The creation account is a fascinating study. It is certainly the source of our understanding of the original design of God. From the writing, we comprehend what God has intended for what He has made.
Before we begun, we should answer this question: Is the book of Genesis of the genre of myth, etiology, history, or tradition? The commentary by Walvoord and Zuck of the Dallas Theological Seminary provides an excellent answer. I have put on the web site their comment on an article called The Nature of Genesis.
Below is my commentary for this passage:
Commentary:
Genesis 1:1. This is beginning of everything. The phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a merism. Merism is a “synecdoche in which totality is expressed by contrasting parts.”[1] God created everything there is.
Genesis 1:2-25. There is symmetry in this creation passage. Notice that the first three days are in the order of light, sky and water, and dry land. Then the next three days are the two lights and the stars, the creatures in the air and the sea, and the animals and human beings. The light of the first day matches the sun, the moon, and the stars of the fourth day. The sea and heaven of the second day match the birds in the sky and the creatures in the sea of the fifth day. The land and the vegetation in the third day match the animals and the human beings in the sixth day. This is like poetry. So the creation account is like a poem. But it has also significance in the scientific truth and the theological truth.
Let me be clear on this point: Genesis is not a science text book. We cannot develop a science theory based on the book. Having said that, I also strongly believe that God would not give a special revelation that contradicts his natural revelation. Therefore, we should find logic and harmony in Biblical account and science.
This point is vital to many truth seekers. The account of the creation is factually correct. The creation of the light and water first is consistent with scientific facts of what is the necessary to support life forms on earth. The same cannot be said about the creation myths of others. But the agreement of science goes beyond that. The recent DNA discovery reveals fundamental complexity of simple life form and design intelligence. The discovery strongly support that God is intimately involved in the creation as portrayed here in the Bible instead of a random chance suggested by the Theory of Evolution. For more understanding of how the Theory of Evolution is not possible, please read this book called Evolution: Possible or Impossible?.
Certainly the faith of a Christian begins not at creation but is rooted in the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. Faith is our belief that we are not able to save ourselves from sin and that the Son of God has come to die for our sin on the cross, buried, resurrected on the third day, and gone up to heaven for all of us. If we believe in the goodness of God and the salvation plan that He has for us, we would be saved.
The goodness of God is a certain theological truth in this passage. God saw only good from what He made. Can something bad come out of something good? James reasoned that it is not possible (James 3:11). God does not have any evil in him (James 1:13). And He certainly made no evil in His creation.
Meditation:
God is good all the time. We may not feel it at times because we are experiencing evil, but evil certainly did not come from Him. We may feel that God is partly responsible for our encounter with evil, but this passage here reminds us that evil was not part of the plan of God. God is good and is the only source of good.
In light of the goodness of God, we should come close to Him. In God, we will find the eternal peace and joy. In Him, we will find the eternal goodness. Ultimately, all believers would return to the original design of relationship with God with stronger bond and perfect love.
Prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, help us overcome any doubt we have over Your goodness, Your creation design and genesis, and Your love, in Jesus’ name, amen.
[1] Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper