Creation Day 3
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2018 · 19 August 2018
Let us continue studying Genesis 1:9-13 in more detail so we can learn more about what God is willing to let us know, “And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.”
“11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.”
The Genesis account says that the eternal God created out of nothing, without preexisting material, the heavens and the earth, which simply means the universe. He created the universe as it is now, in a sequence of six solar days, the third day which we just read. He capped His creation, on the sixth day, by creating man in His own image; an intelligent being with personality, with self-consciousness and cognition.
This creation occurred in a period of one week of normal days, about 6000 or so years ago, and the entire creation was mature and aged at the instant of its creation. Death did not exist, nor any corrupting influence; and the creation was good. Death and corruption entered the creation for the first time at the Fall of Adam and Eve, which is recorded in Genesis 3. There was no evolutionary process because nothing died.
Later the surface of the earth was reshaped drastically by the great universal Flood, described in the book of Genesis. A flood which rearranged the earth cataclysmically, as water rose above the mountains, coming down from above and surging up from below the earth. As a result of that flood only eight people survived: Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, and the animals survived which were in the ark.
It’s hard for people to admit this because science for so long has reigned supreme in contemporary thinking. Evolution has become an absolute in our society, but it is coming apart at the seams. Based solely on the scientific arguments pro and con, many have been forced to conclude that scientific creationism is not only a viable theory, but that it has achieved superiority over the normative theory of biological evolution.
In practical terms, the past decade of intense activity by scientific creationists has left most evolutionist professors unwilling to debate the creationist professors. Too many of the evolutionists have been publicly humiliated in such debates by the weakness of their theory. Evolutionists have had to learn that evolution cannot stand up against creationism in any fair and impartial debate situation.
Experience will prove that the same is true for the age issue as well. Evolutionists’ beliefs regarding the origin and development of life cannot withstand the scrutiny of an informed opposition. And neither can evolutionists claim that the universe has existed for 10 to 20 billion years, and the earth for 4.5 billion years. To delay the collapse of public acceptance of such claims, evolutionist scientists avoid debates.
Evolutionists believe that for billions of years, sediment causing geological stratification has been building up. Now scientists have measured how regularly meteors shower the earth. If it took billions of years, that sediment should have within it meteors at specific intervals. But all literature failed to turn up one single meteorite anywhere in a geologic column. This “clock” indicates a young earth where all the meteors are on the top.
Philip Johnson has written a book called, “Darwin on Trial.” If you're interested in more scientific information, read that book; he describes abundant scientific evidence against evolution, as do many other writers. Now, that’s just sort of a little bit of an introductory tidbit about the science side of things. I want to mention one other thing that’s a biblical issue before we look at day three.
There is this question, when were angels created? They are not mentioned in Genesis 1. Well, no other text of Scripture, states specifically when angelic beings were created. What is definite is that they are creatures, and they did have a beginning. They are also immortal. Once created they live forever, but only the triune God is eternal, without beginning and without ending. Angels are created beings.
Now, some have suggested that they had to be created on the sixth day, because it was on the sixth day that God created man, and angels, according to Hebrews 1:14, were created to be ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who will be the heirs of salvation. And since they were created to serve humans, who receive salvation, therefore they would have been created along with humans on the sixth day.
But not all angels just minister to the saints. In fact, if you go into heaven in Revelation 4 and 5, you find them primarily worshiping God. They are definitely seen in the book of Revelation, worshiping God at the consummation of history, and it seems likely that they could have started worshiping God at the beginning of history. Job 38:4-7, tells us that the angels were present when the foundations of the earth were laid.
So it could well have been on day one, if the foundations of the earth means that original formless, void earth that had not yet been refined into its final form. Psalm 104: 2-5 speaks of the shining of God’s light during the original creative process and mentions the angels just before referring to laying the foundations of the earth, and it means therefore at the shaping of the earth on day three.
What is important is to know that they are created by God. They are the product of the Creator of all things, visible and invisible (that would be the spirit world of angels). Now let’s return to Genesis 1. On Day 2, God created the expanse that we know as space, the great expanse that we know as heaven. Just imagine the speed with which the whole of the infinite heavens were created.
Science has come to the place where they recognize this. There are scientific clues; they call it the “Big Bang” theory. We like to call it the “Big God” theory. World magazine records this in their May 1, 1999 issue, “The entire universe popped out of a point with no content and no dimensions, essentially expanding instantly to cosmological size.” This is now taught at Stanford and M I T, and other top science schools.
Their explanation of the beginning of the universe is similar to the traditional theological idea of creation ex nihilo, out of nothing.” One of the world’s top astronomers, Allan Sandage of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution says, “The Big Bang can only be understood as a miracle,” end quote. Genesis 1 tells us that Day two was a big bang by God, who instantaneously created the universe.
On the first day, God divides light from darkness. On the second day, God divides the water below from the water above. On the third day, God divides land from sea. “Let the waters below the heavens...” Now, that is the water that still remains on the earth. The water above has gone into the expanse of heavens. So, the earth is engulfed in this water. Beneath the water is solid matter hidden covering the earth.
There is clear testimony of Scripture, that God created all of this instantaneously. Look at Job 38:4-8, the Lord says, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” “Where were you when the morning stars,” the angels, “sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy in creation?” In verse 8, “Or who enclosed the sea with doors, when bursting forth it went out from the womb.” God’s creative work, on day three in Genesis.
What you have in Genesis is a careful, detailed, real account of creation, with nothing poetic, nothing mythical whatsoever. Back to Genesis 1: 9-10, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.”
Because it was now habitable. So now you have the three parts, earth, sea, and heaven. Verse 11, “And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so.” So as soon as the earth was ready to sustain life, life in its simplest form was created and intended to be the food for all of the higher life yet to be made.
Verse 12-13, “The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.” God repeated that the vegetation was capable of reproduction. One of the great wonders of the world is the science of seed dispersal.
Plants were made by God, not as seeds, but as full-grown plants, containing seeds that could then multiply. That’s the way the whole of creation was made, it was made mature. When man was created he was created as a full-grown man. There were edible plants that yielded seed and fruit trees whose seed was in their fruit, bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them on the earth, and it was so.
One important note: This little phrase is repeated over and over – “after their kind.” That phrase is repeated ten times in Genesis 1. A plant can only bring forth something of its own kind. A tree can only bring forth something of its own kind. It only has the capacity to function on the basis of a genetic code that is in it. This eliminates any possibility of an evolutionary process.
1 Corinthians 15:35-39 says, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.”
There are designs beyond which any living organism cannot pass. Each type of organism has its own unique structure of the DNA and can only specify the reproduction of that same kind. There is a tremendous amount of variation potential within each kind, facilitating the generation of distinct individuals and even of many varieties within the kind, but nevertheless precluding the evolution of new kinds.
In Genesis 1:11 -12, you have the origin all vegetable life, and you have its orderly continuity fixed by means of certain seeds and kinds that perpetuate that life. Never has a plant evolved into something higher; in fact, if you study mutations and change in genetics, it’s always negative. Fruit flies have such a short life span they can observe it over many generations to see the evolutionary process taking place.
The only problem is that in order to make them mutate rapidly, they bombard them with radiation. And exposure to heat, chemicals and radiation can create mutations. But mutations do not create new structures. You may have crumpled wings, oversized wings, and undersized wings, you may have double sets of wings, but you don’t have a new kind of wing; nor does the fruit fly become a honey bee. And mutations do not reproduce.
So, Genesis 1:1 -12 shows us that the intelligent agent is the living God, who on the third day of creation separated the land from the sea, caused plant life to sprout from the land. Two categories, plants which have their seed in them, trees which have their seeds in the fruit that comes from them; they therefore are able to replicate themselves throughout the end of time as long as a given species exists.
God looked at it all in verse 12 and saw that it was good. And then God signs off again in verse 13, “And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.” There was a 24-hour day; that is so clear. Those terms, evening and morning, are used more than a hundred times in the Old Testament, and they always refer to a 24-hour day. God did it on the third day.
Let me close by quoting Job 26: 7-14, “He stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing. 8 He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. 9 He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud. 10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.”
“11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke. 12 By his power He stilled the sea; by his understanding He shattered Rahab. 13 By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. 14 Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”
When God – he’s talking about rain, and when God breaks into the darkness with light, and rain, and storms, and lightning, and fury, and all of this, we’re just hearing a faint sound, a faint indication of His immense incomprehensible thunder. We are only looking at the fringes of His ways. The depth of His creative power surpasses all our capabilities of understanding. We can only say what an awesome God we have! Let us pray.