Progressive Creation
Genesis 1:10
Passage To Study: Genesis 1:10
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Flow of the Passage:
- (Verse 10) - God names the dry land and the seas that He has just created and arranged.
What Do I Think About It?
I can’t believe that the order of creation was accidental or even incidental. God did not work in a haphazard fashion, just throwing things into being willy-nilly as He happened to think of them. Nor did He simply create things, with the order being unimportant. What He created on the first day was foundational to what He created on the second day, etc. He built His creation to serve a purpose in His plan and that purpose and plan can even be seen in the progress of creation.
As we have already noted, many contend the "day" (Hebrew yom) should be understood as meaning an unspecified period of time rather than a twenty-four hour period. The sun and the moon, which mark the change from evening to morning, were not created until the fourth day. Day means hours of light contrasted to night's hours of darkness (1:5). In the Hebrew Bible, day (yom) can refer to a longer, unspecified period (2:4; 35:3; Lev 14:57; 2 Sa 22:1; Ps 137:7; Jer 18:17; Hos 10:14; Na 3:17) as well as to a literal 24 hour period.
Differences of opinion here often turn on the reference to "evening and morning" as well as on yom. Taking these words figuratively, the account can more easily be harmonized with theories of a vast age for the earth and a gradual development of life. Taken literally, the account would point to a much younger universe and a more rapid origin of life. In either view the creation of the universe and of life is a miraculous act of love by the sovereign God. God as an orderly, purposeful Creator is the central emphasis. However, it would be a bad mistake to rule these things unimportant on that account. What it means is that these ideas are not cause for division of fellowship, though they are very significant.
The definite order to the progress of creation is also another argument against the theory of evolution. For evolutionary thought to be so, all of the elements of creation had to be present at once. There could no progression from nothing to something as everything had to present at the same time. Evolutionary theory presents a concept that could be understood as progression from something to something else. The earth had to be capable of supporting life before life could be supported. The Bible clearly teaches that this was the way that God went about building His world.
What Difference Does This Make To Me?
God moved from the general to the specific and from the lower to the higher in His creative process. He was active for six days and rested on the seventh. A God of infinite power could have done things any way that He chose. He could have created man, and then created a world in which he could live and prosper. There would have been no problem in His accomplishing that. All that God did was for our example and for our instruction. You and I must go about constructing our lives and our Christian walk in the same fashion. We must begin at the beginning, and move from general to more specific, from simple to more complex and put the basic, fundamental structures into place first of all, and then move on to the more complex and involved. If we attempt to do and take on more than we’re are capable of too fast, we will end up crashing and burning because the underlying structure lacks the spiritual strength to bear the load.
My god-daughter, Hannah, is just now learning to walk. She has learned to pull herself up and stand, and, with the proper support and the strong hands of her father or mother (or her god-father), she can take and wobbly step or two. If she were simply stood up in the middle of the room and left on her own, she would fall to the floor in a heap because she simply isn’t ready to stand and walk on her own yet. That is coming, but in the progression of her growth and development, she is not there yet. Standing and walking with much help, then with gradually less, must come first.
Many try and leap right from no spiritual life to hours of study and prayer each day. The result, inevitably, is failure and frustration because they did not take the baby steps necessary to build the strength and skills necessary to make such spiritual activity necessary. Hebrews tells us that spiritual success comes as a result of disciplining ourselves to take in the Word and use it properly. This principle is simply following the example that God has set for us throughout history, beginning with the creation itself!
Is There Anything For Me To Do?
I need to allow myself the time and opportunity to grow and become what God wants me to be. It doesn’t happen in a day or a week or month. It take time, combined with effort and faithfulness. Those three cannot be separated.
Care To Respond?
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