Dale Partridge - Genesis 1： God’s Six-Day Creation and the Purpose of Humanity

00:00:00.000 last week i introduced the book of genesis and what a wonderful opportunity it has been to study

00:00:10.840 the first book of the bible now unlike my verse by verse exposition that i did for romans

00:00:17.380 i mentioned this a little bit last week i'm going to be not working through genesis line by line

00:00:23.000 i'm going to be working through it in in larger sections sometimes even entire chapters which i

00:00:29.600 will do today. My hope is that it will get a lot more content through the church in less time.

00:00:39.280 And my hope is also in 2026 to get the church into one of the gospels. So after we get through

00:00:46.020 Genesis, moving into either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Now our opening study last week, we looked

00:00:53.560 at the fundamentals of Genesis and how it's the book of beginnings. That was kind of the main

00:00:59.540 theme. It's the book of beginnings and how it records nearly half of human history. Remember

00:01:05.680 that in the book of Genesis, which is just like this little sliver in your Bible, it represents

00:01:12.240 almost half of all human history. And so it's a very important book. We saw that Moses was the

00:01:19.300 primary author. We saw that he was not just the author of Genesis, but the author of the Pentateuch,

00:01:24.480 which is the first five books of the Bible. And we saw that being confirmed in the Old Testament

00:01:29.020 writings, the New Testament writings, including Christ himself affirming the Mosaic authorship.

00:01:35.480 Now, Genesis is divided into 50 chapters. Chapters 1 through 11 are the antediluvian

00:01:41.660 section. It's the pre-flood section. It's the history around those people that lived before

00:01:47.940 the flood. And then chapters 12 through 50 trace the story of God's chosen people. And so

00:01:55.660 essentially the first section explains why the world needs redemption. And the second section

00:02:03.060 shows how God will bring that redemption through his chosen people. That's the basic framework

00:02:09.260 of Genesis. I also pointed out there was five major themes that would run through Genesis,

00:02:15.380 including creation, covenant, fall, redemption, and ultimately the sovereignty of God in all things.

00:02:25.360 Now, we briefly discussed the four common views of creation.

00:02:28.780 We talked about those.

00:02:30.440 I mentioned that I held to the six-day creation, the literal 24-hour-a-day creation.

00:02:36.700 We talked also about the covenant of works and the fall of man.

00:02:39.960 And we talked about the covenant of grace.

00:02:42.640 We also talked about the proto-evangelium in Genesis 3.15,

00:02:46.700 in which the entire Bible is the fulfillment of this first gospel

00:02:50.880 that we see in the third chapter of Genesis.

00:02:54.800 Now, we also talked about, and I think I closed with this, is the sovereignty of God in all of life and how fluctuating circumstances might seem counterintuitive to our desires.

00:03:08.840 It is actually those fluctuating circumstances, those ups and those downs, that is God's will to keep his people close to him.

00:03:19.760 And I know it's difficult for us in many times, in many places,

00:03:22.820 that we feel like, oh, Lord, it's up and down.

00:03:26.260 It's blessing and it's difficulty.

00:03:28.340 It's joy and it's suffering.

00:03:30.640 It's unpredictable.

00:03:31.940 Why are these things such realities in our lives?

00:03:37.600 And it's because God uses these methods, as we see throughout Genesis,

00:03:41.960 to keep His people close to Him.

00:03:45.620 And as you probably know, your own life reflects that ethic.

00:03:52.940 In fact, when life is steady is generally when my spiritual life is most weak.

00:04:00.000 But when life is up and down, I find myself on my knees more diligently, more passionately in those seasons.

00:04:11.360 Now today, my goal is to cover all of chapter one.

00:04:15.620 It's 29 verses, I believe. And it's a lot of content. And I'm going to try to blow through it while stopping at some key points to talk about and really bring some exposition out.

00:04:29.600 And my main focus is really to defend a bit of this young earth view of creation, the 24-hour day view, which places the earth and humanity around 6,000 years old.

00:04:45.760 So let's go ahead and look down at verse 1.

00:04:47.840 You'll want your Bibles open for today.

00:04:50.040 And so you'll want to be going along with me because we are going to read the entire chapter together.

00:04:54.160 It says in verse 1,

00:04:55.300 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

00:05:00.520 The earth was without form and void.

00:05:03.700 And darkness was over the face of the deep.

00:05:06.440 And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

00:05:12.100 Now the text starts with in the beginning.

00:05:14.920 Um, this refers to the beginning of created time, not to eternity past.

00:05:22.900 So this is not the beginning of eternity.

00:05:25.400 If that's really kind of a oxymoron, there is no beginning of eternity.

00:05:30.320 Uh, this is talking about in the beginning of created time.

00:05:34.920 Scripture does not disclose those kind of pre created time conditions to us, but it clearly

00:05:42.400 teaches that God is eternal.

00:05:44.920 without beginning, without start. He is from everlasting to everlasting. It's something that

00:05:51.300 we see throughout scripture, existing outside of both creation, matter, and time. Psalm 90 verse

00:06:00.160 two says, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world

00:06:05.280 from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Deuteronomy 33, 27 says, the God is eternal.

00:06:14.920 Isaiah 46.10 says that God declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times to things

00:06:22.480 not yet done. And so God is outside of time. God is eternal. Now notice that the very first subject

00:06:31.000 of the entire Bible, the first subject is God. In the beginning, God. God is the focus. All the

00:06:39.120 attention of the Bible should be drawing us toward God. In a man-centered church, in a man-centered 0.98

00:06:46.560 society, in a man-centered culture, we have to see that the primal focus is God, not man.

00:06:57.760 And it says that he created the heavens and the earth. Now, that word created is actually a unique

00:07:05.720 word. It's Barah in the Hebrew, and that word is not made. It's create, which is different.

00:07:14.600 Making something is bringing things together of already pre-existing matter and forming them

00:07:21.020 into something. Okay, humanity makes, but we cannot create. I cannot intrinsically produce

00:07:29.780 something from nothing. That is the difference here. And this word God created is talking

00:07:36.120 that God created something from nothing. And that is the word that it is used throughout

00:07:42.020 scripture, sometimes even translated as made in the Old Testament, but it actually means

00:07:48.120 formed something from nothing. It also means when it speaks about the heavens and the earth,

00:07:56.360 It's a phrase that includes the entire cosmos.

00:08:01.740 The cosmos is not just the heavens above us and the earth or the sky above us and the ground beneath us.

00:08:08.620 It's not even just our galaxy.

00:08:10.680 It's anything that was created, anything that is made, any matter that exists.

00:08:16.720 And we know John 1, verse 3 says,

00:08:18.740 All things, speaking of Christ, were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made.

00:08:29.280 End quote.

00:08:30.500 And this touches kind of on this apologetic debate between creation and evolution.

00:08:36.440 At its core lies this doctrine of created causality.

00:08:40.760 Created causality.

00:08:41.920 And if you don't think it's important, you need to wake up.

00:08:44.660 It's very important.

00:08:45.680 In fact, schools today, our public school system, will leave you teaching children something about God or that God does not exist.

00:08:58.060 There are really only three options.

00:09:00.780 Three options.

00:09:01.960 Either all matter is eternal.

00:09:05.620 This wood pulpit, the ground that I'm standing on, everything that has been made of something, that matter is eternal.

00:09:13.340 Option two is that something spontaneously, or I won't even say something, matter spontaneously generated into what it is, chaos into order, and it exists through that spontaneous explosion which we have heard is called the Big Bang.

00:09:39.500 And option three is that God, something outside of time and matter, is the creator of all things, including time, space, and matter.

00:09:57.940 And so causality is an important principle.

00:10:01.920 And we get this idea that something cannot come from nothing.

00:10:07.280 That's the easiest argument.

00:10:09.500 Essentially, every effect must have a cause.

00:10:14.420 Something cannot come from nothing.

00:10:18.420 Every effect must have a cause.

00:10:20.620 And so this really demands that the universe itself demands a first cause.

00:10:26.260 The universe demands a first cause.

00:10:28.980 Now here's where it gets tricky.

00:10:31.000 Because God is the eternal uncaused cause of all things.

00:10:35.920 God is the eternal uncaused cause.

00:10:39.500 of all things. That's how you would find it framed up in scholastic work. God is eternal.

00:10:47.940 He is the uncaused cause of all things. It's mind-bending. But that's exactly how Scripture

00:10:55.180 presents the Lord. It's one of the great mysteries. It's one of those things that we'll never

00:11:01.440 understand until we're before the Lord in heaven. How does this work? You don't have an age.

00:11:07.960 You've been here forever.

00:11:09.880 There is no beginning of you.

00:11:11.380 This doesn't comprehend to a human who is bound with a framework of time.

00:11:19.880 If you took a line and you went from one spot to another,

00:11:26.120 pointing out the beginning of time all the way to wherever time ended,

00:11:32.340 God stands over there, not inside of time.

00:11:37.780 And so again, it becomes difficult for us to understand that concept.

00:11:42.440 It's like us trying to understand how high is up.

00:11:45.720 Well, I don't know.

00:11:46.960 And I don't think anyone's ever going to know.

00:11:49.660 All I know is that there are billions of galaxies.

00:11:52.840 And so I'm not going to give you an answer to that.

00:11:55.680 And I'm not going to give you an answer to how is an uncaused God the cause of creation.

00:12:03.300 It's one of those things that we get to rest in the mystery of the scriptures.

00:12:09.160 But it is something that is affirmed, not just in Genesis, but it's affirmed throughout the Pentateuch.

00:12:16.000 It's affirmed in Job. It's affirmed in Psalms. It's affirmed in the prophets.

00:12:20.620 It's affirmed by the apostles. It's affirmed by Christ himself.

00:12:24.860 If you deny this reality, you deny not just Genesis, you deny the entire Bible.

00:12:29.800 you would deny the gospel you deny the prophets you deny the apostles

00:12:35.140 it's like the moment that Jesus is like saying these very difficult things and everybody starts

00:12:43.820 to walk away and he says to Peter are you going to walk away and you get to go no where else am

00:12:52.660 I going to go you have the words of life that's what you do when you see a mystery you go well

00:12:59.740 What's the alternative?

00:13:03.000 What lie am I going to believe in place of this truth?

00:13:08.260 And so you rest in the mystery.

00:13:15.960 The Westminster Confession, chapter 4, says,

00:13:18.160 It pleased God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

00:13:21.840 for the manifestation, for the glory of His eternal power, wisdom and goodness,

00:13:26.140 in the beginning to create out of nothing, the world and all things therein, whether visible

00:13:34.400 or invisible in the space of six days and all very good. Proverbs 8, 22 through 27, it takes this,

00:13:45.820 you've probably seen the Proverbs, it personifies wisdom or virtue. And so in this particular

00:13:51.800 section. It is a personification of wisdom. And I want you to pay attention to how it's

00:13:57.940 used here. Proverbs 8, 22 to 27. It says, the Lord possessed me. So again, the me is

00:14:05.240 the wisdom. The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old. I have

00:14:13.620 been established from everlasting. Ooh, just think about right there. You just got paradox.

00:14:18.340 I have been established.

00:14:20.720 Doesn't that mean start from everlasting?

00:14:23.100 Wait, what?

00:14:24.600 You get to deal with the paradox and the tension of the scriptures.

00:14:35.020 Eternal things must be created to finite beings.

00:14:39.160 And God uses words that have limits.

00:14:43.220 And so this is what you get when you see paradox.

00:14:45.980 you go there are no words to explain this truth

00:14:49.680 and so I'm going to put a paradox here

00:14:52.420 and you see things like

00:14:54.360 I have been established from everlasting

00:14:56.420 it goes on to say

00:14:59.460 from the beginning

00:15:00.500 there was

00:15:01.940 before there ever was an earth

00:15:04.280 when there was no depths

00:15:05.780 I was brought forth

00:15:07.200 again talking of the wisdom

00:15:09.080 when there was no fountains abounding with water

00:15:12.000 before the mountains were settled

00:15:13.180 before the hills

00:15:13.920 I was brought forth

00:15:15.480 yet as yet he had not made the earth or the fields

00:15:20.440 or the primal dust of the world in which we are all made.

00:15:27.920 When he prepared the heavens, I was there.

00:15:31.220 When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, end quote.

00:15:34.400 So, by God's will, our knowledge of pre-creation realities is limited.

00:15:47.220 It is very minimal, not exhaustive in the scriptures.

00:15:52.560 We have a few peaks.

00:15:53.880 We have a few ideas of what happened.

00:15:56.140 You know, the idea of Satan's fall.

00:15:58.840 You know, we have some idea of eternity past.

00:16:01.660 That there's some sort of covenant between the Lord.

00:16:03.980 between the Trinity on the redemption path of humanity.

00:16:09.480 But we don't have much.

00:16:12.580 In verse 2, we see that God created raw material.

00:16:16.400 God created raw material.

00:16:18.340 He didn't create finalized material.

00:16:21.680 It's interesting.

00:16:23.760 God created raw material.

00:16:25.620 It says that the earth was without form and void,

00:16:29.760 and darkness was over the face of the deep.

00:16:32.000 God created that.

00:16:35.120 He didn't create finalized form.

00:16:38.240 What does that say?

00:16:40.220 What does that communicate?

00:16:41.820 This divides creation from command.

00:16:45.860 From creation to command.

00:16:47.960 There's a divide here.

00:16:49.580 He made something or created something, and now he's actually forming that into something else.

00:16:59.040 What does that tell us?

00:17:02.000 Well, God does not go from nothing to finish, but prefers process.

00:17:06.480 God prefers process.

00:17:11.060 Interesting.

00:17:13.080 He prefers what I would call incrementalism.

00:17:18.640 This aligns with the testimony of Scripture.

00:17:20.920 We see this.

00:17:21.880 God operates by gradualism.

00:17:25.080 Gradualism, at least from our perspective of time.

00:17:27.780 He doesn't operate by catastrophic means.

00:17:31.180 Meaning all things happen at once.

00:17:35.280 He goes by stages.

00:17:37.080 The same God who shaped the world by stages is now allowing the, he allowed the fall to occur in stages and is now redeeming humanity in stages.

00:17:51.380 It's amazing.

00:17:54.700 Because God can do whatever he wants.

00:17:56.760 God could have saved everybody immediately right now.

00:18:01.180 But he doesn't. He doesn't. God is the God of process. He's never rushed, never random, and always purposeful. God is a God of process. And this is important because your life is process.

00:18:18.380 process. Why am I going through this season? Why am I going through this time to the suffering

00:18:27.840 to this difficulty? Why is life up and down and why does it take so long? Because God is a God

00:18:35.320 of process. He is not a God of immediacy. It's very pastoral. It's very practical. It's very helpful.

00:18:48.380 Now here in the last part of verse 2, at the first part of verse 3, we see the beginning of triunity.

00:18:57.100 Triunity.

00:18:58.140 I want you to catch this here.

00:18:59.880 Verse 1 says God.

00:19:01.760 We know God is triune.

00:19:04.600 Jesus confirms this.

00:19:06.340 We also see this in Colossians, that God is there in the full Godhead, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

00:19:12.520 But we know that also Scripture refers to God alone.

00:19:16.020 It's typically referring to the Father.

00:19:17.380 We see God created, verse 2, says the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.

00:19:23.240 So we have some sort of difference between the persons of the Godhead.

00:19:28.780 And then you have in verse 3, then God said, let there be light and there was light.

00:19:36.160 Now, Revelation 19, 13 says about Jesus, it says,

00:19:41.160 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.

00:19:52.840 And so the portion of God which speaks can arguably be said is Jesus, the Son.

00:20:02.760 We know in Hebrews chapter 1, God spoke in the past according to the prophets.

00:20:12.160 But in these last days, he speaks according to his son.

00:20:16.100 Now, again, there's nuance there.

00:20:17.640 There's theological clarity.

00:20:18.920 There's scholasticism there.

00:20:20.360 But the reality is that when God speaks, who was speaking?

00:20:24.100 Was it maybe the son?

00:20:25.620 Well, again, we get into the door of mystery.

00:20:28.420 But the reality is here is that the first three sentences of the Bible,

00:20:32.860 we already see glimpses of some sort of plurality in the Godhead.

00:20:37.480 We start to see some triunity of the Godhead.

00:20:41.160 And this is important because the context of this helps us in verse 26, which we will get to shortly, that uses God made man in our image.

00:20:53.460 And so we're going to get there in a minute.

00:20:55.800 Now, from verse 3 to verse 29, we are given this six-day creation account.

00:21:02.440 And I want you to follow along with me as I read, as we go through this.

00:21:06.820 But let me just share a quick story.

00:21:08.740 I once had a man tell me, I remember this, he said, I can't believe in a God who could create the world in six days.

00:21:18.860 And I was actually thinking when he said that, I wouldn't believe in a God who couldn't create the world in six days.

00:21:26.200 In fact, I'm shocked that he took that law.

00:21:29.780 The fact that God chose process over catastrophic immediacy.

00:21:34.240 and so if we truly believe in the authority of scripture and what i would call the purpose

00:21:42.400 of scripture that's a doctrine it's called the clarity of scripture it's that you can read the

00:21:47.560 normative natural reading of the bible yes yes you need history you need context you need grammar

00:21:55.720 you need pastoral insight you need these things but we must not turn this passage

00:22:02.960 into something far more complicated than it actually is.

00:22:08.640 God has spoken plainly, and I believe that we should receive it plainly.

00:22:13.180 So the normative reading of this text leads you to believe that God created the world in six 24-hour days.

00:22:21.000 And I'm going to explain why.

00:22:23.520 The Hebrew word for day is yom, yom.

00:22:27.360 And you can carry yom into a range of meanings, just like you can in English.

00:22:32.960 right? You have a day that's a 24-hour day. You can say, you know, back in the day or back in my

00:22:39.060 father's day. That's a different use of the word day. We have semantic range for words, and the

00:22:44.860 same thing is true in Hebrew. Yet it most often refers to a 24-hour day. That's what we see

00:22:50.400 in scripture. In my study, I actually came across a very helpful Christian apologist that gave some

00:22:56.440 good explanation to the Hebrew here. He said that when the word yom means a normal day, there's a

00:23:02.740 few things that correlate with that usage. Whenever the word yom appears together with

00:23:09.280 either evening or day, the phrase is evening or day, morning and day, used with number and day,

00:23:19.580 or as paired with night and day, it is always referring to a 24-hour day.

00:23:26.660 Interesting. Okay, and I went back and I checked through this. I'm going to give you a few examples.

00:23:32.080 Exodus 18 through 1813.

00:23:34.580 It says,

00:23:35.720 The next day Moses sat to judge the people,

00:23:38.620 and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening.

00:23:42.600 Again, context confirms that we have an ordinary day

00:23:45.220 that follows this rule that I'm talking about here.

00:23:48.340 Numbers 9.21,

00:23:49.700 And sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning.

00:23:53.940 And when the cloud lifted in the morning,

00:23:56.080 they set out of it,

00:23:58.340 and they continued for a day and a night.

00:24:01.540 When the cloud lifted, they set out.

00:24:03.700 Again, you have more of these qualifications showing and confirming that Yom and this usage is a 24-hour day.

00:24:10.140 I'm using just a few of these. 0.91

00:24:11.320 There's like hundreds of these, okay?

00:24:14.760 I'm going to now give you a couple examples with a number.

00:24:18.500 Genesis 7-11.

00:24:19.600 In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th day, on the 17th Yom of the month,

00:24:28.360 on that yom all the fountains of the great deep burst forth again you have number mixed paired

00:24:35.860 with day and it refers to a 24 hour day ezekiel 45 21 says on the 14th day of the month you shall

00:24:43.600 celebrate the feast again you have number paired up with day uh now i'm gonna i'm gonna show you

00:24:49.440 now a pairing of night and day it says in exodus 13 21 the lord went before them by day in a pillar

00:24:57.020 of cloud, pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night and a pillar of fire

00:25:02.660 to give them light.

00:25:05.340 Jonah 117 says, Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

00:25:11.780 Again, we have to either take the consistent hermeneutical usage of the word day, or we

00:25:21.100 have to make a very unique exception for the creation account.

00:25:24.460 You know, for example, in the New Testament, it says all these things will pass before this generation or before this generation.

00:25:32.960 All these things must take place. Matthew 24.

00:25:36.960 The reality is, is that when that phrase is used, that word generation, it is always meant to mean the immediate generation.

00:25:45.100 But what the dispensationalists do is they take this usage of Matthew 24 and they want to make generation mean something

00:25:51.940 that it is never meant in any other usage in that particular context and the same thing happens here

00:25:59.600 we take the word yom and we take the rules the hermeneutical principles and we want to apply it

00:26:06.880 equally across the scriptures now in creation in the creation account we see all four not just one

00:26:16.380 not just two not just three but we see all four indicators present in the creation account but

00:26:25.300 especially in the first day verse one or sorry chapter one verse five says God called the light

00:26:32.660 day and the darkness he called night so the evening and the morning were the first day

00:26:39.340 that's using all of those qualifiers in one particular verse

00:26:44.480 and therefore yom should be referred to

00:26:48.260 if we follow a consistent hermeneutic as one day

00:26:52.160 so why do we question

00:26:56.480 the nature of the creation days which again

00:27:00.560 include all these metrics yet have no hesitation about

00:27:04.600 the nature of all these other days that only include one or two metrics

00:27:09.000 That's an important apologetic question when it comes to defending this position.

00:27:14.360 In other words, the testimony of Genesis 1 is not weaker than other passages.

00:27:19.780 It's actually stronger.

00:27:21.460 It's actually stronger than other passages.

00:27:24.260 And so if yom clearly means an ordinary day when there's only one or two of these markers present,

00:27:29.140 then how much more should it mean a day that's 24 hours if all of them are present?

00:27:33.720 now you've likely heard the phrase it takes more faith to be an atheist to be a Christian

00:27:41.200 right and I really believe that's true I actually believe after studying this that the same logic 0.98

00:27:48.180 applies here it takes more faith to read Genesis 1 as long eras than as 24-hour days and we're

00:27:55.040 going to see why as I work through this not to say that somebody that's a brother or sister in

00:27:59.580 Christ that has another position is absolutely wrong. You know, I'm just saying is that I am

00:28:04.160 confident, confident in the 24-hour view. And I'll say there is a difference between confident and

00:28:09.460 certain. In fact, there are very few scriptures in the Bible and very few doctrines in the Bible

00:28:14.080 that you must say, I am certain I'm going to die on that hill. But there are a lot of scriptures

00:28:19.900 that you could say, I'm confident and this is my position. And that's the kind of position I have

00:28:26.960 here. I'm confident. I'm going to defend it. I'll fight for it, but I'm not going to die on that

00:28:32.180 hill. You know, if I found out, you know, it was actually ages, Dale. Okay, great, fine. But when

00:28:42.580 it comes to say, you know, the doctrine of the Trinity, or when it comes to the doctrine of God,

00:28:47.740 or when it comes to saved by grace through faith, or when it comes to the doctrine of the existence

00:28:53.220 of hell. These are other things that you must say, oh yes, I am

00:28:57.000 certain of those doctrines.

00:29:01.460 And so,

00:29:02.540 and the reason I say Genesis 1 holds the 24-hour reviews

00:29:07.140 is because the only people that I find

00:29:11.300 holding to the non-24-hour

00:29:15.280 reviews are scholars.

00:29:18.420 It's like you almost have to become an intellectual

00:29:21.480 in order to understand this any other way.

00:29:25.600 It's like you need a seminary degree

00:29:27.420 in order to make this complicated.

00:29:31.520 That's basically, and seminary degrees are very helpful.

00:29:37.960 But it seems to be the trend

00:29:40.340 that the vast majority of the people

00:29:42.060 that create these perspectives

00:29:44.400 are having to overreach and extend

00:29:48.440 into intellectual scholastic territory

00:29:50.880 that makes this passage seem unreadable.

00:29:54.880 It's actually what the Catholic Church does often.

00:29:57.680 The Catholic Church, you'll look at something and you'll go,

00:30:01.700 that's the plain reading of the scriptures.

00:30:03.420 And they go, no, it actually doesn't mean that.

00:30:05.800 It means something totally different.

00:30:07.980 And when that happens over and over and over and over again,

00:30:11.500 you quickly begin to say, I don't know if I could read my Bible. 1.00

00:30:15.120 I'm too stupid. 1.00

00:30:16.560 I can't read this thing. 1.00

00:30:17.540 Every time I think that it says something, my priest says that it doesn't mean that. 0.99

00:30:22.320 I must be dumb. 0.98

00:30:24.560 And what happens in Catholicism is that you don't read your Bible. 0.99

00:30:28.040 In fact, the vast majority of Roman Catholics don't read their Bible. 0.51

00:30:30.920 In comparison to Protestants, it's wildly different.

00:30:34.120 Protestants read their Bible. Catholics do not. 0.79

00:30:36.580 Catholics have been trained that they cannot read their Bible because everything they read has been explained away. 0.92

00:30:42.220 Now, again, I'm not saying that this is equal weights and measures to this particular doctrine around creation.

00:30:47.540 but it's something to consider. And so I want to look at the creation account in stages. So it's

00:30:52.500 a seven part pattern that we're going to see here. It's number one, you're going to see

00:30:56.240 announcement. God said the command, let there be fulfillment. And it was execution, light,

00:31:05.040 whatever it may be the approval. God saw that it was good. The subsequent word moving on to the

00:31:12.240 next, the chronology, God called and then he numbers the day. Okay. That's the pattern that

00:31:18.620 we have the seven part pattern that goes through each of these days. And so let's move on to verse

00:31:24.180 three. And I know it seems like we're only in verse three. Holy smokes. No, we're going to move

00:31:28.060 through a lot of this very fast. Okay. Then God said, let there be light. And there was light

00:31:33.800 and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God

00:31:40.840 called the light day and the darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the

00:31:48.900 first day. Okay. First, I want to just point out God creates light before creating the sun and the

00:31:58.540 moon. God creates light before creating the sun and the moon. You can even argue that God is light

00:32:06.760 and we will talk about that here in a second. This shouldn't be difficult for us. The sun is

00:32:11.580 not the ultimate source of light. It is simply a vessel that reflects light or that is made to

00:32:18.020 offer light. Scripture says in 1 John 1.5, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim

00:32:25.620 to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. But even more interesting,

00:32:32.480 If you go to Revelation, Revelation chapter 21, verse 23, and this is speaking of the restored world, the new heavens and the new earth.

00:32:42.120 It says, and the city has no need of a sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

00:32:55.340 And so again, you see this restored order.

00:32:57.780 You go, oh yeah, there's no sun or moon and there's still light.

00:33:01.360 And so this should not shock us one bit.

00:33:03.620 Second, the verse shows that God's preference is for light.

00:33:06.980 God never calls darkness good.

00:33:09.180 He calls light good.

00:33:10.720 So God has a preferential desire for light.

00:33:14.420 Third, God steps back to admire his work.

00:33:18.440 This morning, as I was leaving my house yesterday, I built a little partition fence.

00:33:24.400 And as I was walking to my car, I walked over to look at this partition fence.

00:33:28.980 And I said, you know, it looks pretty good.

00:33:30.680 And I think it's pretty common to do something like that because we are made in God's image.

00:33:37.480 God steps back and he calls the light good.

00:33:41.420 He evaluates his masterpiece of what he has created so far.

00:33:45.660 And again, this marks the first of seven affirmations that what God creates is good.

00:33:53.140 It's a moral implication.

00:33:54.820 It's good, meaning that there is something that could be bad, but it is good.

00:34:00.240 Verse six, follow along with me.

00:34:01.860 It says, then God said, let the firmament be in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the water.

00:34:10.020 So from the sea to the sky, thus God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.

00:34:20.540 And it was so.

00:34:22.280 And God called the firmament heaven.

00:34:25.200 So the evening and the morning were the second day.

00:34:28.580 Again, you see that pairing, right?

00:34:30.880 Evening and morning, second day.

00:34:35.240 Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place

00:34:39.860 and let the dry land appear.

00:34:41.640 And it was so.

00:34:42.800 And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas.

00:34:48.480 And God saw that it was good.

00:34:50.880 Then God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed

00:34:54.900 and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind.

00:34:58.580 whose seed is in itself on the earth.

00:35:01.800 And it was so.

00:35:03.300 And the earth brought forth grass,

00:35:05.680 the herb that yields the seed according to its kind.

00:35:07.800 Oh, I'm reading things twice here.

00:35:09.900 So, starting in verse 11,

00:35:13.260 we begin to see the importance and intention of natural order.

00:35:21.640 This is important because it affects our life in our culture today.

00:35:29.680 The various species of plants and animals, they testify to God's design for distinction, for definition, for boundaries.

00:35:41.620 The implication, it's not directly stated here, is that what God has created as distinct, man should not confuse.

00:35:49.880 That's an implication here.

00:35:50.980 What God has created is distinct.

00:35:53.560 Man should not confuse.

00:35:57.460 God's will is order.

00:35:59.860 1 Corinthians chapter 14 says that God is a God of order.

00:36:03.740 Of order.

00:36:05.920 God is also a God that desires fruit.

00:36:10.500 Fruitfulness.

00:36:11.320 It's implied.

00:36:12.900 He creates a world that actually produces and reproduces fruit according to its kind.

00:36:19.680 God is also a God of complementarianism, not the doctrine, but in the sense that they complement one another in order for reproduction.

00:36:28.680 We're going to see that in a minute as well.

00:36:31.520 And so God is not for chaos or perverted combinations.

00:36:36.900 There is distinction and there is order and there is fruitfulness, all for the glory of God according to his intention and will for creation.

00:36:45.120 So the tragic reality is that human cultures become so confused that we actually have to look to plant life and animal life to be reminded of what is order.

00:37:01.020 Life is so confusing that we have to look to the created world to be reminded of some degree of unperverted order.

00:37:13.580 Now, even the animal life and plant life has fallen.

00:37:16.720 Trees die.

00:37:18.280 Some animals eat their own children.

00:37:20.480 Okay, I'm not arguing, but we're worse.

00:37:26.240 In fact, there is some degree of consistency that is found within the animal and plant kingdom

00:37:34.120 where humans are now murdering their babies.

00:37:38.840 we are now intermarrying and crossing those boundaries of males with males and women with

00:37:47.600 women we are trying to change distinction we are trying to change make create more confusion

00:37:54.740 there's a lot of that and and and there's again a lot of chaos in the created world world as well

00:38:02.100 But the point is, there is some degree of order in the natural world that is worth observing.

00:38:11.340 Now, Paul makes the same point in Romans 1, 20 through 27, showing that God's natural order reveals his will.

00:38:19.960 God's natural order reveals his will.

00:38:21.900 And when we live in opposition to that created order, it's actually not good.

00:38:27.800 So you actually see an example.

00:38:29.080 You're like, even the heavens and the earth and the created order testify that how you're living is wicked.

00:38:37.880 It's like, just look around and you'll be condemned.

00:38:41.740 That's exactly what we see.

00:38:44.840 And we see that especially in the matter of rebellion against God's desire for sexuality, for male and female relationships.

00:38:54.380 And so this is, again, some of the implications that we get here in Genesis.

00:38:59.080 chapter or verse 14 follow along with me it says then god said let there be lights in the firmament

00:39:04.220 of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days

00:39:11.420 and for years and let them be for lights in the firmament the heavens to give light on the earth

00:39:17.000 and it was so then god made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light

00:39:25.680 to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give

00:39:32.840 light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the

00:39:39.120 darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

00:39:47.640 Verse 20. Then God said, let the waters abound within the abundance of living creatures and let

00:39:55.320 birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created great

00:40:02.460 sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded according to their

00:40:08.540 kind and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good and God blessed them

00:40:18.000 saying, Be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

00:40:22.900 So the evening and the morning was the fifth day.

00:40:28.780 Now, many people assume that the dominion mandate,

00:40:32.960 this idea of be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,

00:40:36.060 many assume that that was only given or first given to man.

00:40:40.000 It wasn't.

00:40:41.660 It's given to the birds and to the sea creatures.

00:40:48.000 We also see that the first time, look to verse 22.

00:40:54.040 For the very first time, we see God's blessing.

00:40:58.280 We see God's blessing.

00:41:02.060 It says, and God blessed them.

00:41:05.940 Now, I want to take you on a journey just for a second here.

00:41:09.780 If we trace God's blessings, plural, throughout Genesis and throughout the Scripture,

00:41:18.000 But throughout Genesis, they are almost always connected to fertility.

00:41:24.040 Almost always connected to fertility.

00:41:27.320 And God blessed them.

00:41:30.420 And then he says, be fruitful and multiply.

00:41:37.300 For example, God said to Abraham concerning Sarah, I will bless her.

00:41:43.420 And moreover, I will give her a son.

00:41:46.440 I will bless her, and she shall become nations.

00:41:52.620 Kings of people shall come from her.

00:41:55.200 Genesis 17, 16.

00:41:57.200 Genesis 9, 1.

00:41:59.000 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,

00:42:04.020 Be fruitful and multiply.

00:42:06.780 Genesis 28, 3.

00:42:09.200 God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you.

00:42:15.580 that you may become a company of peoples.

00:42:22.260 Now, how do we interpret God's blessing in children?

00:42:31.080 Well, does it mean that God's cursing you if you don't have children?

00:42:36.220 No.

00:42:36.740 No, there are many great and godly women who were great and godly women 0.95

00:42:42.060 prior to the womb being opened.

00:42:45.580 There are also many women who have had miscarriages.

00:42:50.380 My wife has had a few.

00:42:53.380 And the blessing is that God gives children at all.

00:43:02.600 Children in themselves are a blessing.

00:43:07.040 It doesn't necessarily say how those children are given is actually the blessing.

00:43:11.960 a child given to you through the womb or a child given to you through adoption

00:43:18.200 is equally a blessing to you both still reign under god's providence

00:43:23.200 all things work together for good who are called according to his purpose

00:43:30.460 god who calls all things to work together according to his will ephesians 1 11

00:43:37.860 the reality is

00:43:41.040 the children are a blessing

00:43:43.720 and if we are living in a way

00:43:46.160 in which we are trying to reject that blessing

00:43:49.020 that's what it becomes sin

00:43:51.340 are we trying to live in a way

00:43:55.240 in which we are not

00:43:56.560 having

00:43:59.100 or desiring the blessing of the Lord

00:44:02.040 because of selfishness

00:44:05.220 because of fear

00:44:07.680 because of faithlessness?

00:44:11.880 What's the motive?

00:44:14.200 I think that's where the Lord gets to the heart

00:44:16.480 on these particular matters.

00:44:21.320 God blesses people,

00:44:22.940 and there are many other instances

00:44:24.460 in which God blesses people

00:44:25.760 that are not referring to children,

00:44:27.700 but one of them is central.

00:44:30.040 God blesses with children.

00:44:32.820 And again, I would argue either through the womb

00:44:34.520 or through adoption,

00:44:36.400 But the point is that children, fertility, multiplication, generations, reproduction, it's good.

00:44:47.980 It's a good thing.

00:44:49.580 It's a good thing.

00:44:52.880 Verse 24 says,

00:44:56.480 Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind,

00:45:01.100 cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind.

00:45:04.860 And so it was.

00:45:06.400 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind,

00:45:11.020 and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind.

00:45:14.000 And God saw that it was good.

00:45:16.320 Verse 26.

00:45:19.120 Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

00:45:26.580 Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle.

00:45:35.720 over all the earth of every creeping thing 0.96

00:45:38.920 that creeps on the earth.

00:45:40.660 So God created man in his own image.

00:45:44.960 In the image of God, he created him.

00:45:47.800 Male and female, he created them.

00:45:51.960 Then God blessed them.

00:45:54.080 Here it is again.

00:45:55.700 And God said to them,

00:45:57.360 Be fruitful and multiply.

00:46:00.300 Fill the earth and subdue it.

00:46:02.860 Have dominion over the fish of the sea,

00:46:04.940 over the birds of the air, and over everything that lives and moves on the earth.

00:46:12.340 Now, I could preach a series of sermons on this passage alone, but I want to just make a few

00:46:18.980 remarks. The main discussions around scholars on this passage of scripture, they revolve around

00:46:25.800 three points. Number one is the divine plurality. What does it mean by our image?

00:46:33.060 what is the trinity the trinitarian doctrines revolving there number two is being made in or

00:46:43.200 according to the likeness or the image of god what is the extent of the inness or the extent

00:46:49.960 of the according to how deep does that go and number three is what does it mean to be made in

00:46:58.080 God's image. What does that mean? Now, the Jews say that the plurality meant that God and the

00:47:07.280 angels, or it meant God and the angels, that maybe like the heavenly court, let us make man in our

00:47:14.980 image. The problem with that is that the rest of scripture never testifies that man is made in

00:47:20.920 some sort of angelic image. And so this is very difficult to adhere to. I believe Jesus actually

00:47:29.140 reveals the affirmation of the triune nature. And I believe we can see this best in the fact that 1.00

00:47:37.880 God himself, or Jesus himself, uses Trinitarian language. We see in the Great Commission, what

00:47:44.640 does he say go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in who in the plurality

00:47:52.800 in the father and in the son and in the holy spirit so again i think that we have the confirmation

00:48:01.460 from christ that the hour is the triune nature of god as for the degree of our likeness in god

00:48:11.000 The degree in which we are made in the image, I believe it means that we carry his imprint.

00:48:16.500 And that imprint reflects his character.

00:48:19.220 It exists for his glory.

00:48:21.080 In other words, humanity is not some sort of evolutionary accident.

00:48:27.220 We are intentionally created beings made with dignity, made with purpose, made with value,

00:48:33.660 because we share in the creator's image.

00:48:37.740 Now, we are like God in that we are rulers and have dominion over the created world.

00:48:47.920 That is how we are in God's image.

00:48:50.440 We are like him in that we have dominion.

00:48:52.660 We are to rule like God would rule.

00:48:57.440 And there is order in that rulership.

00:48:59.700 We see that and we'll talk more about that as we get through Genesis.

00:49:02.840 But this also fights against this individualism.

00:49:06.160 You are not made in your image.

00:49:08.580 You are not your own representative.

00:49:11.340 You are God's representative, made in His image, according to His will, according to His design, according to His precepts, according to His order.

00:49:20.300 So it eliminates this idea of individualism.

00:49:24.760 Verse 27 speaks directly to human sexuality.

00:49:27.420 So God made man in His own image.

00:49:31.100 In the image of God, He created him.

00:49:33.080 Male and female, He created them.

00:49:36.160 It's a very interesting structure of a sentence. 0.56

00:49:41.780 He made one humanity, one humanity, and then divided it into two sexes, okay?

00:49:50.800 So that together they might mirror more harmoniously and fully, I would argue, the image of God when together. 0.79

00:50:04.080 Now, can you arguably say that the fullness of the image of God is in man 0.55

00:50:07.960 and the fullness of the image of God is in woman? 0.66

00:50:10.980 Yes, I think you can argue that.

00:50:12.180 I think you can also argue that together you see a more harmonious

00:50:18.280 and maybe more brilliant expression of the fullness of the image of God

00:50:23.720 in male and female combined.

00:50:26.920 The more masculine traits are emphasized in man

00:50:30.520 and the more feminine traits are emphasized in woman.

00:50:34.700 And so I believe there is a great deal of theology

00:50:37.260 to be dealt with there.

00:50:38.600 But I think that is the extent

00:50:40.820 in which we are going to touch on today.

00:50:46.040 I will say,

00:50:47.760 notice how, again,

00:50:52.520 scripture immediately connects

00:50:53.860 the creation of male and female

00:50:55.460 with the blessing of fruitfulness.

00:50:56.780 I want you to not miss that.

00:50:58.240 So their union, if you're married here, your union is not just vocational.

00:51:04.660 It's also, sorry, it's not just relational, it's vocational.

00:51:09.300 Its intention is reproduction.

00:51:13.500 That's the intention of marriage. 0.99

00:51:15.480 And it's also the intention of why we should have people marry young. 0.90

00:51:20.300 Because we know that fertility changes with age.

00:51:25.040 We know that.

00:51:25.820 and it's something that we should encourage

00:51:28.120 in our church and among Christians

00:51:30.400 to fulfill 0.96

00:51:31.820 the dominion mandate requires 0.93

00:51:34.220 people to be married young

00:51:35.940 we have a young couple

00:51:38.220 that's getting married soon, praise the Lord

00:51:40.060 we like young couples getting married 0.98

00:51:42.420 because it actually

00:51:44.080 is more effective in

00:51:46.060 fulfilling the Lord's will

00:51:47.600 now we know the Lord's will is

00:51:49.400 we know young couples, I've known many

00:51:52.120 young couples that will try to for children for 20

00:51:54.140 years without having children. But the reality is a 0.58

00:51:58.040 general principle. It is a good thing to marry young. And not everybody gets to

00:52:02.020 marry young. And it is a blessing to marry young. And so

00:52:06.140 as parents, as the older generation, we are to

00:52:10.040 encourage those things which uphold more effectively

00:52:13.820 the Lord's will among His people.

00:52:20.840 Verse 29.

00:52:21.920 And God said,

00:52:51.920 it was very good. So the evening and in the morning were the sixth day. All right, I'm getting

00:52:58.740 ready to close here. Genesis does not forbid the eating of meat. And it does give dominion over

00:53:07.620 man, dominion over the animals. But I would argue it was probably so that prior to the fall,

00:53:16.200 humanity and the animal world ate a vegetarian diet.

00:53:20.760 I think that's probably easy to assume.

00:53:24.800 God closes the creation work by emphasizing

00:53:28.040 kind of the greatness of all that He was saying. He doesn't just say that it was good like He did every

00:53:32.280 single day. He said that it was very good.

00:53:35.960 Essentially that it was perfect. It was perfect.

00:53:40.140 In fact, had Adam and Eve not sinned, it would have continued on

00:53:44.360 in forever, in perfection.

00:53:48.140 There was no death.

00:53:49.820 There was no demise.

00:53:53.480 There was no age.

00:53:57.880 Like a host setting the table before the guest arrives,

00:54:04.040 God furnished every part of creation step by step.

00:54:08.740 I want you to see this.

00:54:10.880 Imagine a host coming to dinner

00:54:12.940 are preparing for dinner

00:54:14.840 and he's preparing the house

00:54:16.700 and he's bringing out the tables

00:54:18.500 and he's setting up the chairs

00:54:20.500 and he's putting the tablecloths

00:54:22.720 and he's getting the place settings

00:54:24.660 and God in the same way

00:54:28.500 is setting up the earth

00:54:29.900 for the guest

00:54:33.080 who is mankind.

00:54:35.960 He is creating the world

00:54:37.820 for man 0.73

00:54:39.200 not man for the world.

00:54:42.940 He is creating the world for man.

00:54:47.900 Now, why is that important?

00:54:49.680 Because in a culture that constantly devalues humanity

00:54:53.400 and overvalues the environment and the animal world,

00:54:59.300 we have to return to the biblical understanding that man is God's crown of creation.

00:55:09.240 This world was created for us.

00:55:11.340 it's not created primarily for the animals

00:55:15.580 it's not created primarily for the plants

00:55:18.400 it's created for us

00:55:20.400 and now it does mean that we ought to steward it according to God's will

00:55:24.060 but

00:55:25.620 in a world that devalues humanity

00:55:29.240 we have to recall these truths

00:55:31.320 in conclusion here

00:55:35.140 I think that a lot of people have spent

00:55:38.580 more time

00:55:40.220 studying what Genesis 1 means

00:55:44.100 and not enough time just resting in what Genesis 1 says.

00:55:49.860 Throughout Genesis, we see that word yom

00:55:52.500 as ordinary 24-hour days. 0.78

00:55:56.820 In fact, Exodus 20, verse 11 is probably the strongest argument

00:56:00.240 and I saved it for last.

00:56:02.520 This is the basis of the fourth commandment, Exodus 20, 11.

00:56:06.880 It says,

00:56:07.220 For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

00:56:16.400 Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

00:56:20.360 So again, we have now an Exodus account speaking of it in 24-hour day framework.

00:56:27.700 Now, what makes this very important is that the six-day creationism undergirds our very seven-day week system that we have today.

00:56:40.920 Okay, so think about this for a second.

00:56:43.080 To stretch the creation days into long ages means that you have to remove the existing seven-day framework that we have now.

00:56:59.480 Now, in the same way that Jesus' birth sets time, the reason it's 2025 is because it's approximately 2025, 2025 years after the birth of Christ. 0.61

00:57:12.980 It's a very great cultural apologetic that testifies to the nature of Christianity.

00:57:19.720 You know what else does that? 0.92

00:57:21.400 The seven-day week.

00:57:23.500 You go to India, and there's a seven-day week there.

00:57:27.400 You go to Islamic countries, and there's a seven-day week there.

00:57:32.980 The seven-day week is another cultural testimony 0.98

00:57:36.020 to the creation account of seven 24-hour days,

00:57:41.780 and it is the basis you have six days to do your work and you have one day to rest model it after

00:57:48.840 god who had six days of work and one day of rest so it's a very strange thing to say oh

00:57:56.320 they're ages to turn something that is very literal into a symbolic meaning and so again i

00:58:03.980 argue without going into all the scholastic weeds that i think a very natural and normative reading

00:58:11.300 of Genesis chapter 1

00:58:13.040 leads us in

00:58:15.000 to a six-day,

00:58:17.120 six 24-hour-a-day creation.

00:58:19.660 Amen? Amen.

00:58:21.320 Let's pray. Father, we thank

00:58:23.300 you, Lord, for your word.

00:58:25.060 And we thank you, Lord, that you have given us

00:58:27.280 a creation account. Lord,

00:58:29.360 that we are not guessing.

00:58:31.860 And Lord, that we are not

00:58:33.200 projecting. And Lord,

00:58:35.360 thank you for the simplicity of it.

00:58:39.640 Lord, that you have given us

00:58:41.200 understanding of our origins that we might understand our future that we might understand

00:58:48.300 our need lord help us to have greater understanding as we work through this book and that we get

00:58:55.360 deeper into some of the more vital elements for our time in genesis we ask all these things in

00:59:03.660 your name amen amen

Dale Partridge - September 09, 2025

Genesis 1： God’s Six-Day Creation and the Purpose of Humanity

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