Episode 226 - "And God saw that it was good" - Genesis 1:6-23

Gen. 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

Gen. 1:9 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.

Gen. 1:11 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.

Gen. 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

Gen. 1:20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

This may be the longest section of Scripture I’ve handled on one blog and podcast session. It’s not that we couldn’t say a lot about each day of Creation. But my intent is to not miss the forest for looking so closely at the trees.

In our last episode, we addressed how, in good story fashion, God resolved the problem of darkness over the formless and void earth. God spoke light into existence. This pattern continues through each event of Creation. God’s word has power.

As I read this section, did you notice that according to this story, God created light givers after He created light? Interesting. In fact, according to this story, it’s not until the fourth day that God created the Sun, Moon, and the stars. Some scholars have pointed out that the story is told to emphasize God creating the spheres of Creation: the heavens, the dry land, and the waters in the first three days of Creation and then filling each of them on the fourth through the sixth days.

The question I want you to consider is, “What is happening in this story that is important for us to understand?” One clue is the repetition that occurs throughout this narrative. Did you notice the repetition of the phrase, “And God saw that it was good?”

That tells us something about God’s character, doesn’t it? It reveals that God will not miss a detail and wants this creation to be perfectly suitable for the living things within it.

There is some more repetition. The word “rule” is repeatedly used to describe a function of the greater and lesser lights that rule over day and night, respectively. We will see this term more often very soon. I find it fascinating that God assigns things to rule over other things. It’s an essential theme throughout the Scriptures.

The final observation I want to make of this text concerns God’s action after He created sea creatures and birds. Verse 22 says, “And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’” God didn’t leave this to chance. It was God’s goodwill toward these creatures to multiply and spread throughout the realm of the earth.

My whole point in making these observations is that this story is not something on which people should be splitting hairs over questions like “Was a ‘day’ of God’s creation still twenty-four hours long before the fourth day when God created the Sun and the Moon?” The point of this text is to tell the original audience and later to us about this awesome Creator God.

The story is not over yet. If you haven’t noticed, the description for each day of Creation is getting longer with each day. The effect of this is to anticipate something big is still coming. We’ll get to that next week. But for now, focus on the awesomeness and goodness of the Creator God described in this first chapter of the Bible.