Bible Study (July 24) - Genesis 1 and 2

Review on Genesis chapter 1

Some thoughts shared regarding the days of creation:
The Lord separated – the light from darkness, the waters below and above the sky, the seas from the land, and the day from the night.
Also, the Lord filled those whom He separated with creation such as - the seas with fishes, the air with birds, and land with plants and animals, and finally the human being.

Spiritual application: the Lord is in the business of sanctification (separating something for special use) even at the beginning of creation. When we trusted on the Lord for our salvation, God started to set us aside for His special purpose, filled us with His Spirit, and uses us to bring Him back the glory and to tell others of His love and salvation.

Genesis 1:20-23 Fifth Day of Creation

1. God created the living creatures in the water – the sea monsters or beasts like whales, and things that creeps and swarms the waters. So all the creeps were created by God too, just kidding J.

2. God created the living creatures in the air - like birds that fly, particularly. There was no particular mention of flying insects though. But take note that insects like butterflies came from creeping creatures like caterpillars, mosquitoes from water germs, etc.

However creepy some things were, they were good according to the Lord. Everything was created by God for a purpose. God blessed them all to multiply and to fill the seas and the earth.

Genesis 1:24-31 Sixth Day of Creation

1. God created the living creatures in the land – the livestock to wild animals, and small animals that scurry along the ground.

2. God created human beings – in his own image: a triune creature – body, soul, and spirit (1 Thes. 5:13). Everything else has body and soul (thoughts and feelings) like the animals, but they have no spirit.

God gave the authority to man to manage the whole earth and creation. God gave human beings too the ability to pro-create, to multiply, and to subdue the earth.

Some believe that this was to counteract the presence of Satan – whom when thrown out from heaven to earth, turned the “first” earth into chaos (Gen. 1:2) and still rule as the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2), until now. Bible numbers somehow designate the number 6 to the number of man, whereby man was created on the sixth day.

Genesis Chapter 2

Genesis 2:1-4 Seventh Day of Creation

God “rested” after creating everything – blessed them as “good”, and “very good” for the creation of man. But on the seventh day, the Lord declared it as “holy”. We have holy-days or holidays, but it would be different from the seventh day because it should be dedicated for the Lord who is holy.

The Lord did not rest because He was worn out or tired, but to exemplify to His creation that there is a period of rest – filled with worshiping and fellowshipping with the Creator. Setting aside a day of rest is worship in itself, because we are obeying what God had instituted and trusting that He can provide for what we need. We may be able to “advance ahead” with our finances, and from our co-workers when we don’t rest for a day, but it wouldn’t take long and we must deal with “pay back time”. We can get worn out and sick and pay more with hospital bills, we can have worn out car, we can have broken relationships, we can get cold in our spiritual life. We can be caught up with money matters and become greedy, become discontented and wanting for more, and we can end up rationalizing not attending fellowships and church. Worse is to end up not trusting in the Lord, and the Lord crystallizing our disbelief and finally we turn away from the faith – which is a heavy warning on the last days (Matt 24:10, 2 Tim 3:1-9).

Genesis 2:5-9 Details of Creation

Genesis chapter 1 somehow gave us a “wide angle view” of the creation process. And now in chapter 2, it slowly “zooms in” to the details of creation. Here we read that the Lord created the “largest sprinkler system in the world” to water all the land and the plants.

We also read how God created the man – whom we will know as Adam. Adam means man. Root meaning of man is earth – from dust, where man was made.

Psalm 103:13-14: As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

Take note that it did not become a human being, not until the Lord breathed the “breath of life” into the man’s nostrils. So, we know that a man without the Spirit of God is basically dead - spiritually. We became alive in Christ, when the Holy Spirit took dwelling in our life.

The Lord planted the Garden of Eden and put the man there. Also the Lord placed in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree to test the obedience of Adam to the Lord. If he will obey and not eat, then that is “good” because he will enjoy God’s providence and fellowship forever. If he will disobey and will eat of the fruit, then that is “evil” – because disobedience is the character of the Devil.