Creation of the World with Adam and Animalsby Knighthowl
1:13Genesis 1:13
And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And the evening and the morning were the third day closes a literal day of evening and morning, like every day since, in a creation week of seven literal days about six thousand years ago. It marks the third of the six days in which God made heaven and earth and all that is in them, ending with everything very good, before He rested on the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it. By that day the earth came forth from God's hand exceedingly beautiful and holy, with hills and plains adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees, pure air, and every sound in harmony with God's voice, which angels beheld and rejoiced over. Its day is not a vast indefinite period of thousands or millions of years for the earth to evolve from chaos, for God spoke and commanded and it was done at once. Because God worked six literal days, man is given six literal days for labor and the seventh for rest in commemoration of God's rest, so to turn them into long ages makes the fourth commandment senseless and strikes at the foundation of the Sabbath.
Third Day's Work
The verse closes the third day of the mighty wondrous work of creating the world carried out together by the Father and the Son. By that day the earth came forth exceedingly beautiful, holy and beautiful from God's hand, not one extensive plain but diversified with regular and beautiful hills, mountains and plains, 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, while waters were regularly dispersed in rivers and other bodies of water. The hills, mountains and very beautiful plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees of every description many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, and with pure and healthful air the earth seemed like a noble palace, which angels beheld and rejoiced over.
Every flower, every shrub, every tree answered the purpose of its Creator, everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound was music in harmony with the voice of God. God by His own hand made the lofty trees, the springing grass, and the beautiful flowers, every opening bud and blossoming flower. Heaven means the starry region of the sun, moon and stars where the heavenly lights were placed. That starry heaven is distinct from Paradise, from the air around the earth where birds fly, and from the church of God on earth. It is not the heaven to be shaken and rolled together as a scroll, since that shaking is the air around the earth under the seventh vial and the voice of God.
The third day is one of the six days in which the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is. Those six days end with everything God had made very good, and the heavens and the earth finished and all the host of them. Then on the seventh day God ended His work, rested from all His work which He created and made, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He had rested, thus proclaiming His will to all the earth. The verse marks the third of the six days God took to make the world, showing creation was spread over six days even though God had the power to speak it into existence in one day.
The day is afterward called a generation because God generated or produced a new portion of His work in it, as at the close of each literal day, not because it was a vast indefinite period.
Literal Day Affirmed
The third day was a literal day, a plain literal day consisting of evening and morning, like every day since and just like every other day of the week. The same statement in substance is made for each of the first six days, and the verse records one of six literal days in which the work of creation was accomplished in a creation week of only seven literal days about six thousand years ago. It was not a vast indefinite period covering thousands or millions of years or stretching over tens of thousands of years, and its wording leaves no room for long ages in which the earth slowly evolved from chaos. The completed work reported at its close shows creation was done at once because God spoke and commanded, and God's power to call worlds into existence by speaking shows no long time was required for the evolution of the earth from chaos.
Interpreting its day as a long age to accommodate the claim that millions of years were required for the evolution of the earth from chaos comes from inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature, produces a supposed conflict between science and revelation, and undermines and destroys the force of the word of God. Stretching the days to accommodate geology does violence to God's word and is wholly uncalled for, for the Bible record is in harmony with itself and with nature. Bones and relics and wonderful things found in the earth showing much larger men, beasts and trees and a state of things different from the present do not prove life long before this creation week or a very old world. They reflect the size of men, animals and trees before the flood and the great changes that took place in the earth at the flood, and the time of their existence can be learned only from the inspired record, so that without Bible history geology can prove nothing.
Just how God wrought in the work of creation has never been revealed to mortals, His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence, and human science cannot search out the secrets of the God of Heaven. It may be innocent to conjecture beyond the Bible if suppositions do not contradict Scripture, but to account for this creative work upon natural principles is to enter a boundless ocean of uncertainty, and faith must not rest on mere suppositions about what God has not revealed. The verse belongs to the plain Scripture facts of the Mosaic record of the work of creation, giving what God has revealed about creation, leaving man without excuse and giving sufficient evidence on which to base faith. It stands against explaining creation by natural causes, against human reasoning accepted in opposition to Scripture, and against the suppositions of geologists that contradict the Mosaic record, and it is plain and understandable.
In the last days men count God's word unreliable on the merest pretense, receive human reasoning though opposed to plain Scripture, endeavor to explain creation from natural causes, and eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists which dispute the Mosaic record. This exposes the inconsistency of declaring the revealed prophecies of Daniel and Revelation too obscure to understand while eagerly receiving mere suppositions about what God has not revealed. The verse gives one of the great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers, to be received with implicit confidence as the guide of life. It is one of the very pillars of the Christian faith, with the fall of man, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God, so that to deny it wholly or in part, to cavil at it, and to spiritualize and explain it away in the name of wisdom, independence, talent and learning is infidelity, now prevailing to an alarming extent not only in the world but in the church, where the Bible is within reach of all yet little valued and few really accept it.
The creation record defines the living God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, as set forth in the fourth precept of the decalogue, which Satan with special hatred seeks to obscure in order to lead fallen man to rebel against God's government, turn from Jehovah's plainest precepts, and receive infidel fables. The verse is part of the authentic account of creation found in God's word alone, the most comprehensive and most instructive history men possess, which came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth and which the divine Mind and Hand has preserved in its purity through all the ages. Its bright rays shine into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate, in it is beheld the power that laid the foundation of the earth and stretched out the heavens, and in it alone is found a history of the human race unsullied by human prejudice or human pride.
Sabbath Pattern and Application
The first week, including the third day, was measured off by God as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time, originating the weekly cycle of seven literal days and measuring off the first cycle as the pattern for all that follow. Because God worked during the first six days, the first six days of each week are given to man for labor, with the six days of labor including this day as the reason for that gift. The seventh day is reserved as rest in commemoration of God's rest after His six days of work, with six days for labor and the seventh for rest. God commanded men to work six literal days and rest the seventh in commemoration of that first week.
The beauty and force of the reason given for keeping the Sabbath depend on understanding this day and the other days of creation as literal. To turn the six days and the day of God's rest into vast indefinite periods makes senseless the fourth commandment and destroys its claim upon men. It makes God command a literal week in memory of indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom, obscures what God made plain, and strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. God's great work of creation, of which this verse is part, is to be told to children on the Sabbath to show the reason for the Sabbath.
It shows the earth as it came from God's hand holy and beautiful, when every flower, every shrub, every tree answered the purpose of its Creator, everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound was music in harmony with the voice of God. Sin afterward marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience to God. Yet the marred earth still reveals God's goodness and bears witness of the Creator in green fields, lofty trees, glad sunshine, clouds, dew, solemn stillness of night, glory of starry heavens, beauty of the moon, falling rain and shed light, all testifying to His forbearance and love. God's six-day pace sets the pattern for human labor, showing work should be done without rush and hurry and without turning night into day and day into night, with regular hours kept for sleep and work and rest. The beginning creation record of which the verse is part shows God's original plan included equal use of the mental and physical powers.
The record of creation to which the verse belongs is to be the chief study in schools to carry minds higher than now thought possible and to train heart and mind to preserve purity and to comprehend its important truths by daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth. There converse is held with patriarchs and prophets and there is learned 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. Education is a failure unless the understanding learns to grasp its truths of divine revelation about eternal life and the heart accepts the teachings of the gospel of Christ. The verse shows the creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God, which imparts power and begets life, where every command is a promise and, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One. That life transforms the nature and recreates the soul in the image of God, and the life thus imparted is in like manner sustained, for by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live.
The verse shows that God spoke and His words created His works in the natural world, and that God's creation is a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure. Nothing in it is useless, but the curse has caused tares to be sown by the enemy. Rational beings alone should not cause confusion in the world but should live to God and honor Him, and God and Saviour is all-wise and all-sufficient and came to this world that His perfection might be revealed in humanity. The trees, grass, flowers, opening buds and blossoming flowers made by God's own hand are an expression of His love for His children and teach lessons about Him. Set around country sanitariums as flowers and trees, orchards and vineyards, they give physicians and nurses means to point patients to God for restoration of health in natural ways.
And the evening and the morning were the third day closes a literal day of evening and morning, like every day since, in a creation week of seven literal days about six thousand years ago. It marks the third of the six days in which God made heaven and earth and all that is in them, ending with everything very good, before He rested on the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it. By that day the earth came forth from God's hand exceedingly beautiful and holy, with hills and plains adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees, pure air, and every sound in harmony with God's voice, which angels beheld and rejoiced over. Its day is not a vast indefinite period of thousands or millions of years for the earth to evolve from chaos, for God spoke and commanded and it was done at once. Because God worked six literal days, man is given six literal days for labor and the seventh for rest in commemoration of God's rest, so to turn them into long ages makes the fourth commandment senseless and strikes at the foundation of the Sabbath.
Third Day's Work
The verse closes the third day of the mighty wondrous work of creating the world carried out together by the Father and the Son. By that day the earth came forth exceedingly beautiful, holy and beautiful from God's hand, not one extensive plain but diversified with regular and beautiful hills, mountains and plains, 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, while waters were regularly dispersed in rivers and other bodies of water. The hills, mountains and very beautiful plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees of every description many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, and with pure and healthful air the earth seemed like a noble palace, which angels beheld and rejoiced over.
Every flower, every shrub, every tree answered the purpose of its Creator, everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound was music in harmony with the voice of God. God by His own hand made the lofty trees, the springing grass, and the beautiful flowers, every opening bud and blossoming flower. Heaven means the starry region of the sun, moon and stars where the heavenly lights were placed. That starry heaven is distinct from Paradise, from the air around the earth where birds fly, and from the church of God on earth. It is not the heaven to be shaken and rolled together as a scroll, since that shaking is the air around the earth under the seventh vial and the voice of God.
The third day is one of the six days in which the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is. Those six days end with everything God had made very good, and the heavens and the earth finished and all the host of them. Then on the seventh day God ended His work, rested from all His work which He created and made, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He had rested, thus proclaiming His will to all the earth. The verse marks the third of the six days God took to make the world, showing creation was spread over six days even though God had the power to speak it into existence in one day.
The day is afterward called a generation because God generated or produced a new portion of His work in it, as at the close of each literal day, not because it was a vast indefinite period.
Literal Day Affirmed
The third day was a literal day, a plain literal day consisting of evening and morning, like every day since and just like every other day of the week. The same statement in substance is made for each of the first six days, and the verse records one of six literal days in which the work of creation was accomplished in a creation week of only seven literal days about six thousand years ago. It was not a vast indefinite period covering thousands or millions of years or stretching over tens of thousands of years, and its wording leaves no room for long ages in which the earth slowly evolved from chaos. The completed work reported at its close shows creation was done at once because God spoke and commanded, and God's power to call worlds into existence by speaking shows no long time was required for the evolution of the earth from chaos.
Interpreting its day as a long age to accommodate the claim that millions of years were required for the evolution of the earth from chaos comes from inferences erroneously drawn from facts observed in nature, produces a supposed conflict between science and revelation, and undermines and destroys the force of the word of God. Stretching the days to accommodate geology does violence to God's word and is wholly uncalled for, for the Bible record is in harmony with itself and with nature. Bones and relics and wonderful things found in the earth showing much larger men, beasts and trees and a state of things different from the present do not prove life long before this creation week or a very old world. They reflect the size of men, animals and trees before the flood and the great changes that took place in the earth at the flood, and the time of their existence can be learned only from the inspired record, so that without Bible history geology can prove nothing.
Just how God wrought in the work of creation has never been revealed to mortals, His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence, and human science cannot search out the secrets of the God of Heaven. It may be innocent to conjecture beyond the Bible if suppositions do not contradict Scripture, but to account for this creative work upon natural principles is to enter a boundless ocean of uncertainty, and faith must not rest on mere suppositions about what God has not revealed. The verse belongs to the plain Scripture facts of the Mosaic record of the work of creation, giving what God has revealed about creation, leaving man without excuse and giving sufficient evidence on which to base faith. It stands against explaining creation by natural causes, against human reasoning accepted in opposition to Scripture, and against the suppositions of geologists that contradict the Mosaic record, and it is plain and understandable.
In the last days men count God's word unreliable on the merest pretense, receive human reasoning though opposed to plain Scripture, endeavor to explain creation from natural causes, and eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists which dispute the Mosaic record. This exposes the inconsistency of declaring the revealed prophecies of Daniel and Revelation too obscure to understand while eagerly receiving mere suppositions about what God has not revealed. The verse gives one of the great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers, to be received with implicit confidence as the guide of life. It is one of the very pillars of the Christian faith, with the fall of man, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God, so that to deny it wholly or in part, to cavil at it, and to spiritualize and explain it away in the name of wisdom, independence, talent and learning is infidelity, now prevailing to an alarming extent not only in the world but in the church, where the Bible is within reach of all yet little valued and few really accept it.
The creation record defines the living God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, as set forth in the fourth precept of the decalogue, which Satan with special hatred seeks to obscure in order to lead fallen man to rebel against God's government, turn from Jehovah's plainest precepts, and receive infidel fables. The verse is part of the authentic account of creation found in God's word alone, the most comprehensive and most instructive history men possess, which came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth and which the divine Mind and Hand has preserved in its purity through all the ages. Its bright rays shine into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate, in it is beheld the power that laid the foundation of the earth and stretched out the heavens, and in it alone is found a history of the human race unsullied by human prejudice or human pride.
Sabbath Pattern and Application
The first week, including the third day, was measured off by God as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time, originating the weekly cycle of seven literal days and measuring off the first cycle as the pattern for all that follow. Because God worked during the first six days, the first six days of each week are given to man for labor, with the six days of labor including this day as the reason for that gift. The seventh day is reserved as rest in commemoration of God's rest after His six days of work, with six days for labor and the seventh for rest. God commanded men to work six literal days and rest the seventh in commemoration of that first week.
The beauty and force of the reason given for keeping the Sabbath depend on understanding this day and the other days of creation as literal. To turn the six days and the day of God's rest into vast indefinite periods makes senseless the fourth commandment and destroys its claim upon men. It makes God command a literal week in memory of indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom, obscures what God made plain, and strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. God's great work of creation, of which this verse is part, is to be told to children on the Sabbath to show the reason for the Sabbath.
It shows the earth as it came from God's hand holy and beautiful, when every flower, every shrub, every tree answered the purpose of its Creator, everything upon which the eye rested was lovely and filled the mind with thoughts of the love of God, and every sound was music in harmony with the voice of God. Sin afterward marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience to God. Yet the marred earth still reveals God's goodness and bears witness of the Creator in green fields, lofty trees, glad sunshine, clouds, dew, solemn stillness of night, glory of starry heavens, beauty of the moon, falling rain and shed light, all testifying to His forbearance and love. God's six-day pace sets the pattern for human labor, showing work should be done without rush and hurry and without turning night into day and day into night, with regular hours kept for sleep and work and rest. The beginning creation record of which the verse is part shows God's original plan included equal use of the mental and physical powers.
The record of creation to which the verse belongs is to be the chief study in schools to carry minds higher than now thought possible and to train heart and mind to preserve purity and to comprehend its important truths by daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth. There converse is held with patriarchs and prophets and there is learned 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. Education is a failure unless the understanding learns to grasp its truths of divine revelation about eternal life and the heart accepts the teachings of the gospel of Christ. The verse shows the creative energy that called the world into existence is in the Word of God, which imparts power and begets life, where every command is a promise and, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One. That life transforms the nature and recreates the soul in the image of God, and the life thus imparted is in like manner sustained, for by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God shall man live.
The verse shows that God spoke and His words created His works in the natural world, and that God's creation is a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure. Nothing in it is useless, but the curse has caused tares to be sown by the enemy. Rational beings alone should not cause confusion in the world but should live to God and honor Him, and God and Saviour is all-wise and all-sufficient and came to this world that His perfection might be revealed in humanity. The trees, grass, flowers, opening buds and blossoming flowers made by God's own hand are an expression of His love for His children and teach lessons about Him. Set around country sanitariums as flowers and trees, orchards and vineyards, they give physicians and nurses means to point patients to God for restoration of health in natural ways.