1:1
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
The chapter at a glance
- 1–2In the beginningGod alone, before all things, makes all things
- 3–5Day one: lightGod speaks, and light comes
- 6–8Day two: the expanseGod divides the waters and makes the sky
- 9–13Day three: land and plantsGod gathers the seas and the earth bears fruit
- 14–19Day four: the lightsSun, moon and stars serve; they do not rule God
- 20–23Day five: sea and sky filledGod blesses the creatures to multiply
- 24–25Day six: land animalsEvery creature according to its kind
- 26–31Man in God’s imageMale and female made to bear His likeness and rule
The chapter in brief
In the beginning God creates the heavens and the earth. At first the earth is without form and void, dark and covered by the deep, and the Spirit of God is hovering over the face of the waters. Then, over six days, God speaks and it is so: light on the first day; an expanse separating the waters on the second; seas, dry land and plants on the third; on the fourth the sun, moon and stars, set in the expanse to rule the day and the night and to mark seasons, days and years; on the fifth the creatures of the sea and the birds; and on the sixth the land animals and, last of all, man, male and female, created in God’s own image, blessed, and given dominion over the earth. Each day closes with evening and morning, and the work is called good again and again until God sees everything He has made, “and behold, it was very good.”
The chapter tells us who God is before it tells us anything about ourselves. There is one God, with no rival and no struggle; He speaks and creation obeys; the sun and moon the nations worshiped are His lamps, hung on the fourth day. Man is not an accident or a slave of the gods but the creature made in God’s image to represent Him on the earth. And the New Testament opens the chapter wider still. The Word by whom God spoke was the eternal Son: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). The God who said “Let there be light” has shone in our hearts “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6), and Christ, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), is the one in whom the image is restored and the very good world will be made new.
Points for discussion
vv. 1–2
In the beginning
Genesis does not argue for God; it begins with Him. Verse 1 can be read as a heading over the whole account or as God’s first act, with verse 2 describing the earth as He first made it, unformed and unfilled. Either way nothing exists before God and nothing stands beside Him. The verb bara, “created,” always has God as its subject in this form, and it marks the thresholds of the chapter: the heavens and the earth (v. 1), the great sea creatures and every living creature (v. 21), and man (v. 27, three times over). The word alone does not mean “out of nothing,” but Scripture teaches it plainly: “the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). The Spirit hovering over the waters is the first glimpse of the triune God at work, and John opens his Gospel with the same words, “In the beginning,” to name the Word who “was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
For discussion
What changes in how we see the world, and ourselves, if the first thing true about it is that it belongs to Someone? Read Psalm 24:1 and Revelation 4:11.
vv. 3–25
He spoke, and it was so
“God said” comes ten times in the chapter, and each time what He says happens. Creation is not a battle or a birth among the gods, as in the stories of Israel’s neighbors, but a King’s command: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made” (Psalm 33:6). The days also have a shape that many readers notice. The first three form the realms (light and darkness; sky and sea; dry land), and the next three fill them (the lights; birds and sea creatures; land animals and man). God makes a home before He fills it. On the fourth day the sun and moon are not even named, only “the greater light” and “the lesser light,” and the stars are added almost in passing. Many readers see a quiet answer to the nations that worshiped them: here they are lamps that serve. Light comes on the first day, before any lamp, which reminds us that God Himself is the source of light (Revelation 22:5).
vv. 5–31
Evening and morning
Christians who hold Scripture to be God’s Word have read the days in more than one way. The day-age reading takes each day as a long age. The framework reading sees the days as a literary frame, two matching sets of three, telling what God made without giving a timeline. The analogical reading takes them as God’s workdays, like ours but not identical to them. Faithful Reformed brothers hold each of these, and on every reading God is the Creator of all things, by His Word, through the Son. This commentary holds that God made all things in six ordinary days and rested on the seventh, because we believe it most faithfully reflects the Word. Each day is numbered and closed with “there was evening and there was morning.” The lights of the fourth day are given “for days and years” (v. 14), the ordinary measures of time. And the fourth commandment grounds Israel’s week in God’s own: “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11). So the sun, moon and stars were made within those six days and set in the heavens on the fourth (vv. 14-19). The Westminster Confession uses the same language, “in the space of six days” (4.1). No one’s salvation turns on this, and brothers who read it otherwise are not less faithful, but it is worth discussing, because the week we live in is shaped after God’s.
For discussion
Exodus 20:8-11 and Exodus 31:17 tie Israel’s week to the days of creation. How should that shape the way we read Genesis 1, and the way we keep our own week?
vv. 26–27
“Let us make man”
The plural has been read in three main ways. Some see a plural of majesty, as a king might speak. Some see God addressing His heavenly court, though man is then made in God’s image, not the angels’. Many Reformed readers see the Trinity foreshadowed, with the full revelation coming in the New Testament (Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-3). The text itself holds the two together: “Let us make man in our image,” and then, “God created man in his own image.” One God speaks in the plural and acts in the singular. What the image means is also discussed. It is often explained from ancient kings, who set up images of themselves to mark their rule, so that man is God’s representative on the earth; it also includes a likeness of character, “true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Male and female bear it alike. That is why every human life is sacred (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9), and why Christ, “the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4), is the goal: God’s people are “conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29).
For discussion
If every person bears God’s image, how should that change the way we speak about people we disagree with? Read James 3:9-10.
vv. 28–30
Blessed to rule
The first words God speaks to man are a blessing, and the first task is a gift: be fruitful, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion. Dominion is not license to plunder. It is rule under God, the stewardship Genesis 2:15 calls working and keeping. The food God gives here is green plants, for man and beast alike; the permission to eat meat comes after the flood (Genesis 9:3). Psalm 8 sings this dominion, and Hebrews admits that we do not yet see everything in subjection to man; “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9). The true Man has taken up the task Adam would drop.
v. 31
Very good
The word “good” sounds seven times in the chapter, and the last time it is “very good.” The world as God made it had no sin in it. Evil is not built into creation, and matter and bodies are not the problem; “everything created by God is good” (1 Timothy 4:4). That matters for how we read the rest of Genesis: what goes wrong in chapter 3 is a ruin of something good, not the way things always were. It also matters for hope. God does not throw away what He called very good. In Christ the new creation has already begun (2 Corinthians 5:17), and it ends in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).
Threads across the chapter
Speaking and making. Every day begins with God’s speech and ends with obedience (vv. 3-25), and the pattern rises to its height when God speaks to man in blessing (vv. 26-30).
Forming and filling. The realms of days one to three (vv. 3-13) are filled by the creatures of days four to six (vv. 14-31).
Blessing. God blesses the creatures of sea and sky (v. 22) and then man (v. 28), and in chapter 2 He blesses the seventh day.
Good. The verdict repeats through the days (vv. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and is crowned with “very good” when man is made (v. 31).
Key words
- 1:1
- בָּרָא bara“Created”; in this form always with God as subject, marking the chapter’s great thresholds (vv. 1, 21, 27)
- 1:5
- יוֹם yom“Day”; named, numbered, and bounded by evening and morning through the six days
- 1:26–27
- צֶלֶם tselem“Image”; man made to represent and reflect God on the earth
- 1:31
- טוֹב tov“Good”; God’s verdict on His work, rising to “very good”
Cross-references
- John 1:1-3The Word, with God and God, through whom all things were made
- Colossians 1:15-17All things created by the Son, through Him and for Him
- Hebrews 11:3The universe made by the word of God, not out of things visible
- Psalm 33:6The heavens made by the word of the LORD
- Exodus 20:11The six days of creation and the seventh day’s rest as the pattern for Israel’s week
- 2 Corinthians 4:6The God who said “Let light shine out of darkness” shines in our hearts
- Psalm 8:4-6Man crowned with glory and given dominion
- Revelation 21:1-5A new heaven and a new earth
- 1
Why does the Bible open with God rather than with man, and what would be lost if it opened anywhere else?
- 2
What does the order of the days, forming and then filling, tell us about the kind of God who made the world?
- 3
How does being made in God’s image shape the way we treat the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, and the people we find hardest to love?
- 4
Where do you see the Son in this chapter, and how does John 1:1-3 change the way you read “And God said”?
- 5
Christians who share a high view of Scripture differ on the length of the days. How can a church hold its convictions here firmly while keeping fellowship with those who differ?
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