It is a common idea that Genesis 1 contains an account of the seven days of creation. This is quite a mistake, as a small amount of reflection will convince. One verse only—Genesis 1:1—contains the general account of creation, whilst the next verse states that “the earth was without form and void.” God did not create it thus. Isaiah 45:18 proves this, “God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He has established it, He created it NOT in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.” The same word in Hebrew occurs in Genesis 1:2, and Isaiah 45:18, quoted in our texts as “void” and “in vain.” So that what this verse states is that God did not create the earth “without form and void.”
That something happened, that some tremendous catastrophe occurred, sufficient to bring this earth formed in beauty into a state of chaos is evident, but we are not told particulars. The bare fact, tremendous in its significance, is announced.
This much we do know; that sin had entered into God’s fair universe, for He planted in the garden of Eden “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and the sinister figure of Satan appears upon the scene as soon as God pronounced it “very good;” evidently thus Satan had fallen before Genesis 1:2, occurred, and therefore evil existed. Here then is the scene set for Genesis 3.
As a matter of fact the actual word, “create,” is only used thrice in the chapter. In verse 1, it is used of the general creation of the world; in verses 21 and 27, it is used of the special creation of the lower orders of life and of man, God’s masterpiece and topstone in creation.
With the exception of these special acts of creation, Genesis 1:2-31 gives us an account of RECONSTRUCTION, and we should be quite correct if we spoke of seven days of reconstruction, as we are quite incorrect when we speak of seven days of creation.
So without straining a point we can say there may be millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Geologists claim that the earth is millions of years old, and this the Bible does not contradict. Man and the lower animals, as we know them, are not more than about six thousand years old; but the earth itself may be millions of years old. Probably every shovelful of coals is pre-adamic.
The Bible does not set out to teach geology, astronomy, or any of the sciences. It is intended to teach men spiritual lessons, and it contains much that is necessary for our information, but it does not give us details, which are not necessary to effect the object it has in view. And yet every now and again there is stated quietly some profound bit of knowledge, possibly tucked away in some little corner, something that man, after centuries of search, has announced as a great discovery, and which they might have learned long ago if they had turned to the Word of God for their knowledge. For instance, and this is germane to our subject, Mr. Herbert Spencer, the great scientist, said, and it made a good deal of stir at the time, that five things were needed for creation—force, motion, space, time, matter.
These five things are all to be found in Genesis 1:1-2. (1) Force, God; (2) motion, moved; (3) space, heaven; (4) time, in the beginning; (5) matter, earth. Who inspired Moses to write so tritely and truly? It is evident that no man could describe creation from the standpoint of a witness. Nor could he describe creation by building up knowledge derived from the sciences. One has only to note the slow and painful acquisition of knowledge of such subjects, in which it is often impossible to say how much is knowledge and how much is guess.
Where did Moses get his knowledge? The only rational answer is, from God. He did not get it from his own inward knowledge. You have only to put his record of creation alongside that of other ancient writers, to see the enormous difference between the two. The one, dignified, majestic, true to really ascertained facts; the other, puerile, silly, fantastic, fanciful, no better than a fairy story.
In the very first verse of the Bible, inspiration is stamped. The word God is in the plural. In the Hebrew language there are three numbers—(1) singular, meaning only one; (2) dual, meaning only two; (3) plural, meaning three or more. The word God in the plural is evidently enshrining the thought of the Trinity in the very first sentence in the Bible. The heathen invented many gods, but not so Moses. God (plural) is followed by a verb “created,” which is in the singular. How is this? The Jews were always fiercely monotheistic, yet their great writer—Moses—whilst emphasizing this in giving us a singular verb yet gives us an indication of the Trinity. For want of a better word, we speak of three persons—God, the Father; God, the Son; God, the Holy Spirit, yet ONE God—incomprehensible mystery, yet received in adoring worship by the faith of millions. Again, we repeat, where did Moses get his learning? Surely from above.
It has been pointed out how popular blasphemies are contradicted in Genesis 1. Take Unitarianism, that cold negation of Christianity which, whilst extolling Christ’s humanity, denies His Godhead and atoning work. The fact of “God” being in the plural in Genesis 1:1, denies the affirmation of the Unitarian that there are not three persons in the Godhead, but indicates it, which is borne out by the whole teaching of Scripture abundantly. Then it contradicts Pantheism, which affirms that God is only seen in created matter, whilst Genesis 1:1, makes God the Creator of the heaven and the earth, and surely this Creator existed before what He created, and is therefore outside of what He created.
Then Evolution finds its quietus in Genesis 1 if Scripture is paramount in authority. Verse 25 tells us that God made the beast after his kind (including the ape) and cattle after their kind. Then God having done this “saw that it was good” (v. 25) and proceeded subsequently to make man, saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Did God make man in the likeness of the ape? That would be equivalent to saying that God was like an ape. How degrading to man is the theory of evolution, but how infinitely more degrading to God; and it is the complete overthrow of Scripture.
Finally Genesis 1 knocks on the head the vagaries of the hypochondriacal, hysterical Mrs. Eddy of Christian Science fame, when again and again in that wonderful chapter it is affirmed that matter is good, whilst she says there is no such thing as matter; and that what appears to us to be matter is only a manifestation of evil. A volume might be written on this chapter alone, so amazing is it in its simplicity, its fulness of information; yet the extraordinary condensation, which characterizes it, leaves one in adoring wonder at the “eternal power and Godhead” of the Creator.
The Typical Meaning of the Seven Days
In a previous article we saw that the six days of Genesis 1 were not days of creation, but days of reconstruction, and in the case of life, whether human or animal, of special acts of creation. Genesis 1:1 covers the general act of creation.
The way God takes to repair the breakdown of the material illustrates very remarkably the way He takes to repair the breakdown of the spiritual. We believe that the material is but the scaffolding of the spiritual building God has in hand. When the spiritual building is completed, the scaffolding will be removed.
THE FIRST DAY
God’s first action towards the rehabilitation of the wrecked world was the introduction of light. Darkness was upon the face of the deep—brooding impenetrable darkness save for Divine power. “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Just in the same way the Spirit is the Agent in connection with God’s first move towards man for his blessing. Just as Genesis begins with the words, “In the beginning,” so the Gospel of John begins with the selfsame words, “In the beginning.” And just as in Genesis the Spirit of God moves and in His sovereign power says, “Let there be light,” so in John we get, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7), and “Except a man be born again be cannot see the kingdom of God” (v. 3). The ability to see is the ability to appreciate light. Eyes are no use without light. New birth is the spiritual eye for spiritual light. The Spirit of God is the sovereign Producer of this new birth. “The wind blows where it lists, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it comes, and whither it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (v. 8).
As the result then of the word of God, light existed where formerly only darkness had been. The diurnal motion of the earth revolving upon its axis doubtless produced the phenomenon of evening and morning. God called the darkness Night and the light Day. Here we get what is ever a principle in God’s word—separation. Separation is a blessed word, for it is always spiritually separation from evil, and leaves the one who practises it according to God connected only with light and love and holiness and happiness. So we get, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: … and what communion has light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14). Of course material darkness is a creation of God as much as light, but in its moral application it is used as a type of what is evil. So when Christ came it was “to give light to them that sit in darkness” (Luke 1:79). The saints are exhorted to “Cast off the works of darkness, and … put on the armour of light” (Rom. 13:12). Lastly, Scripture itself uses the analogy we have just presented, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
THE SECOND DAY
On the second day God ordained the distinction between heaven and this earth on which we find ourselves. He made a firmament or expansion, and divided the waters which were above the firmament from the waters below the firmament. This illustrates the two great lines of God’s dealings with men, viz., the heavenly and the earthly. This was first indicated when God called out Abraham.
It has been happily pointed out by Adolf Saphir that there were three great testings of man before man as a whole was set aside and God began to exercise His new principle of calling out. First Adam was set up in innocence and failed. “The generations of the heavens and of the earth” (Gen. 2:4) include Adam unfallen. Next, man was tested as having no restraint up to the flood, and “the book of the generations of Adam” [fallen] (Gen. 5:1) brings us up to the flood and Noah. After the flood man is tested—government was put into the hands of Noah—and he failed. Noah’s son, Shem, is chosen, and “these are the generations of Shem” (Gen. 11:10) brings us up to Abram. Henceforth Bible history circles round Abram as being called out, and after Abram in Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the promise, till it enlarges into a nation, a called-out nation—“Out of Egypt have I called My Son” (Matt. 2:15). But when Abram is called, God indicated two lines of blessing—heavenly and earthly. God said He would multiply His seed, “as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore” (Gen. 22:17).
Even before the heavenly side of blessing came out in the church God ever had two lines in view. It is important never to confound them. It is the confounding of them that brings in great confusion and loss in the things of God. It is true that the heavenly line of blessing did not come into actual view till the day of Pentecost, when the church was formed, but it was before the mind of God from all eternity, and formed part of His eternal counsels, and was indicated prophetically when God called Abraham, and doubtless in all God’s dealings He was working up to this.
THE THIRD DAY
God’s attention was directed to the earth itself in this day. He gathered the waters into one place and let the dry land appear. Up to this day the earth presented the appearance of being wholly covered by water. God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas.
This illustrates the relation of Israel to the nations. The sea is typical of the uncontrolled nations. Daniel 7:3 tells us of four great beasts coming up from the sea. These are not actual beasts nor an actual sea, but four great world empires that have their origin in the nations. Also we have a similar thought expressed in Revelation 13:1, where we read of a beast rising up out of the sea.
Israelis typified by the earth, a place of order and fruitfulness, for God bade the earth bring forth grass and herb and fruit tree yielding fruit and seed after its own kind.
The place and importance of Israel’s land in the Scriptures is very great indeed. Practically all the Old Testament from the call of Abraham centres round that land. His feet trod it first as a stranger and pilgrim; his descendants possessed themselves of it. The four Gospels likewise centre on that land as the place of interest. Abraham and David—heads of patriarchal and kingly promise—were important because of their relation to God’s ways, and this is seen to rise to its culmination in Matthew 1, when it is pointed out that of their line CHRIST came, in whom alone these promises of blessing could be effected. His death is the basis of all these blessings, and it was in that land Jesus died, was buried, rose again, and from that land He will return and effect the fulfilment of all God’s promises to Abraham, and then indeed Israel will be fruitful and be the joy and blessing of the whole earth.
THE FOURTH DAY
On this day God ordered the lights in the expanse of heaven for the dividing of night from day and for signs and seasons and days and years. Two great lights, as far as this earth is concerned, were set in their ordered place, the greater light—the sun—to rule the day, the lesser light—the moon—to rule the night: He made the stars also.
Here we get prefigured Christ and the church. How apposite are the figures. Christ speaks of Himself as the Light of the world, and the Old Testament ends with the Sun of righteousness arising with healing in His wings, in nature the light of the sun is original and the earth gets but a small portion of its life-giving heat. Without the sun this planet would be frozen and all life upon its surface be impossible. So all our blessings—whether heavenly or earthly—come from Christ. And when He comes to bless this earth in His millennial reign of righteousness and peace, it will be as the fulfilment of Malachi’s glowing prophecy, as the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings.
But meanwhile He is absent from this earth, but He has not left this world without a testimony, and this testimony is seen in the church of heavenly origin. It is the church which is in testimony till Christ displays Himself as the Sun of Righteousness to Israel.
But here we are on ground that has its dangers. The Roman Catholic system exalted the church at the expense of her Head, and this tendency is clearly seen in quarters where it was least expected. The moon is a happy illustration of the church, as guarding against this tendency, inasmuch as it is an opaque body with no light of its own, and its only usefulness lies in its reflecting the light of the sun. Moonshine, strictly, there is none—it is the reflected light of the sun. So the only use the church can be in this world is shedding the light of Christ during the night of His absence.
The moon is a planet revolving round the earth, whilst the earth revolves round the sun. Her place is clearly (1) in subordination to the sun and (2) in transmitting the light of the sun by reflection during the night. So it is with the church. As individual Christians we are said to be lights in the world, and corporately we see what the church will be in display in the holy city in Revelation 21:24 when the saved of the nations shall walk in its light—hence the absolute necessity of Christians walking in the light of Christ and in communion with Him, for it is as the individual walks rightly that the whole can give a right testimony; for the whole is made up of its component parts.
Further, this is illustrated in the wife being in relation to her husband in reverence and subjection. So we read, “Christ is the Head of the church … the church is subject to Christ” (Eph. 5:23-24).
THE FIFTH DAY
On this day God created the denizens of the sea and air, every step preparing the scene for the reception of man. It is sweet to trace God’s way thus in creation as illustrating His ways in grace.
It may be—we do not dogmatise—that the peopling of the seas sets forth God’s way in blessing man. It is remarkable that the Lord made the disciples to be fishers of men and that the Lord Himself was the only One who performed miracles with fish—one a hook and line miracle, illustrating the present methods of the Gospel, when God is calling out of the nations a people for His name; and the drag net miracle, illustrating the blessing of the Jewish and Gentile nations in the day to come when they will be brought into national and earthly blessing. When Peter enclosed a great multitude of fishes, where previously all night toilsome fishing had drawn a blank, two ships were filled with the harvest of the sea, setting forth doubtless Jew and Gentile coming into blessing in a future day. The fish in the sea may thus set forth the subjects of the Gospel.
The denizens of the air would set forth that God will bless with heavenly as well as earthly blessing.
THE SIXTH DAY
On this day God brought into existence the lower animal creation, and finally when all is prepared He created man. With the creation of man God’s activity had reached its climax. Up to now we read four times over the formula, “And God saw that it was good,” including all reconstruction and creation (exclusive of the creation of man), but when we come to the sixth day and God surveys the whole scene, including man and woman in their ordered place as having dominion over the whole, we read, “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was VERY good.”
The whole creation was ordered for the pleasure of man, and man was made for the glory of God. Day by day, as God acted, He revealed His Power and wisdom and tender care for man, and when the day came for him to be set in his ordered place it was to be surrounded by all these evidences of God’s care and interest.
But man thus placed as the head of the old creation is typical of Christ as the Head of the new creation. So we read in Romans 3:14 of Adam as “the figure of Him that was to come.”
Of course all types fail to fully express the glorious Antitype, and this must be so in the nature of things. How can a shadow be equal to the Substance? So Adam was a mere man, however wonderful, God’s masterpiece and topstone in the old creation; the blessed Lord was and is and ever will be, “God over all, blessed for ever,” uncreated, self-contained, sustaining all things by the word of His power, who became Man, never ceasing to be the mighty God.
Bearing this in mind, how touching is the type. Adam is the head of the first creation, and it was as head, before ever Eve was formed, that he named the animals at the bidding of God, thus guarding his absolute headship, Eve coming in for associated headship.
Flung into a deep sleep, typical of Christ’s death on the cross, a rib was taken from his side and a woman builded therefrom, typifying that the church is of Christ. It was not good for the man to be alone. He had dominion over the wide creation, but as his eye ranged over his fair dominion he had no one to commune with, to share his joys and his occupations.
Eve brought to him by the Lord God brought the exclamation of Adam, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman [Hebrew, Isha] because she was taken out of Man” [Hebrew, Ish] (Gen. 2:23)—he recognized that she was of him. So as antitype answers to type, we read in Ephesians 5:30, “For we [the church] are members of His [Christ’s] body, of His flesh and of His bones,” and we are let into the secret that the union of man and woman is not a convenient illustration, but is expressly designed to typify the great truth of Christ and the church
We can understand in the light of all this how man was not made to spring forth at the bidding of the Creator, as is indicated in the words, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,” etc., but that God said, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion,” etc. How this knocks on the head the fatuous folly of evolution—that infidel attempt to elbow God out of His universe.
And further, we can see why God did not create Adam and Eve together, but departed from his method hitherto followed in the creation, firstly, in the case of Adam, and still more in that of the creation of Eve, putting Adam as head of the creation, but associating Eve with him in this dominion; yet, by the very method He employed in her creation, giving her to derive everything from Adam, even her being under God’s hand, and so constituting her as is seen in the expression—“male and female created He them.”
So we find the great scheme of God in things spiritual—the profound mystery of His will—is to head up all things in Christ, so that “Christ is the Head of the church” (Eph 5:3), and yet associating the church with Him—“let them have dominion”—we read, God “gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22-23).
THE SEVENTH DAY
Here we find God resting from His labours, fit type of that fixed eternal state when God shall be all in all, all His activities of grace and government over, and He shall rest in the complacency of His love. Christ and the church will then occupy their place for ever as John the seer describes in his beatific vision, “And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). What a day that will be: Denominations wiped out, splits, divisions, sections, parties, things of the past, and only and altogether new creation seen in that blissful day.
As day succeeded day in Genesis 1 we read, “And the evening and the morning were the first day,” and so on, but when we come to the seventh day we have no statement as to evening and morning, but simply, “On the seventh day God rested.” Seven is the number of perfection, and God has indeed found perfection in Christ and all that is of Christ in that eternal day of fadeless splendour.