Iwant to examine the use of the word creation
in the Bible to see if it's meaning can be clarified. We will look at the implications of interpreting it in various ways to see if the popular meanings can be supported and then we will look at what the Bible actually reveals about the meaning. From here you may also connect with much more to be said on the subject of creation.
All
To say that God created the universe and all things in it in six days only excepts God form the six day creation. There is no mention of a creation of angels but this statement of necessity includes angels in the six-day creation.
If this statement is to be usefully understood then we have as alternatives:
- A six day creation of everything includes angels.
- A six day creation of everything does NOT include angels therefore all does not mean all of creation.
- A six day creation of everything includes heaven where God lives and God and the angels had no fixed placed of abode before.
- A six day creation of everything does NOT include heaven therefore heaven and Earth were NOT created at the same time and there were no domains or distinguished areas. We will explore how the angels could leave their domain if there were no domains.
- A six day creation (or making) of everything means that they were made from nothing i.e. no materials exited before the six days.
- A six day creation of everything does NOT mean made from scratch therefore materials existed before the six-day creation and were used for the creation.
Beginning
We have another series of questions to answer stemming from Genesis 1:1.
Genesis 1:1 (KJV)1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
What beginning
are we talking about?
- Does beginning mean beginning of God?
- Does it exclude the angels?
- Does it exclude the universe?
- Does it exclude man?
Notice that man was created
from dirt,
Genesis 2:7 (KJV) 7And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Genesis 5:1-2 (KJV) 1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
In order to have an acceptable understanding of creation then we must rationalise our answers to these questions based on the Bible. I have done so to mine and I give you my reasoning in corresponding topics on this website. Creation means bringing something new into existence but it does not necessarily have the additional meaning of starting from scratch. This has to come from the context. In Genesis 1:1 the context is not creating from a vacuum or from nothingness. We have to put together the context of what was happenning by collecting line upon line from the Bible. Since the six-day creation did not include angels or God or the original heavens or Earth then creation there must mean in the context of having these already in place. It means a renewal of some things (like the objects in space) and reproduction of some things (like flora and fauna) and adding some new things (like man). So the creation was completed in six-days like a new painting on a reused canvas.