Genesis 1:10
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
God formed the dry land and the gathered waters on that day, named them Earth and Seas, and saw that the work was good. The land was diversified with regular and beautiful mountains, hills, and plains adorned with plants, flowers, and majestic trees, with pure air and waters regularly dispersed among them, and all was lovely and perfect before sin brought mar. This was the work of seven literal days, with God laboring six literal days and resting the seventh, the first week measuring off the weekly cycle to the close of time. That six-day work is the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, kept in commemoration of the Creator's rest as a holy sign that He made heaven and earth. The same creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God, whose every command is a promise that recreates the soul in the divine image and sustains the life imparted.
Land and Seas Named
On that day God formed the dry land and the gathered waters, gave them the names Earth and Seas, and saw that the work was good. That forming and naming belonged to the six-day making of heaven and earth which was finished and called very good on the sixth day, after which God ended His work and rested on the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it. It was work done on one literal day of the first week, which was just like every other week and measured off as the sample and origin of the weekly cycle to the close of time. The dry land called Earth was diversified with mountains, hills, and plains rather than one extensive plain, and the waters called Seas were rivers and other bodies of water regularly dispersed among them.
The hills and mountains were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as now. Bare high rocks were never seen upon them but lay beneath the surface answering as bones to the earth. Hills, mountains, and plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees many times larger and more beautiful than now, the air was pure and healthful, the earth was like a noble palace, and angels beheld the wonderful works and rejoiced. At first every flower, shrub, and tree answered its Creator's purpose, everything seen was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of divine love, and every sound was music in harmony with the divine voice. Sin marred this perfection and brought thorns, sorrow, pain, and death, yet green fields, trees, sunshine, clouds, dew, night, stars, moon, rain, and light still witness to goodness, forbearance, and love.
In its setting, heaven includes the region of the sun, moon, and stars, which is distinct from the airy heaven around the earth where birds fly and which is to be shaken by the vial poured into the air and by the divine voice. God spoke and His words created the land and seas as part of a natural world that stands ready as a reservoir of means for instant use, in which nothing is useless. Tares were no part of that work but were sown afterward by the enemy under the curse.
Literal Week Affirmed
The forming and naming of the dry land as Earth and the gathered waters as Seas, pronounced good, belongs to work done in seven literal days, not in vast indefinite periods. God employed six literal days in making heaven and earth, the sea, and all in them, generating a new portion on each day, and rested the seventh literal day. That first week was just like every other week, measured off as the sample and origin of the weekly cycle of seven literal days to the close of time. God took six days to make the world when He could have spoken it into existence in one day.
The world is now only about six thousand years old. Wonderful things found buried in the earth do not prove tens of thousands of years, but come from limited ideas of the size of men, beasts, and trees before the Flood and of the great changes then wrought. Men, beasts, and trees many times larger than those now living were buried at the Flood and preserved in providence to prove that the old world perished by water and to confirm inspired history, yet by vain reasoning they are wrongly used and turned into a curse as by the antediluvians.
This literal week is the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. After finishing the whole creation and calling it very good on the sixth day, God ended His work, rested on the seventh day, blessed and sanctified it, and set it apart for man, thereby proclaiming the Sabbath as a holy sign and perpetual covenant grounded in His making heaven and earth in six days and resting the seventh. The week and its facts are recognized in the law given from Sinai, where man is given six days for labor because God labored the same period, and must refrain on the seventh in commemoration of the Creator's rest. To make the days indefinite and obscure strikes at that foundation, makes the commandment senseless and destroys its force, and charges God with commanding a literal week to commemorate periods unlike His dealings, which impeaches His wisdom and is infidelity in disguise even among many professing to believe the record.
Just how God wrought in creating land and seas has never been revealed to mortals and is as incomprehensible as His existence. It cannot be accounted for upon natural principles nor searched out by human science, for His ways and thoughts are not as ours, and to attempt it apart from the Word is to enter a boundless ocean of uncertainty. Without Bible history geology can prove nothing about its time, though relics show a state differing in many respects from the present, whose time is learned only from the inspired record. The literal Mosaic record of plain revealed facts giving sufficient ground for faith must be accepted against human reasoning from natural causes and the suppositions of geologists contradicting it. The claim that millions of years were required for evolution of the earth from chaos rests on inferences erroneously drawn from nature, and to stretch the days into vast periods of thousands or millions of years to harmonize with supposed science undermines and destroys the force of the Word. It is inconsistent to reject what is revealed as too hard, especially the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, while accepting mere human suppositions about what is unrevealed.
These great facts of creation are pillars of Christian faith and part of the holy Word handed down as the guide of life. They are now little valued and practically rejected in whole or part by a large share of the professed Christian world amid alarming infidelity in the world and the church. Thousands priding themselves on wisdom regard implicit confidence in the Bible as weakness, and regard caviling and spiritualizing away its most important truths as superior talent, while many ministers teach that the law is changed or abrogated and treat those who hold it still binding as deserving ridicule. In the last days the earth will be almost destitute of true faith, the Word counted unreliable on the merest pretense while reasoning opposed to plain Scripture is received. This receiving of geological suppositions disputing Moses is a special effort to lead fallen man to rebel against divine government, to obscure the law and especially the fourth precept defining the living God as Maker of heaven and earth, and to turn men to fables.
Learning and Living Truth
The creation account in the first two chapters, to which the naming of Earth and Seas belongs, shows that equal taxation of the mental and physical powers was part of the divine plan from the beginning. That record is the most comprehensive and instructive history possessed, come fresh from the fountain of eternal truth and preserved pure by the divine Mind and Hand through the ages. It alone gives the authentic account of the creation of the world, beholding the power that laid the foundation of the earth and stretched out the heavens. It stands as history unsullied by human prejudice or human pride, with bright rays shining into the far distant past where human research seeks in vain to penetrate.
It is to be the chief study in schools, to carry minds higher than now thought possible. By receiving daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth it trains heart and mind to preserve purity. It brings into converse with patriarchs and prophets. It teaches what redemption cost the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning and sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God.
The creative energy that called the world into existence in Genesis 1:1-31 is in the Word of God. That Word imparts power and begets life. Every command is a promise which, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One, transforms the nature, and recreates the soul in the image of God. The life thus imparted is sustained in like manner by every word proceeding from the mouth of God, and mind and soul are built up by that upon which they feed.
The six-day work teaches measured labor, for God made the world in six days when He could have spoken it into existence in one day. He does not lead to working day and night to extremes until strength is spent beyond recovery and there is breakdown into invalidism. The lesson is to keep regular hours for sleep and work, to do well what can be done without exhaustion and let the rest wait, to stop when nature says stop, and never to turn night into day and day into night except in a case of life and death. So mind and body stay healthy and strength remains in reserve for efficient, healthful labor.
The great work of creation including the land and seas gives the reason for the institution of the Sabbath and should be described to children on Sabbath walks in the fields and groves. When the earth came from the divine hand it was holy and beautiful and good, a perfect work where every flower, shrub, and tree answered its Creator's purpose, everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of divine love, and every sound was music in harmony with the divine voice. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are all the result of disobedience. Though marred with the curse, the earth still reveals goodness and bears witness to the Creator and to forbearance and love — the green fields, the lofty trees, the glad sunshine, the clouds, the dew, the solemn stillness of night, the glory of the starry heavens, the moon in its beauty, and not a drop of rain that falls and not a ray of light shed upon an unthankful world.