The nation of Israel had been held captive for hundreds of years by Egypt. They were slaves forced to do hard labor. All they knew was pain and oppression, and God had decided it was time for them to be brought out of this suffering. Many of them had a vague idea of who God was.

God would introduce Himself to them through His servant Moses. He would also through Moses bring them out of the captivity of Egypt, with the goal of taking them to a land He, God, promised would be a good land, a land of fullness. He promised them He would go before them making the way.

It is during this Exodus of Egypt that God would have Moses write 5 books. These books would introduce God to the people of Israel, and let them know what He expected of them. They would see and experience many great miracles in their journey, as God became very closely involved in their lives.

One of the books Moses would pen is called Genesis, the beginning of all things. The book of Genesis is the history of the world in narrative form from the beginning of all things up to the time of Israel’s move to Egypt.

The Beginning of All Things

God starts Genesis with the words “In the Beginning.” Before this there was nothing. Only God existed and nothing else. No earth, no space, no light, no darkness, no sun, no stars. You get the picture. There was only God!

There are several important ideas to take away from the first chapter of Genesis. The first being that God, the almighty created everything that we see and know. He created the soundness of the earth that we walk on. He created the depth and vastness of space. He created time and the ways that we track time and seasons.

The Creation Timeline

He is also very careful to announce through His narration of the events of creation a time period for each creation event. Each creation event is marked by the phrase, “So the evening and the morning was the first day.” “So the evening and the morning was the second day.” And so on. There is no room for believers in God to accept anything other than God created everything in 6 days. He made sure to explain this very clearly.

God is Plural

We learn another important piece of information about God during this narration. Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make man in Our own image, according to Our likeness…” God somehow exists in multiple persons! But He, God is one, vs. 27 says “so God created man in His, own image; in the image of God He created them.” God refers to himself in the singular.

Man

It is also important to note that the creation of mankind is different to the creation of all the rest of creation. There is nothing else created according to God in the same way He created mankind. All the other living creatures are simply spoken into existance. For example vs. 20 says “Then God said “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.””

In one statement God created all the creatures that live in all the waters of the earth, in multitudes. The waters teamed with life and the skies were filled with every species of bird. In the creative awesomeness of God His word is enough to bring all of the variety we see in the waters of the earth as well as all the varieties of bird we see covering all the earth.

Man, however is different. Man we see is created in the very image of God. He is also created to have dominion over all of creation. Man is God’s special part of creation!

The Goodness of Creation

Genesis 1:30 says “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”

God created a perfect work. A thing of beauty. He was very pleased with all that He had created. There was no flaw in it, no disease, no evil… So what happened? Why is our existence now difficult, full of disease and disappointment?