A STUDY OF GENESIS

CHAPTER ONE

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This is from the King James version. Let me quote an Aramaic text, which as you can see, places God first in the verse.

Genesis 1: 1 -- God created the heavens and the earth in the very beginning. -- Aramaic Translation by George M. Lamsa

Verse One (1) could be called Chapter One since there was a great period of time between verse one and verse two as we shall see. It is important to realize that in the beginning, there was only God. We, as born again believers, were with God in His foreknowledge.

Ephesians 1: 4 – According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame. [The verse stops here in the text.]

Jesus Christ was also with God in His foreknowledge. In the beginning, there was only God AND GOD CREATED ALL IN VERSE ONE. The Bible also documents three (3) heavens and earths. Verse one is the first heaven and earth, the one in which we are now living is the second, and after a period of time after Jesus Christ returns for the second time, we, who are born again, will be living in the third heaven and earth wherein dwells righteousness. This third heaven and earth is mentioned in II Corinthians 12: 2 and begins later in the Book of Revelation. Now we need to carefully examine verse two and, as usual, we will be using the King James Version.

2. And the earth was [became] without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Did God create the earth like this? No, He did not. Then what happened? First of all, we must be aware that in the original Estrangelo Aramaic and Hebrew, there was no verb "TO BE", although there was the verb "to become". Although the first 'was' is not in italics, the second 'was' is in italics and we know that words in italics are added by the translators. The second 'was' is in italics because there was no Hebrew word in the second usage. There was no word there at all, but there was a word for the first usage. The first word 'was' should have been translated "became". "AND THE EARTH BECAME WITHOUT FORM AND VOID..............". God did not create the earth in verse one formless and void, but it became that way. Take a look at Isaiah:

Isaiah 45: 18 – For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.

Then what caused this original creation in Genesis 1: 1, which was perfect, to become formless and void? We need to study the tremendous accuracy of the Word to understand fully what took place.

Isaiah 14: 12 – How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Ezekiel 28: 15 – Thou [both Adam and the Devil] wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

Ezekiel 28: 16 -- By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Ezekiel 28: 17 – Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Ezekiel 28: 18 – Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

Ezekiel 28: 19 – All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

All the angels were created under (three) 3 leaders: Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer. God always gives all of his creation FREE WILL and never oversteps it. Lucifer wanted to usurp the throne of God and caused a mutiny in heaven, so to speak. God cast him out of heaven, along with one-third of the angels who also conspired against God. This one-third of the angels make up the evil spirit or devil-spirit world about which people know very little and believe less.

This mutiny in heaven with Lucifer and his angels was so cataclysmic that while the war was taking place, all that God had originally created in verse one fell into ruin -- it "became without form, and void." No one knows how much time elapsed between Genesis 1: 1 and 1: 2. There could have been eons of time -- the Word does not tell us so we don't know. There are amazing truths about what did exist during this time period which agree with scientific and archeological finds. The accuracy and magnificence of the Word of God rightly divided is truly astounding.

3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Notice now that God simply spoke things into being because all that was created was created in verse one.

4, 5. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament [expanse] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Biblically speaking, anything above the earth itself is called the 'heavens'. He put the heavens to divide the waters from the waters. What does this mean?

7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

The verse explains that the heavens divide the water that is on the earth from the waters that are out beyond our atmosphere. Beyond our atmosphere lies water.

8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

This verse tells us that God named the firmament [expanse] 'Heaven' and it separates the waters below it and above it.

Verses 9 and 10 tell how God separated the waters and the dry land and called the dry land Earth. [Please read verses 9 and 10 before continuing.]

11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his [its] kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

"His kind" should be "its kind". For example, when a tomato seed is planted, tomatoes are reaped and so on with onions etc. because everything comes after its kind. The word "kind" is the Greek word genos which is transliterated into English as "genus". If cows are bred, a calf is born and so on with dogs and cats. You cannot cross a cow and a horse or a dog with a cat. Why? Because of the law of everything after its kind. You can have variety within species but not in genus, not in kind. For instance, there are many different types of cows, but they belong to the same kind -- the genus is bovine. There is no overlapping of genus.

God's Word says, "........the fruit tree yielding fruit.........whose seed is in itself." The seed is always in itself and it is the seed that has life. A seed in the ground with moisture and sunshine will soon shoot up. Why? Because the seed has life in itself. Verse 12 supports verse 11. [Please read verse 12 and all verses not quoted on your own] Verse 13 is self-explanatory. Verse 14 tells us how God made the stars in the heavens and how they were made to represent periods of time. And verse 15 tells how God made these stars to give light upon the earth. Verse 16 tells about the stars, moon and sun again -- the sun to give the greater light during the day and the stars, to give the lesser light in the night.

17. And God set them in the firmament [expanse] of the heaven [above earth] to give light upon the earth. [Read verses 18 and 19 which are self-explanatory].

20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature [nepesh chai -- living soul] that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Note the Hebrew words for "moving creature". These Hebrew words are always used in the Word of God as 'living life', or 'living soul', in contrast to a dead soul, a soul that has perished.

*** [It is necessary that one understands the difference between Body, Soul and Spirit according to the Word of God. This teaching is available to you.]

The soul is that which gives one breath life and ceases to exist when one takes their last breath. There is nothing immortal about the soul. In verse 21, the word used for ‘creature’ is again "nepesh" and means 'soul'. [Read verse 21].

Many people who practice religion and not true Christianity may find it hard to believe that it is God's Will for us to enjoy life. In Verse 22, God "blessed" the fowl and the fish and desired for them to be fruitful and multiply. In verse 23, God tells us that this was the fifth day. Man uses numbers haphazardly most of the time, but God has an important meaning for each number He uses in the Bible. For example, the number five represents "grace". -- E. W. Bullinger, Number In Scripture, p. 135. [Make sure you read verses 22 and 23 before continuing.]

Verses 24 and 25 tells us about God bringing forth all of the animals and all creeping things, and beasts of the earth after its kind. Note the words 'living creature' in verse 24. Once again, they are nepesh chai - living soul. All animals have body and soul, but no spirit. However, God's Word tells us that in the third heaven and earth, in the future, there will be animals present. That is a comfort. [Read verses 24 and 25].

In verse 26, we see the importance of understanding body, soul, and spirit. This is the first reference to man.

26a. And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: ...........

First of all, God is referring to himself as "us". Even to this day, the Queen of England often refers to herself as "us". This is in reference to someone who has great power and authority. This does not mean that Jesus Christ was then with God but he was in God's foreknowledge. People who hash the Word to pieces and privately interpret the Bible will believe otherwise. We need to remember the exhortation from I Corinthians:

I Corinthians 14: 38 -- But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.

What is the image of God?

John 4: 24a God is a Spirit:..........

A spirit has no flesh or bones. God created within man His Spirit [ruach], His image. Thus man became BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT. After God created man in His own image, God had a companion -- not in the body and soul parts of man, but in the spirit. It is that part of man which made it possible for God to talk to man and for man to communicate with God. This gave them fellowship.

27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

IMPORTANT RESEARCH POINT: Only in the first few chapters of Genesis is it quite noticeable that some verses are out of chronological order. If one researches God's Word closely, it will become obvious that verses 28, 29, and 30 are chronologically after the fall. Look at verse 7 of Chapter 2. God had yet to form man's body or make his soul. Also, in the Garden of Eden, there was only fruit and not herbs as there is in verse 29. We will see later on that these verses 28, 29, and 30 of Genesis Chapter One belong at the end of verse 24 of Chapter three. This is an unusual occurrence in the Bible that does not happen often. Let's read from verse 27 directly to verse 31.

31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Did you notice how the thought content fits when reading from verse 27 right to verse 31?

In conclusion, the King James Version ends Chapter One with verse 31. But does this make grammatical sense?! This is why we need to understand the following:

Man, not God, added chapters, verses, punctuation, capital letters, etc. and often did so erroneously. The original Word of God had none of these and was written, in one example, like this: "forgodsoloved" either in Uncials or Cursives. Even an average student of English grammar can see that chapter one should not end with verse 31 BUT WITH VERSE 3 OF CHAPTER 2. Take a good look – this is a good example of Biblical research. Verse four (4) of Chapter two (2) begins a completely new thought and should obviously be the beginning of Chapter Two. Verses 1, 2, and 3 of chapter TWO clearly concludes the subject matter of Chapter One. Let’s read from verse 31 to verse 3 of the next chapter and rightly divide God’s Word.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

[END OF CHAPTER ONE]

** The next verse (verse 4 of Chapter Two) begins a completely different subject and clearly should have been documented as the start of Chapter Two of Genesis.

Finally, here is a crucial example of how a misplaced comma can mean the difference between truth and error. The example I'm referring to is in the gospels in Luke 23: 43. Jesus Christ spoke to someone hanging on a cross near to him and said: "Verily, I say unto thee To day.............." Where does the comma belong if the Word of God is to fit? BEFORE or AFTER "today"? It belongs AFTER today. Paradise is some time in the future. What would be the point of Jesus Christ coming back to raise the dead if the dead are already alive??!! Yet, that is what some so-called Bible teachers teach today. We need to rightly divide the Word of God -- a perfectly right cutting as we have made every attempt to do with the first Chapter of Genesis. This is how we stand approved before God and surely that should be every Christian’s goal.

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