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What does the book of Genesis tell us about creation?
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Genesis speaks of beginnings of the heavens and the earth, of light and darkness, of seas and skies, of land and vegetation, of sun and moon and stars, of sea air and land animals, of human beings ( made in God’s own image, the climax of his creative activity), of marriage and family, of society and civilization, of sin and redemption.
Genesis is foundational to the understanding of the rest of the Bible. It speaks about relationship, highlighting those between God and his creation, between God and humankind, and between human beings. Genesis clearly teaches that the one true God is sovereign over all that exists, his entire creation.
God brings out to the fallen human race e new humanity consecrated to himself, called and destined to be the people of his Kingdom and the channel of his blessing to the whole earth. -
He created all things over a period of time. There was a purpose and reason for the creation. God created man and woman in His image allowing for dependance upon on another. He created us to have a partner in this life and knew we needed each other. God wants us to rely on Him and have faith in Him. He also showed in Genesis the importance of rest. Rest for us to have time with Him. Rest for us to recharge and regain our perspective of what’s important. Time to lean into Him.
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God specifically goes through the creation of the stars and the earth and all the creatures on it in a very particular way. The term “day” is not necessarily a single 24 hour day, but it is a span of time. The morning and evening of the days were meant to match with the Jewish week and even the importance of resting on the 7th day. This importance is depicted in the position that God takes, when he didn’t need to rest, he still did as a point of how the Jews should do their work week. The spirit of God hoovered over the face of the waters in Genesis 1 and even in this time, he was creating and setting up the world to be inhabited by those he wanted to fill the earth with. Humans were made last, which shows that the Bible was written with inspiration. People generally want to be first in everything, so if this was a story of just man’s ideas, likely they would have man being the first creations. God gave Adam the task of finding one that would suit him from the other creations and God knew that Adam would not find any creature to meet that, so he formed Eve out of Adam. The symbolism of this is carried into the deeper meaning of marriage as well. When we become one flesh with our spouse, it’s to parallel the initial one flesh by which woman came from Adam.