Page 45 - Foundations

when God created the heavens and the earth, he then continues by telling what condition the earth
is in and how God day after day creates light, air, earth, plants, animals, and so forth. Such is the
popular view as to how Genesis 1 narrates the creation story and how the universe was created out
of waste and void. Yet those who study carefully the first chapter of sacred Scripture deem this
interpretation to be erroneous...

In the original Hebrew, this initial verse of the first chapter of Genesis contains seven words which
carry within themselves a sense of independence. These divinely revealed words do not say that in
the beginning God “formed” or “made” the world out of certain raw materials. No, the heavens and
the earth were created. This word “created” is “bara” in the original. So that in the beginning God
bara the heavens and the earth. This word “bara” is used three more times in Genesis 1 and 2: (1st)
“And God created [bara] the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith
the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind” (1.21); (2nd) “And God
created [bara] man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created
he them” (1.27); and (3rd) “And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it
he rested from all his work which God had created [bara] and made” (2.3). To “create” is to “call
the things that are not, as though they were” (Rom. 4.17). These sea-monsters and living things not
only had physical bodies but also had an animated life within them. They therefore required a direct
creative act of God. Thus it is only reasonable that the Scriptures should use the word “created”
rather than the word “made” in these passages. In similar manner, though man’s body was formed
out of the dust of the ground, his soul and spirit could not be made out of any physical material, and
hence the Bible declared that “God created man in his own image.”

In the first two chapters of Genesis three different words are used for the act of creation: (1)
“bara”- calling into being without the aid of pre-existing material. This we have already touched
upon; (2) “asah”- which is quite different from “bara,” since the latter denotes the idea of creating
without any material whereas “asah” signifies the making, fashioning, or preparing out of existing
material. For instance, a carpenter can make a chair, but he cannot create one. The works of the
Six Days in Genesis are mainly of the order of “asah”; (3) “yatsar”- which means to shape or mold
as a potter does with clay. This word is used in Genesis 2.7 as follows: “And Jehovah God formed
man of the dust of the ground.” Interestingly, Isaiah 43.7 illustrates the meaning and connection of
all three of these words: “every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my
glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made.” “Created” signifies a calling into being out
of nothing; “formed” denotes a fashioning into appointed form; and “made” means a preparing
out of pre-existing material.

The words “In the beginning” reinforce the thought of God creating the heavens and the earth out
of nothing. There is really no need to theorize; since God has so spoken, let men simply believe. How
absurd for finite minds to search out the works of God which He performed at the beginning! “By
faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God” (Heb. 11.3). Who can
answer God’s challenge to Job concerning creation (see Job 38)?...

To understand the first chapter of Genesis, it is of utmost importance that we distinguish the “earth”
mentioned in verse 1 from the “earth” spoken of in verse 2. For the condition of the earth referred
to in verse 2 is not what God had created originally. Now we know that “God is not a God of