The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth – Part 2
In our last topic, we saw that we want to help our physical and spiritual children become equipped to explain that we have a wonderful Creator who had a perfect plan for the development of everything within His creation. In this topic, we will see that God filled the things He had created.
Genesis 1:14-19 says, “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” On the first day, God divided the light from the darkness and called the light “Day”, and the darkness He called “Night”. There had been light from the first day. However, on the fourth day, God created the things which give us light during the day and the night.
The first heaven is the atmosphere above us. The second heaven is the firmament or expanse of space where God placed the sun, moon, and stars. The two lights called the great lights are the sun and the moon. The sun is actually a burning star, but it is much closer to us than any of the other stars. Since it is burning, it gives us direct light. In contrast, the moon does not burn, instead it gives us reflected light as it reflects the sun. This gives us an opportunity to teach our children that Christ is the spiritual Light and wants us to become His reflected lights. John 8:12 says, “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’” Then, Matthew 5:16 says, “‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’”
We see that God gave those lights to do three things. First, those lights were given to divide the day from the night. Christ had already spoken light into existence on the first day, but here, we see that He gave the sun and moon to divide the day and the night. He knew that mankind would need times for work and times for rest. Once sin entered the world, man needed daily rest. Genesis 3:17 says, “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, “You shall not eat of it”: Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.’” Then, Genesis 5:29 says, “And he called his name Noah, saying, ‘This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed.’” This hard work and toil meant that daily rest was needed.
Second, God gave the sun and moon for signs and seasons. Psalm 8:1 says, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!” Here, we see that the sun, moon, and stars are all signs to declare the glory of God. They also are signs about coming weather. Matthew 16:2-3 says, “He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red”; and in the morning, “It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.’” God will also use the lights as a sign of judgment. Joel 2:30-31 says, “‘And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.’”
Third, those lights were for days and years. A year is defined by the fact that it takes one year for the earth to make a complete rotation around the sun. The moon divides time into thirty-day months. We also see that the rotation of the earth, as it moves around the sun, divides the year into the seasons of summer and winter, as well as seedtime and harvest. Genesis 8:22 says, “‘While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.’” When Christ spoke the words creating the sun, moon, and stars, we see that they came into existence. They immediately began to give light to the earth. They also divided the light of day from the darkness of the night, beginning at the time they were spoken into existence. We read that God saw that it was good, so the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Genesis 1:20-23 says, “Then God said, ‘Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.’ So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” On the second day, Christ spoke into existence the sea and the dry land. Now, on the fifth day, we see that He spoke into existence the birds and the sea creatures.
We see that Christ said to let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures. This would include fish of every kind, from tiny fish to very large whales. These verses also tell us that God created great sea creatures. The word that is translated “great” means very large. The word translated “sea creatures” means serpents, sharks, whales, or other sea monsters, including dinosaurs. Job 41:1 says, “‘Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?’” Then, Psalm 104:24-26 adds, “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions—this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; there is that Leviathan which You have made to play there.” Here, we see that Leviathan is a sea creature that lives in the sea where the ships sail. Either this sea creature or the behemoth mentioned in Job 40:15-24 could have been various species of dinosaurs. Job 40:19 says of behemoth, “‘He is the first of the ways of God; only He who made him can bring near His sword.’” This verse says that this creature is the first of the ways of God.
Both the words for sea monsters and Leviathan are mentioned in Psalm 74:13-14, where we read, “You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters. You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, and gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.” The word translated “sea serpents” in this verse would include sharks, whales, dinosaurs, and other large sea creatures. These verses, in Job and Psalms, would indicate that these creatures were still in the seas in the time of Job but had possibly been destroyed by the time of David. This would mean that they are historic creatures living as recently as the time of Job. Job probably lived sometime between the tower of Babel and the time of Abraham, so these creatures were still alive only a few thousand years ago. The fact that these great sea creatures are mentioned in various places in the Bible makes it clear that these creatures only became extinct in recent years.
Everything in the water was created after their kind. The word translated “kind” is sometimes translated “species”. There were many different kinds of sea creatures and they each had their own species. The same thing was true for the birds. They were all created after their species. This same word is used several times to speak of the animals that Noah took into the ark. Genesis 7:13-14 says, “On the very same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark— they and every beast after its kind, all cattle after their kind, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every sort.” God created the various species so each species would be different from the moment they were created.
As God looked at the sea creatures and birds after they were created, we see that God saw that all He had created that day was good. Then, God blessed the sea creatures and the birds. This blessing is explained by what God told the sea creatures and birds to do. God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply. The word “fruitful” means to bear fruit or reproduce. Here, we see that God clearly lays out His plan for the ongoing population of the earth by every living thing. Each living thing is to reproduce after their species. Here, we see that God created every species so it was able to reproduce. God also said that the sea creatures and the birds were to multiply. God blessed the sea creatures and told them to multiply and fill the waters of the seas. He blessed the birds and told them to multiply on the earth.
God revealed through these verses that He had a very clear plan for the creation of everything He was going to create on the earth. In fact, Ephesians 1:4-5 says, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” These verses show us that even before Christ spoke the creation into existence, God had a clear plan from eternity past. We will see how that plan is carried out in future topics as we see how God created the animals and then as He created mankind. We want to help our physical and spiritual children learn to understand, and explain to others, how God carried out this plan as He created the heavens and the earth. May the Lord richly bless you as you help your children learn to explain these things.
