Genesis 1, Summary

Genesis 1

Summary
The opening verse of Genesis begins with the ushering in of time—“in the beginning…”
God begins to speak things into existence, starting with light, which separates the darkness. And with the establishment of the day and night, the first day is concluded. On the second day, God created the expanse, which He called “sky” (v. 8). On day three, God corralled the waters into seas and the dry land appeared. God created plants and trees upon the land. This all occurred on the third day.
On the fourth day, “God made the two great lights…” (v. 16), the sun and the moon. This was the fourth day. God created the marine animals and the birds on the fifth day. Day six was the day on which God created all of the land animals. Then God created man. He then instructed them to “be fruitful, multiply fill the earth, and subdue it.” He also said that He had provided all the plants and trees to give him food. This was the sixth day.

Observations and Comments
There are far too many things that could be discussed within this first chapter, which is certainly one of the most well-known (as well as hotly-debated) portions of scripture.
It is a subject of much speculation as to whether God simply—and I use that term with all due gravity—spoke things into existence out of sheer nothingness (ex nihilo). Many have a hard time with this concept, saying that there must have been some elementary substances from which the earth and everything else were formed. I cannot say one way or the other with absolute certainty, but I can say with no doubting, that God would have no problem speaking anything into existence. He is too far above us for most men to accept. Nothing is beyond His grasp. He is power.
Of course, verse 26 is worthy of note, because God refers to Himself in the plural form, denoting that someone else is present: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our Image, according to Our likeness…” (emphasis mine). This, of course, points us to Jesus, who, as God, was present from the beginning of all creation (see John 1:1-3, Col 1:16). Something that has intrigued me is that He mentions creating both male and female humans here, but then there is a detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve in chapter 2. Is this just a look ahead? I am not a biblical scholar, thus I will not speculate further.