was necessary for air breathing animals to survive. At the same time, the concentration of oxygen in the water would have caused damage to the gills of sea animals. I realize it is just a fanciful picture but I imagine God carefully increasing the speed of the earth’s rotation to achieve exactly the effect he desired. Little detail is presented regarding these first days, but they are essential for creation to work properly, and they had to be done before life could be introduced. Evolutionary theory tends to overlook these critical elements. The sequence of events described I Genesis is crucial for life to survive.

“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. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:9-10)

The swirling and resulting stratification of adjusting the world’s rotation would have resulted in all the soil settling to the bottom, with at layer of water over it all, and that seems to be what is described. God now spoke causing the dry land to appear. There is speculation that there was originally just one vast continent. The shapes of the various land masses and continental drift seem to support this theory., fitting rather closely together. Observing it, God saw that it was good. This reminds me of the feeling of satisfaction I have in handling a part I have made that turned out as I intended.

“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.” (Genesis 1:11-13)

Once the dry land appeared, everything necessary for plant life was available, and God wasted not time making them. Each plant brought forth after it’s own kind. The idea of theistic evolution, that God started life and used evolution to produce the variety is almost totally excluded by these statements. Only by ignoring or limiting them can we take such a position.

Those who hold the Gap theory believe that the seeds for the plants were already present and point to the statement about the earth bringing forth the plants whose seed is in itself on the earth for support. Since the same wording is used in Genesis 1:24, about the animals, it is a questionable interpretation at best.