Day 3

Genesis 1:9-13

On the first day, God divides light from darkness.  On the second day, God divides the water below from the water above.  On the third day, God divides land from sea. 

v. 9  That clearly is the water that still remains on the earth.  The water above has gone into the expanse of the heavens.  Back in verse 2 the earth is covered with the water.  The surface of the deep, it’s called, and the surface of the waters.  Still, the earth is engulfed in this water.  Beneath the water is the solid matter, hidden beneath the waters covering the earth.

God then commands these waters that cover the earth to be collected or gathered into one place. The Septuagint [Greek translation of the OT] uses the word “synagogue,” a gathering place.  All of the water surrounding the earth is now gathered into one place, and at the same time verse 9 says, “God said, ‘And let the dry land appear,’ and it was so.”  So God separates the water from the dry land.  Now, this is just a simple statement, but can you even begin to fathom the cataclysm that occurred when that was spoken by God?  All of a sudden, the material that is in its unformed condition, buried under the depths of the surface sea, starts to move, and all of those necessary elements start to work to produce land, to push up to create the surface of land.  The water moves, gathering itself into one place, the lowest place, establishing sea level.  Tremendous chemical reactions get under way as the elements combine with each other to form the complex of minerals, rock and soil, making up the solid earth as to its crust and its mantle and its core.  Just a staggering act of creation.

Surfaces of solid earth appeared above the waters, and an intricate network of channels and reservoirs opened up in the crust to receive the waters retreating off the rising continent.  It may well have been only one great continent, later divided into multiple continents by the cataclysm of the breaking up of the tectonic plates during the Flood, when the fountains of the deep broke open the continent and pushed it into its current form. 

Last week we looked at Job 38 where God asked Job, where were you when I created it all.

Job 38:8-11

⁸ Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? ^{… 10} And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, ¹¹ And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

It’s a reference to day three in Genesis.

Psalms 74:13

¹³ Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength...

Psalms 104:6-9

⁶ Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. ⁷ At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. ⁸ They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them. ⁹ Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.

Certainly, that could refer to the creation work of God; it could also refer to what God did after the Flood, had it engulfed the earth.  I think I lean toward the fact that it refers to creation, because of the description of Him establishing the earth in verse 5, and covering the earth with water in verse 6, as with a garment.  I think that this is a creative context and the language of the psalmist is describing what happened when God drew the land together and separated the sea.  Verse 10 continues the same creative context.  “He sent forth springs in the valleys, they flow between the mountains,” and so that again is a creative statement.

Proverbs 8:26-29

²⁶ While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. ²⁷ When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: ²⁸ When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: ²⁹ When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

Verse 10 then tells us that God named what He had made. Then He said that it was good.  Previously He only said it had been ‘so’; He said back in the very beginning that He created light, and there was light.  He said He created heaven, and it was so.  And He created in verse 9 dry land and seas, and it was so.  But now He says it was good.  It was good.  Why?  Because it was now habitable.  Oh, the light was good in and of itself, according to verse 4, because God is the light.  But the earth now became good.  And then the plants, verse 12, were good.  And verse 18, the sun and moon were good.  And verse 21, everything He made in the sea and in the air was good.  And verse 25, all the animals were good.  And verse 31, He made man, and He looked at all of it, and it was very good.  There’s no sin there, folks.  There’s no death.  It’s just good.

So by the time you get to where we are in verse 10, you have the tripartite universe; tripartite meaning three parts, another trinity of earth, sea, and heaven.  That’s the created universe, and it was good.  And God could say it was good because it had reached the point where it could contain and sustain life.  And so God moved into the second phase of day three.

verse 11           “vegetation” - And now verse 29 makes sense.

So God divides the vegetation into two parts, plants and trees.  And what is the difference?  The difference is the plant has the seed in itself, and the tree has the seed in its fruit.  The vegetation was capable of what? Reproduction.  That’s the whole point.  He made full-grown, fully-mature vegetation with seed in it that could be dispersed.  One of the great wonders of the world is the science of seed dispersal, not the least of which is accomplished by birds in your own yard, and sometimes even attempted on your car and on your head.  Pre-fertilized seed dispersal is very efficient.  I’ll leave it at that. There are a number of other ways.  One of the wonderful works of the wind is seed dispersal. 

The tips of tree leaves shimmer as a thunderstorm passes overhead. This “glow” is called the corona and is caused by a weak electrical discharge. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but technology has allowed researchers to observe and document the phenomena. And this glow is actually really important. As the corona is discharged, it releases hydroxyl radicals, which clean the air, removing pollutants. It’s such a powerful cleaning force that it’s known as “nature’s detergent.”

Psalms 96:12

¹² Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice.

Just one very important note back in Gen. 1: catch this little phrase.  It’s repeated over and over – “after their kind”: verse 12, after their kind; once in the middle of the verse, toward the end of the verse, after their kind.  That phrase is repeated ten times in the first chapter of Genesis.  The Hebrew word for kind is min; what it does is indicate the limitations of variation.  A plant can only bring forth something of its own kind.  A tree can only bring forth something of its own kind.  It only has the capacity to function on the basis of a genetic code that is in it.

This eliminates any possibility of an evolutionary process.  Because whatever the plant is, and whatever the tree is, it can only reproduce after its own kind.  To say that all living things come from a common ancestry is refuted by the ten times repeated phrase, “after its kind.”  You could decide that you were going to eat fried chicken the rest of your life; but even 20 years from now, you would not cluck.  No combination of chicken amino acids and human amino acids will produce Big Bird.  All you will ever produce is more of you, no matter what goes in – that’s after their kind. Birds remain birds, and animals remain animals, and fish remain fish, and reptiles remain reptiles, and insects remain insects. 

Never has a plant evolved into something higher.  In fact, if you study mutations and change in genetics, it’s always negative.  It is always downward.  The study of fruit flies has been something evolutionists have given their life to because they have such a short life span they can observe it over many generations.  And the theory is you can see enough generations to see change, to see the evolutionary process taking place.  The only problem is they take these fruit flies, and in order to make them mutate rapidly, they bombard them with radiation.  And radiation, exposure to heat, chemicals and radiation can create mutations.  We understand that even in the chemistry of radiation that’s used with regard to cancer.  It has the ability to cause cells to be killed and to change.  But mutations do not create new structures.  You may have in the study of fruit flies crumpled wings, oversized wings, and undersized wings, you may have double sets of wings, but you don’t have a new kind of wing; nor does the fruit fly become a honey bee.  Mutations, by the way, are very rare, and this is fortunate, because they are virtually all harmful.  They all decline, and in most cases mutations never even survive. 

v. 13        over 100 times evening and morning appear in the OT, and it’s always in reference to a 24 hour solar day. God means what He says! Let’s end with this…

Job 26:7-14

⁷ He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. ⁸ He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. ⁹ He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it. ¹⁰ He hath compassed [circled, or horizoned] the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. ¹¹ The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof. ¹² He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud. ¹³ By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. ¹⁴ Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?

When God breaks into the darkness with light, and rain, and storms, and lightning, and fury, and all of this, we’re just hearing a faint sound, a faint indication of His immense incomprehensible thunder.  We’re only looking at the fringes of His ways.  What a God we have!