In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
Why are the first ten words of the Bible so important?
For millennia until the 1700’s, the widely accepted belief about the beginnings of the earth and mankind was that a Higher Being created all things. Most people groups had some sort of creation story that included a God or gods that formed the earth and the heavens. As Christians, we know that Higher Being to be God, and that story to be the literal truth of the seven days of creation during which God created from nothing our world and universe.
Genesis one explains how God created all things. First, He started by creating the heavens and the earth. Though hard to imagine, there was a time when nothing existed but God. After creating the heaven and the earth, God made light and divided the light into day and night. Genesis 1:2-5
On the second day, God took what he had made and gave it form. He took the waters that he had made and divided them: some for the earth and some for the canopy above the earth, which he called the firmament. In between the two was the earth’s atmosphere. Genesis 1:6-8
On the third day, God gathered the waters into their oceans and seas and caused the dry land to appear. He also made plants, flowers, and trees to grow on the dry land. Genesis 1:9-13
The next day God made the sun, moon, and stars. He set them in the heavens to help with time, day and night, and to give light on the earth. Genesis 1:14-19
On days five and six, God created the birds and the creatures that dwell in the waters (Genesis 1:20-23) and all of the land animals, and man and woman. (Genesis 1:24-31)
Finally, on the seventh day God rested from his work and saw that everything that he had made was very good. Genesis 2:1-3
So why is believing in the seven days of creation so important? If a person believes in a Creator, then he also must believe that he was created. When men began to deny that there was a Creator, they had to come up with a way for mankind to have come into being. Thus, the theories of evolution were imagined, written about, and then taught as truth. Changing the origin story of all things in existence from created to an evolutionary accident allows men to deny the existence of God and to deny their responsibility to him as Creator.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses.
Let all earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
Psalm 33:6-9
God spoke everything into existence. He gathered the waters and placed some under the earth’s crust and some in the heavens… an unimaginable engineering feat to just happen by accident. The wisdom and power to just accomplish that one task should cause a person to stand in awe of him – not to mention that He created everything out of nothing by just speaking!
Acknowledging God as Creator leads to admitting that we are not our own god, that we fall short of being like God, that we need help because of our failures and sins, and ultimately to accepting God’s plan of salvation through Jesus.
Genesis one is that important.
