The Beginning
God has no beginning. Ps 90:2 “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”.
But everything that was made has a beginning. It’s called “from the beginning of the creation”, 2 Pet 3:5. And this is what Genesis 1 explains. God only recorded as much of creation as he wanted to reveal in his words in the first chapter. Cross references in the Bible will fill in some of the “blanks”.
Everything that you see has been created, Jn 1:1-4; Rom 1:20. And this creation manifests the invisible God who made it.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”. The word “heaven” is singular. This heaven is the one in Gen 1:20. That is, the heaven and the earth are a composite creation. God created the earth with an atmosphere that would sustain life. This is the open firmament of heaven where the fowl fly.
The Waters
Verse 2 is a curious verse for a couple of reasons. First, there are several things that God created which were already present in this verse. In other words, God doesn’t record their creation, but it’s obvious that they were created because the “things that are seen were not made of things which do appear”, Heb 11:3. These are “darkness”, Is 45:7; “the deep”, Job 38:30; and “the waters”, Rev 14:7.
Second, “the earth was without form”. While some have said that “without form” implies that God “formed” the earth like he “formed man”, Gen 2:7, the expression “without form, and void” is identical to Jer 4:23. This verse is in the context of destruction not creation, Jer 4:23-29.
It appears, then, that after God made the heaven and the earth, and before the events of Gen 1:2, the earth was completely submerged in water and it perished, 2 Pet 3:6. In Noah’s flood, the earth didn’t “perish”. Men, animals, fish, fowl, and vegetation all survived. But in Gen 1:2 the earth was “void”.
In Gen 1:2 the earth was completely “overflowed with water”, 2 Pet 3:6. But prior to being overflowed with water, “the earth (was) standing out of the water and in the water”, 2 Pet 3:5. It was similar to how it is today. There were land masses, like our continents and islands, that were out of the water, and the rest of the earth was in the water, like our seas. Thus, it was “out of the water and in the water”.
In 2 Pet 3:5-7, we see “the heavens (that) were of old”, before Gen 1:2, and “the heavens, and the earth which are now”, since Gen 1:2, and in 2 Pet 3:13, we see “new heavens and a new earth”, which will be here after Jesus Christ’s millennial reign and the white throne judgment.
The obvious question is, “Why did God destroy what was here before Gen 1:2”? The answer has to do with the devil’s iniquity and rebellion against God. See Ezek 28:11-19 and Is 14:12-15. He, undoubtedly, perverted and corrupted what God originally made. And so God destroyed it with a flood and started over.
Darkness
Following the earth being “overflowed with water”, darkness was upon the face of the deep. Darkness was not here only because of an absence of light. See Job 38:19. Darkness was something God had made before Gen 1:2. And it’s something that is still in the universe today. It’s dark out there.
The Face of the Deep
The “face” of the deep is what we call the surface today. Today, the “face of the deep”, Job 38:30, is frozen. John saw it in heaven, and described it as “a sea of glass like unto crystal”, Rev 4:6. But in Gen 1:2, it wasn’t frozen. Thus, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”, not the ice.
Light
And God said, “Let there be light”, Gen 1:3. Jesus is the light of the world, Jn 1:4-5, 8:12. In the first three verses of the Bible, we clearly see the Trinity.
- God the Father. In the beginning God…
- God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God moved…
- God the Word (1 Jn 5:7, Jn 1:1). And God said… light…
This light didn’t dispel the darkness; it shined out of darkness, 2 Cor 4:6. It lit the earth like the Sun does.
And God saw the light, that it was good. So light was the first good thing mentioned following the flood that destroyed the earth.
God divided the light from the darkness. Because the source of light was coming from God like it comes from the sun today, the dividing line then was like sunrise and sunset now. The light God called Day and the darkness he called Night. Day and Night were here before the sun.
And the evening and the morning were the first day. Time started with creation and a complete day includes one night and one day. And each day starts at evening.
The Firmament Called Heaven
God created a firmament to divide the waters from the waters. It divided the waters under the firmament from the waters above.
In Ps 104:6-7, the waters completely covered the earth. When God rebuked them, they hasted away. These were not the waters of Noah’s flood which returned from off the earth continually and after 150 days abated, Gen 8:3.
Notice in Ps 148:4 the “waters that be above the heavens”.
Because of this firmament, we have the first heaven Gen 1:20, and the second Heaven, and the third heaven where Paul was caught up, 2 Cor 12:2. And the surface of the water separating the third heaven and the second heaven is frozen.
This completed the second day. God didn’t call this firmament good. That’s because it’s the Devil’s realm Eph 6:12, Rev 12:7-9.
The Earth and Seas
God gathered the waters unto one place and he let the dry land appear. The dry land he called Earth. And the waters he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.