Genesis 1

Moore's Corner Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

So Genesis chapter one is labeled the history of creation. Verse one, in the beginning,

00:06

God created the heavens and the earth. Notice how that God is just declared.

00:14

You know, God did this. There's no defense. There's no explanation. Moses doesn't go into some apologetic argument trying to prove that God exists or that God did all of this.

00:28

He just says that this is so. And also Psalm 19, it talks about how the heavens declare the glory of God.

00:37

Romans chapter one mentions how man is without excuse. Basically, everybody knows that there is a

00:45

God. And one thing that everyone knows about this God is that he's all powerful and he is the creator.

00:53

So Romans chapter one tells us that, that man universally understands this fact.

01:01

But what does man do with that knowledge? At least after the fall, man suppresses that knowledge.

01:09

So God exists, and that's how we start out that God is declared.

01:14

So God creates the heavens and the earth. And when we talk about the heavens, what heavens are, what heaven is he referring to here in chapter one?

01:27

Because we talk about three heavens, right? There's first heaven, which is the sky, under the atmosphere.

01:34

There's the second heaven, which would be outer space, where the sun, the moon, and the stars are.

01:40

And then the third heaven, Paul talks about that, and it's the abode of God. So which heavens are being created here?

01:49

The first and the second? Probably, yeah, probably the first and the second. The third heaven,

01:55

I'm assuming, was already in existence. Now, the first misunderstanding that I wanna correct is something that's pretty common.

02:05

I'm sure some of you were taught this or you have it in your study Bible. It's actually not in the text, but in between verses one and two, a lot of people teach what is known as the gap theory.

02:20

Who's heard of the gap? Actually, it'd be better if I asked who hasn't heard of the gap theory, okay?

02:26

So the gap theory is this idea that there's this big gap between verses one and two.

02:35

Basically, millions or billions of years could have passed in between the time where God created everything and then when he started to shape and mold the earth.

02:48

So many, many years ago, the gap theory was made popular because it got into the

02:53

Scofield Reference Bible, so that really helped spread it across mainstream

02:58

Christianity. And why was the gap theory developed? I think it was started in the 1800s.

03:05

That's when someone came up with it. The whole purpose of the gap theory is to try to make the

03:10

Bible fit modern atheistic science. Nobody believed in the gap theory in the days of Jesus or Paul.

03:20

This is a modern invention, and if you've ever heard the word eisegesis, who's heard of that word?

03:28

Exegesis is when you draw the meaning and the truth out of the text. Eisegesis is when you read your own ideas into the text.

03:37

So this would be a classic case of eisegesis because the gap theory, it's just not in the

03:44

Bible. It's just not there. Someone's reading that idea into it. You have something?

03:50

Do you think that could be included that they were trying to fit the dinosaurs and all that into?

03:55

Right, yeah, so in whatever, the 1800s, when, you know, starting with Charles Darwin and when the theories came out about the dinosaurs, but when that really took hold in the

04:08

United States, I think evolution wasn't taught in the public school system until after 1930, 1930s,

04:16

I think. So it was really after that that it became popular. But yeah, I mean, that's what they're trying to do.

04:23

They're trying to harmonize the Bible to fit modern atheistic science.

04:30

So supposedly billions of years passed between verses one and two.

04:35

So verse one, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then billions of years.

04:41

I don't believe this, okay? I'm just telling you this is a very common thing. But then supposedly billions of years passed, and then verse two picks up.

04:50

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And actually some people will say that the earth was fully formed and that in that period of billions of years, that's when

05:04

Satan rebelled. And because of that, his rebellion, God laid waste. And now this is basically the recreation of the earth.

05:11

But again, none of that is in the Bible. I would just say it's been, it's made up.

05:17

It's really not consistent with scripture at all. So, all right, now that we got that cleared up, good.

05:24

Verse three, then God said, "'Let there be light,' and there was light."

05:30

So how is God doing all of this? By speaking. Yeah, he just speaks the word and it's done.

05:38

That's all God has to do. He creates by speaking the word.

05:44

And later on in the New Testament, we learned that Jesus is the word of God.

05:50

So John chapter one, you don't have to turn there, but John chapter one, verses one through three, it tells us, "'In the beginning was the word,' a title for Jesus, "'and the word was with God, and the word was

06:04

God.'" So Jesus was God. Is that what it's saying?

06:10

Verse two, "'He was in the beginning with God.' So he was God, but he was with God.

06:17

And all things were made through him, that is through Jesus. And without him, nothing was made that was made."

06:24

So Jesus was in the beginning with God, but at the same time, he was God. How can you be

06:29

God and also with God? Well, the Trinity is really the only explanation.

06:35

And we're gonna get hints about the Trinity later on in the book. But we learned that not only did

06:42

God the Father create the heavens and the earth, that's what we're hearing in Genesis one,

06:48

God created. But in the New Testament, we learned that Christ was also involved in the creation.

06:56

Who else was involved in the creation? The spirit, because the spirit, it says, was hovering over the face of the waters.

07:05

So we see that creation is a triune act.

07:12

So all three members of the Godhead are involved. Any questions so far?

07:17

So far, so good? All right, so I think we could break up Genesis one into seven, well, six different categories or six different sections.

07:32

So there's day one, day two, the third day of creation, fourth day. So the first day was the creation of light.

07:39

That's verses three through five. We see the separation of light from darkness, the establishment of day and night.

07:46

Day two, this is verses six through eight. The waters above are separated from the waters below.

07:54

Day three, land and vegetation is created. That's verses nine through 13.

08:01

So the waters are gathered and that allows dry land to appear. The plants, the trees, the grass, all of that's created or formed on day three.

08:11

Day four, what's on day four? Right, sun, moon, and stars. So the celestial bodies to separate day from night and to mark seasons, days, and years.

08:21

So that's verses 14 through 19. Day five is when the sea creatures were made, also the birds, so that's verses 20 through 23.

08:33

And then day six, this is the big day because not only are the land creatures made, this is when

08:41

God makes man in his own image. So the most significant creation of God is what?

08:49

Man. Man, right, because man is made in the image of God. And then we see in chapter two, the seventh day of creation and I don't even know if you would call it the seventh day of creation.

09:02

Usually we say the six days of creation because God did not create anything on the seventh day. What did

09:07

God do? Rest. Right, he rested. So that's chapter two, verses one through three.

09:13

So let's go through each one of these days and we'll see what we can learn. So day number one is the creation of light.

09:22

So this is chapter one, three through five. Now, the obvious thing that comes up or the problem as some people might see it, if God created light on the first day, what's the issue?

09:38

What should like automatically, what flag should go up in your mind? Day four. Yeah, I mean, he created the sun, the moon and the stars on day four.

09:47

So how is it that he created light on day one? Well, that's not a contradiction because he didn't say he created the sun on day one and on day four, he just said, let there be light.

09:58

So we know the light doesn't come from the sun, the moon or the stars. Now he doesn't actually tell us where the light comes from.

10:07

So we have to guess. I don't think this is a total shot in the dark, no pun intended.

10:14

But in Revelation 21, we learned that in the new heaven and the new earth, there's no need of the sun because the glory of God illuminated it.

10:25

So I can't be dogmatic about it, but I am a firm believer that when

10:31

God said, let there be light, it was the radiance of his glory or the radiance of the glory of the son of God.

10:39

That is what lit the creation. Does everyone concur? You have a different, any different ideas?

10:47

I've never actually heard a different theory on that, but Marcus. Doesn't it say in Revelation 21 that Christ is the light?

10:55

Or am I just saying that he said he was the light of the world? Yeah, well, someone could look it up.

11:03

God, the glory of God illuminated it and the land is its light.

11:08

I think it's something to that effect, yes. So yeah, there's no sun.

11:14

And because there's no sun on day one and day two, day three, so you have days without the sun.

11:21

Because of that, modern liberal scholars believe that because there is no sun, they say, well, then these aren't necessarily 24 -hour days because you don't have a sun.

11:32

Therefore, these days, it's not 24 hours. Again, they try to fit in maybe billions of years or millions of years.

11:41

So people, if they don't buy into the gap theory, if they don't believe in the young earth and they're trying to account for an old earth, if they don't buy into the gap theory, they buy into this other idea that each day was potentially millions or hundreds of millions of years.

12:02

And one of the arguments, because it's the days of creation, he says a day, but they say, well, the

12:09

Hebrew word yom or yom. Yom, right, Marcus? Right, okay.

12:14

So they say, well, the Hebrew word day, sometimes it refers to a 24 -hour day, but that word can also refer to a period of time.

12:25

And that's true the way we talk, right? If I, me and you were talking and we mentioned a day, yeah, it could mean 24 hours, but we also use the word day as a figure of speech.

12:37

Back in my day, it doesn't mean 24 hours or in today's day and age, like that doesn't mean 24.

12:44

So it's the same in any language. You can use the word day. It doesn't necessarily mean 24 hours, but how do you determine the meaning?

12:54

Very simple, you just look at the context, look at what was said before and after, and that will almost always tell you whether you're talking about a time period or a 24 -hour day.

13:06

So let's look at the context, look at verse five, Genesis 1, verse five, "'God called the light day, "'and the darkness he called night, "'so the evening and the morning were the first day.'"

13:19

Now, I don't know about you, but that certainly sounds like a 24 -hour day. And the term evening and morning keeps getting repeated.

13:27

It's like the other statement, according to their own kind, after their own kind, it's like, okay, he's repeating that for a reason.

13:36

And we believe after their own kind is a refutation of evolution.

13:42

I do believe God knew in advance, and he put that in there so that people who truly seek his truth and believe the

13:51

Bible will know evolution is false because everything reproduces after their own kind. But you see that repeated again, evening and morning, first day, evening and morning, second day.

14:01

Obviously, it's meant to communicate 24 -hour days. Larry.

14:09

If he created the light on day one, and God is the light, where did the darkness come from?

14:21

Yeah. Well, I'm just assuming it's the same idea today.

14:28

The sun is here, and the earth is here, and the earth spins. Before the sun was created.

14:36

Right, but the glory of God can still be directed at the earth, and the earth spins.

14:42

So I'm assuming it would work the same way. But you know, that's a good question. Made me think for a second.

14:49

So I've never heard, I like hearing new things. But like I said, with the context, since the context is given that each day has an evening and a morning, 100 million years doesn't have a morning and an evening.

15:03

So just the plain reading of the text would suggest a normal 24 -hour period, which is why

15:10

Bible -believing Christians, and I realize there's people who attend, maybe even who attend this church who believe the earth is very old.

15:17

I don't know, you know, they're resisting the teaching. I'm not upset with anyone.

15:23

I think you're wrong if you think the earth is billions of years old. But Bible -believing Christians throughout history have always understood that the earth is young.

15:34

I mean, you've heard the term young earth creationism. But how do you get the idea that the earth is 6 ,000 years old, or about 6 ,000?

15:43

Well, you have six days of creation. Adam is created on day six.

15:49

We're told how long Adam lived. We have his genealogy, how long his descendants lived.

15:55

I mean, it's just a simple math equation to add up to about 6 ,000 or 6 ,300 years, whatever it is.

16:03

The only way you can come to the conclusion that the earth is billions of years old, you're just not getting it from the

16:10

Bible. You're just listening to the atheistic scientists. We're not saying the scientists are wrong.

16:16

We're just saying that, I'm saying that they're wrong about this. But you cannot get that idea from the

16:23

Bible. The Bible never teaches that the earth is billions of years old. So it's the six days of creation.

16:31

I've seen no reason to try to squeeze in 4 billion years.

16:38

But if that's your conviction, then that's up to you. So day two, any questions on that?

16:45

Okay, if you can show me in the Bible where it is billions of years old,

16:51

I'm happy to hear it. But day number two, this is the separating of the waters.

16:57

This has always been the most puzzling thing about Genesis 1 for me.

17:05

The word firmament in Hebrew can refer to, so if you look it up, it can refer to something like a dome.

17:14

There is one Bible translation that actually uses the word dome. I think the

17:19

NIV, does anyone have the NIV? It uses the word vault. I can get it. Yeah, well,

17:25

I checked the NIV says vault, which is, if you look it up, it's like an arched roof.

17:32

So most translations will say expanse, but then he defines it and he says, he called the firmament heaven.

17:41

So I guess we just have to say that it's the atmosphere. But at some point, the atmosphere originally was holding back just a massive amount of water.

17:56

And we'll get into this when we get to chapters six, seven and eight with the flood of Noah. It says the windows of heaven were opened.

18:04

So the fountains of the deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and so much water came down, it flooded the entire earth.

18:14

So he's talking about here, the waters are separated. So there's the waters below, we all understand that.

18:21

There's the sea, yeah, the earth was all water at one point, but he's talking about the waters that were above.

18:28

And again, that's been the part that has sort of puzzled me a little bit.

18:34

It's hard to imagine all of this water above the earth being held back.

18:40

Well, cumulus clouds are gonna make water or they're vapor and then of course, as they get denser and denser, the bottoms turn all dark and then it turns to liquid that is holding the earth's gravitational pull.

19:03

But the amount of water that must have been up there is like mind boggling, so that's why.

19:10

But wasn't there water that broke, that the earth broke? Yeah, it was both, it was both.

19:15

But one thing we can say for certain, the atmosphere has radically changed.

19:21

The way it is now and the way it was originally, there's a drastic difference. So that's what we can say for sure.

19:28

All right, yes, Mary. Can I go back to light? Yes. For one second, it says, and it says the evening is first.

19:36

So maybe the evening, the darkness, and then there was a morning, the first day. Okay, okay.

19:43

Yeah. All right, thank you. All right, day number three. So this is land and vegetation.

19:50

So this is nine through 13. In verse nine, God causes dry land to appear.

19:58

So for lack of a better term, the raw material, if you will, has been created.

20:05

Now God is shaping the earth. He gathers the waters together to make the seas or the oceans, and that allows dry land to appear.

20:18

In verse 10, we keep noticing this phrase, we see it here and it's mentioned several other places that when

20:24

God creates something, he gives his benediction upon it. He says, it is good.

20:31

So he'll create and he'll declare it is good. So one thing we learn, the obvious teaching of Genesis one is that God is the omnipotent creator, okay?

20:42

That's obvious. But when he created everything, God created everything good, right?

20:49

When did things go bad? He said, it's not good that the man be alone. Okay, so that's in the next chapter, right?

20:59

So he'll say that there's something that is not good, but still the creation was good in chapter one.

21:05

The creation is good in chapter two. Things don't go wrong until chapter three.

21:11

And that's when the curse is placed upon the earth. So people today who say that the earth is, well, the earth is beautiful, it's still beautiful.

21:19

And mankind, people say mankind is good. Well, again, there's been a massive change.

21:26

The earth, mankind, everything was perfect at first until you get to chapter three.

21:35

But he will say that something is very good after he creates man.

21:41

So all of this is kind of building up to the pinnacle or the crown jewel of God's creation, if you will, mankind, okay?

21:50

Now that runs contrary to what people say today. People, and there's always a little bit of truth to every lie, but people say, mankind is a plague upon the earth.

22:04

Man is ruining the earth and people wanna make it out that nature itself or the animals, they're good and man is the problem.

22:12

Again, there's a little truth to that. But all of this was created for us.

22:19

They make no mistake about it. You can't read Genesis one and believe it and come to any other conclusion or to think that the animals are more important than people.

22:29

So everything that's taught in Genesis, certainly the first few chapters, the ideology of our culture is just running contrary to all of it.

22:42

Evolution is kind of the obvious thing and the Big Bang and the billions of years is the obvious contradiction, but so many things people are teaching against.

22:52

So let's turn to Psalm 104. Psalm 104 is a

22:58

Psalm that speaks about the creation. And Psalm 104, the reason

23:04

I wanna turn there, it brings up a topic that isn't mentioned in chapter one of Genesis, but it's something that is almost always asked about.

23:15

When starting the creation, people wanna know when were the angels created, right?

23:22

That's, I know you were just, you know, chomping at the bit to ask.

23:28

I'm assuming, I think it's a safe assumption that the unholy angels, okay,

23:36

Satan rebelled sometime before chapter three because he appears as the serpent in the garden.

23:43

So when the angels were created, that's where we're gonna try to figure out. But the fall of Lucifer and remember in Revelation 12,

23:51

I think it was, a third of the angels, you know, followed him. So that happened before chapter three.

23:57

So Psalm 104, starting in verse one, the Psalmist writes, blessed the Lord, oh my soul, oh

24:04

Lord, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty who cover yourself with light as with a garment.

24:13

I mean, that could be a little hint to the light that was shining on day one, perhaps.

24:21

Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain. He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters, who makes the clouds his chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind.

24:34

Okay, so lays the beams of his upper chambers in the water.

24:39

So that seems to be another reference to the firmament and the waters above. It's like God is, you know, building his house in the heavens.

24:48

That's basically what he's saying. Verse four, who makes his, that is

24:53

God's, angels, spirits, or winds. Okay, spirit can be translated winds.

25:00

Who makes his angels, spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

25:06

So this is the reference to the angels in the context of creation.

25:13

Does this verse sound familiar to anyone? Well, if it does, it's also quoted in Hebrews chapter one.

25:22

And the context in Hebrews one seems to be that the angels, and we know this anyways, the angels are subservient to the

25:31

Lord. So they do whatever God wants. They carry out his wishes. Let's keep reading verse five.

25:38

You who laid the fountains or the foundations of the earth so that it should never, should not be moved forever.

25:45

You covered it with the deep as with the garment. The water stood above the mountains.

25:51

At your rebuke, they fled. At the voice of your thunder, they hastened away.

25:58

They went up over the mountains. They went down into the valleys, to the place which you founded for them.

26:05

You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth.

26:12

So whether this is referring to the creation and or the flood, I'm not exactly sure, but the general context is the creation.

26:21

But let's go to this question. What about the angels? When do you think the angels were created?

26:28

Has anyone ever studied the subject or remember what you were taught? Or take a guess.

26:34

When they were needed. When they were needed. Okay. Servants.

26:39

Okay, Linda, you have an idea? Well, I have a note here that probably came from you. All right.

26:45

That angels were created before Genesis one. Before. Okay, so I haven't changed my mind.

26:52

So let's go back to Genesis one. You say, yeah, well, is this is a

26:59

Jesus? Are you reading this in? I will admit, I don't know when the angels are created for one simple reason.

27:06

The Bible doesn't tell us. Okay, so I have to admit that. But Job 38, four through seven, just make a note of this.

27:17

Here's what Job writes. He's speaking or the Lord is speaking to Job. He says, where were you when

27:24

I laid the foundations of the earth? So he's talking about creation. And then he mentions how everything, when everything was created, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

27:37

So the angels are often referred to as stars and the term son of God in the

27:43

Old Testament, b 'nai Elohim, almost always a reference to the angels. So what

27:50

God is saying to Job, when I created the heavens and the earth, the angels shouted for joy, which would mean they already, they must've been in existence when

28:02

God created. So that's why I say it's before. Can I say that for certain?

28:07

No, but that seems to me, it's pretty clear that that's the case.

28:14

Marcus. What's the reference in Job? Job 38, four through seven. So yeah, that would indicate that the angels are not part.

28:25

And also this is just logical, I think. The angels are not part of the creation. They're not physical.

28:32

So see, God is creating the physical universe and everything within it. The angels are not part of that.

28:40

The angels are spiritual beings. So they may, they're not eternal, but it looks like they were around before anything physical.

28:51

Make sense to you? All right. You say, well, where were they? Well, again, the abode of God, the third heaven,

28:59

I think that already existed before the creation as well. Okay.

29:06

Day number four. Any questions so far? Everything making sense? Day number four, the sun, the moon, the stars.

29:14

This is verses 14 through 19. It says, or he says, let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years.

29:24

So we know that the earth's movement is in relation to the heavenly bodies.

29:31

This determines the seasons and helps establish the calendar and all of that. But how are the sun, the moon, and the stars used for signs?

29:41

The word sign, the Hebrew word is also the word, it can be translated miracle. So how are the sun, moon, and stars used for miraculous signs?

29:52

Can anyone think of an example? What? Joshua stopped the sun?

30:01

Okay. Well, the thing that came to my mind is the star of Bethlehem. So God used a star.

30:09

It may not be one of the stars that exists. I don't know what it was, but it calls it a star, right? So he used a star to announce the birth of the savior.

30:19

Also in the end times, it talks about the sun will go dark and the moon will be turned to blood red as a sign or a warning that the judgment of God is falling or is about to fall.

30:35

So in that way, they are also created for signs. All right, day number five, moving along here at a good pace, sea creatures and birds.

30:47

So this is verses 20 through 23. This is pretty straightforward, but because I don't have a lot to say about the create, you know, birds, everything in the sea, fish, but this is a good time to address the other question, right?

31:02

When were the angels created? And the other question that comes up, it's not mentioned in the text anywhere, but people wanna know what about the, someone already mentioned it once.

31:14

What about the dinosaurs, right? So when were the dinosaurs created?

31:20

Let's assume there's, you know, Jack was here, some little kid, and of course, I'm sure he has an answer, being homeschooled.

31:29

When were the dinosaurs created? Day six. Well, I mean, if they lived in the sea or if they flew, they were created on day five, but for all the other ones that lived on the earth, day six, and you say, no, no, no, no, we were taught that that's 100 and whatever, 30 million years ago.

31:49

So again, you know, you run into this problem. You either have to believe the atheists, and I say atheists because almost all modern scientists are atheists, which to me shows a bias.

32:04

They just, they don't believe the Bible and they don't want to believe the Bible. So you either have to believe them, believe them about all sorts of other stuff, that's fine.

32:15

Maybe not COVID, you know, but sorry, but you know, but when it comes to, when they contradict the

32:23

Bible, I'm going with the Bible, okay, so they will say, again, hundreds of millions of years ago or 150 million years ago, but according to the

32:34

Bible, every beast of the field, and they would have been considered a beast, they would have been created on day five or six, and I tend to think that when the

32:44

Bible talks about dragons, that may be a reference to those creatures.

32:51

I don't know, that's a guess, but possibly. Marcus. I think the reason scientists are atheists is because their whole framework revolves around the natural and not the supernatural.

33:09

Their whole frame of reference has to do with temporary things, whereas the supernatural has to do with eternal things.

33:20

And that makes. But the day of the, what is it, 2 Peter 3 .10, but the day of the

33:25

Lord will come as the thief of the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

33:35

The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. This is all temporary.

33:42

Our lives are temporary. And that's their world, so they can study everything about the temporary.

33:54

And let's face it, there's some microscopic and telescopic things, and I mean, they're looking into the human cell,

34:06

I mean, even deeper than protons and neutrons, and you know.

34:11

And when they see the complexity of it, to conclude it came about as a result of chance or an accident really doesn't make.

34:21

Particles of dust. Yeah. Where'd the dust come from? And all of that, listen, all of that might.

34:27

That's where the dust came from. That's like, what's on TV tonight? That might make sense, except that if you look back further, before the 1800s, most scientists were religious.

34:42

I mean, most scientists believed in God before the mid 1800s. Everything started to change with Darwin.

34:50

And today, there's another reason why scientists are not Christians, or they're not theists, because if you're a scientist and you vocalize your belief in God, your career is over.

35:02

You're shunned, and you're not gonna get tenure at the university, so there are other reasons for that.

35:10

But they weren't always that way. Dice, on the other hand, yeah. I heard a story about a scientist that was an atheist, and he believed in evolution and all that, and he decided to read the

35:24

Bible to find out that he was really right in the way he believed, and he gave away a believer.

35:30

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's happened. It's definitely happened. One more thing about the dinosaurs and the

35:37

Book of Job, just to bring up Job again. In chapter 40 of the Book of Job, he mentions the largest creature that God ever made.

35:48

He calls that creature the behemoth, and he says that its tail swings like a cedar tree.

35:56

Now, that, and it eats only grass or vegetation. That sounds like, you know, the brontosaurus you were taught about as a kid.

36:06

I mean, there's no creature today that's tail is like a cedar tree, but Job talks about it like he has either seen this creature or what

36:15

I personally believe is that their legend, you know, carried on after the flood and people, you know, talked about it and were aware of it, but they probably died off during the flood or after the flood.

36:30

Job also mentions the Leviathan in chapter 41, so it's like a dragon that lives in the sea, but I would just refer you to Ken Ham in Answers in Genesis.

36:43

All the things that I can't explain, you know, he can. He has a response, a good response,

36:48

I think a biblical response to all of these questions. So we'll move on if there's nothing else about that.

36:57

All right, day six. The land animals and humans. So this is verses 24 through 31.

37:05

So everything that lives on land, cat, dog, horses, bears, everything, everything else created on day six along with mankind or Adam.

37:19

So what makes mankind special? What separates man, makes him or us different from everything else?

37:27

God used his hands. God used his hands and he took it from dust.

37:34

Yeah, I mean, yeah, we're made in the image of God and you say he used his hands, which

37:40

I guess is true. He didn't, doesn't say he used his hands for anything else. So that would be.

37:47

He formed us from the dust. Well, all the others, he spoke it, so. Right, again, that's chapter two,

37:54

I think, right? God is a spirit. Yeah. So when God says, let us, look at verse 26, let us make man in our image.

38:06

This does not mean that God looks like me or that God looked like Adam. I mean, that's not the point.

38:12

I think it was last week, we were talking about the Mormons. Like that's what they teach. Man has the image of God, that God was once a human.

38:21

That is absolutely not the point. It has nothing to do with physical characteristics. So it's more that we have a will, we have a mind.

38:30

You know, animals operate off of instinct. Animals don't know anything about God.

38:36

They can't worship God. Man was created, we're created to have fellowship with God.

38:41

So we're very different from all of the animals. But let's focus in on verse 26. So verse 26,

38:48

God said, let us make man in our image. So the thing that should stand out there is

38:55

God is referring to himself as us and our. Okay, so the

39:02

Hebrew word translated God is Elohim. Elohim is

39:07

God, but that's the plural word for God. The singular word for God in Hebrew is

39:14

El, but here it's Elohim. He's not saying there's a plurality of God, many gods, he's saying there's a plurality in the one

39:26

God. That seems to be the only thing that would make sense. And of course, when you get to the

39:32

New Testament, you see that God is revealed in three persons,

39:37

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So again, I think this would be another hint or an

39:45

Old Testament evidence of the Trinity. So I don't see any contradiction between the

39:51

New Testament, Father, Son, and Spirit. And you say, well, in the Old Testament, God is one. Well, there's one

39:57

God, but he still speaks about himself as plural. So three persons within the

40:04

Godhead. I would say it's a little hint at that. So what's the overarching point of Genesis 1?

40:11

It teaches God, God is the creator, okay. He owns everything, he's the source of everything.

40:21

God is the creator, and why did God create?

40:27

Now, we don't get the answer here. We get a little clue of man being made in God's image.

40:35

But this is something that Christians have always agreed on, that God created all things for what purpose?

40:43

His own goal. Right, like this is the answer to every catechism that exists.

40:48

This is always like the first question and the first answer. Is that biblical?

40:53

Yes, Revelation 4 .11 says, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

41:04

So you could also say that God created all things, yes, for his own glory, and also for his pleasure.

41:11

So God created for his pleasure, and the crown jewel of his creation is man.

41:17

Man is made in the image of God, and the definition usually is that, yes, we can think, we can reason, we have a will.

41:26

We can embody God's communicable attributes. So there's some attributes of God, things that he is, that we don't have.

41:36

Like, we will never be omnipotent. We will never be omnipresent. But those communicable attributes,

41:43

God is holy, he tells us to be holy. God is just, we should be just.

41:50

God is gracious, he's merciful. So this is the point I wanna leave you with.

41:56

This is why he created us, to reflect his own glory. And the way we do that is when we emulate

42:05

God, when we are what he is in those communicable attributes.