Hi Michael and 6days
If I had to ask a Sunday School group of kiddies what God created on the first day, almost all of them would get the right answer. "On the first day god created light".
A few adults and "brighter" kids would think, "Hang on, surely God must have created the heaven and the earth too?"
I want to explain why the kiddie group is correct.
1) It would only be an ASSUMPTION by the adults that God SURELY must have created the heaven and earth earlier the first day?
2) This assumption is proven incorrect by Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good:
God does not admire the heaven, the earth and the light, calling them good. God just calls "the light" good.
3) If we assume that God created the heaven and the earth early the first day, then some questions come to my mind.
Why did God not do a better job of creating the heaven and earth the first time? Why does this "rush job" leave the earth "without form and void", in darkness, covered with water and thick cloud? Was it necessary to create the earth in such a decrepit state in the first place?
4) If we adopt the natural reading of Genesis that God created the heaven and earth IN THE BEGINNING, without assuming that beginning was on the first day, then we don't have to answer the questions in "3" above.
5) If there was a gap between the creation of heaven and earth and Day 1, that gap can be ANY length of time. Science suggests the original creation (Big Bang) of the heavens occurred 13.75 billion years ago, and that earth only came into existence 5 billion years ago.
6) Consider the possibility that Gen 1 is not addressing the original creation of the world, but rather a week in which God restores/renovates/remakes earth from "without form and void", dark and covered with water, into the earth we live in today.
7) 6000 years ago, in 6 literal days, God replenished the earth, stocking it with modern plants, animals, and man.
8) Maybe a mass extinction occurred which left earth "without form and void".
9) God invokes 4 witnesses to testify on His behalf, as to His greatness. Ps 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
I believe Cosmology (the heavens) testifies to the greatness of God. Hubble telescope looks back 13.2 billion years and can photograph the early cosmos. Every part of the cosmos is fantastic.
The other witness is Palaeontology (the firmament) which shows His handiwork through all ages of earth's history. And this testifies to multiple different biomes in earths past.
10) If I had to guess, I would say Gen 1 is describing God recreating the earth after the catastrophe which ended the Pleistocene, at the beginning of what palaeontologists call the Holocene.
11) Both witnesses, Cosmology and Palaeontology, show a far greater God than most religious folks imagine. These two witnesses give us an almost perfectly clear look at what God has been busy with for the last 13.75 billion years, both in connection with the heavens and the earth.
12) Other witnesses to the greatness of God are Science and the Bible. The sciences like biology, microbiology, marine biology etc. tell us how great every every little creature is down to its smallest detail.
13) Ps 104:26-30 perhaps describes a mass extinction and recreation event....
...there is that leviathan [dinosaurs like plesiosaurus??], whom thou hast made to play therein. 27 These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28 That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. 29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. [mass extinction??] 30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. [regeneration such as Gen 1].
14) Most arguments with Cosmology, Palaeontology and Science in general are solved when Christians accept that Gen 1:1 did not occur on Day 1. God is renewing earth in one literal week, 6000 years ago, after some mass extinction event left it "without form and void".
And He places Adam and Eve on earth, so this is a very important new beginning.
