Creation of the Heavens and the Earth

Text and Content

The creation account appears in Genesis 1:1–2:3. God creates the world by His word. The works of each day are as follows:

• First day: He creates light and divides day from night.
• Second day: He makes the firmament (the expanse of the sky) and divides the waters above from the waters below.
• Third day: He separates the dry land from the seas and causes grass and trees to spring forth.
• Fourth day: He sets the sun, moon, and stars in place.
• Fifth day: He creates fish and birds.
• Sixth day: He creates the land animals, and He creates human beings, male and female, in the image of God and blesses them.
• Seventh day: He finishes His work and rests, and He blesses that day and sanctifies it.

Genesis 2:4–25 continues with an account centered on humanity. God forms man from the dust and breathes into him the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), places him in the Garden of Eden, and makes the woman from the man's rib, so that Adam and Eve become a couple.

Background and Vocabulary

The Hebrew verb bara, translated "create," is known to be used in the Old Testament only with God as its subject. The phrase "without form, and void" in 1:2 translates tohu wabohu and refers to a state that is formless and empty. Scholars have long studied this text in comparison with the creation myths of Babylonia and other parts of the ancient Near East. Many interpreters regard as a distinctive feature of this text its portrayal of the sun and moon, which surrounding cultures worshiped as gods, merely as created things.

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

The creation account underlies the confession that God is the Lord of the world and that all things were originally good, as God "saw that it was good." The Psalms also praise creation in many places. The New Testament connects creation with Christ. The first chapter of the Gospel of John opens with "In the beginning" and states that all things were made through the Word, that is, the Logos. Colossians 1:15–17 and Hebrews 11:3 also speak of creation. God's rest on the seventh day is carried forward in the institution of the Sabbath. Paul calls the person who is in Christ "a new creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17), and Revelation 21 speaks of a new heaven and a new earth. On this basis, many read the Bible as beginning with creation and ending with new creation.

Interpretations and Debates

Views differ over how to understand the word "day" (yom):

• The view that the six days are literal 24-hour days, advocated mainly by young-earth creationists
• The day-age theory, which takes each day as a long age
• The gap theory, which holds that a long period of time lies between 1:1 and 1:2
• The interpretation that treats the six days as a literary framework rather than a chronological sequence
• Theistic evolution, which regards evolution as God's means of creation

The Westminster Confession of Faith confesses that God created the world "in the space of six days." How that phrase should be understood, however, is disputed even within Presbyterianism. Other denominations likewise generally do not fix a single interpretation as official doctrine; instead, theologians and church members hold a variety of views. Creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing, is a long-standing doctrine of the church, though interpreters disagree on whether Genesis 1 teaches it directly. The debate is treated in more detail in the article Creation and Evolution.

The saying that "men have one fewer rib than women" is a popular belief not found in the text, and it is also anatomically untrue.

In the Korean Church

In Korean Protestant churches, the creation account is among the first stories taught in Sunday school lessons and at Vacation Bible School, and hymns celebrating creation are frequently sung in worship. Organizations such as the Korea Association of Creation Research have held creation science lectures in churches, and these have drawn both support and criticism within the Korean church. Some Korean denominations include a Season of Creation in their church calendar, holding worship services on the themes of creation and ecology.