Glimpses
Of
God
The Creator Creates
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” Genesis begins.
Out of darkness, God called for light, and thus began night and day. God created great seas and dry land that yielded grass and fruit-bearing trees. He gave the earth fish and fowl and cattle and creatures of all kinds. Each of the creations had its own genetic code so it could reproduce its own kind.
God made man. Genesis 1:26-27 reads: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … .” (Note the words “us” and “our.” Does this mean God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit?)
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
God looked upon His creations and found them good, very good.
Genesis marks creation by days, six days in fact. Consider, however, that God’s day is not necessarily today’s 24-hour day. In the New Testament the apostle Peter says, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)
Now, I won’t argue with those who insist that the six days of creation were exactly like our 24-hour day. It would be a waste of time. I know that God has the power to do all things. I believe also that God is the Creator of science, and it is possible and plausible that creation came about over a period of unknown time. And since Genesis makes a point of saying God rested on the seventh day, it is logical to think He went back to work on the eighth day. So isn’t it possible there are other worlds in this ever-expanding universe?
In Genesis we are told “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 2:13) We also learn that God planted a garden in the place called Eden, and this garden was home to Adam, the man He made. And in this “pleasant to the sight” garden were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam was to be keeper of the garden. Adam could eat freely from all the trees in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eating from that tree would cause death.
Why, we might wonder, would that be? Why would knowledge of good and evil cause death? It seems logical to surmise that knowledge presents choice, and the likelihood is that at times man would choose to do evil, that is to choose sin. And the word of God proclaims: The wages of sin is death!
God decided that being alone wasn’t good for the man. God said, “ I will make him an help meet for him.”
God made woman. Eve was her name. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:25)
God tells the man and woman He placed in the garden that the fruit of the garden would be their meat to eat. (Genesis 1:20)
Genesis does not enlighten us on the number of years Adam and Eve lived in this garden of paradise. So we don’t know when temptation from Satan came in the form of a talking serpent. Satan, in conning Eve, promised that if she and Adam ate the fruit from the forbidden tree, they would not die as God had said, but rather they would be “… as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Eve found the fruit delicious and gave some to Adam. The fruit indeed filled them with knowledge: they saw their nakedness, and they tried in vain to hide from God.
As God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, He called to Adam. Adam and Eve had clothed themselves with leaves to hide their nakedness. Now, they faced the consequence of their choice.
To Adam, God said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
God said Eve would know pain in childbirth. (Does this mean she had children without the pain of childbirth?)
Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden, and God protected His garden that was home to both the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. (Dare we wonder if the garden remains on earth?)
Adam lived 930 years (Genesis 5:5), however, that is likely his number of years after being driven from the garden. The Bible does not say when Eve died. (Had he and Eve been caretakers of the garden for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before they disobeyed God?)
Cain and Abel
After their expulsion from the garden, sons Cain and Abel were born to Eve.
Genesis, Chapter 4, tells the story of brothers Cain and Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep; Cain was a tiller of the ground. They both brought offerings to God, and God respected Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s. Cain became very angry. God spoke to Cain and asked about his anger that showed on his face. God told Cain that “sin lie at the door.” (What — we must wonder — was this sin? Was Cain jealous of his brother? Was Cain’s vanity transformed into hatred toward his brother?)
One day when Cain and Abel were in the field, Cain killed his brother. God asked Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? Cain lied and said he didn’t know. “Am I my brother’s keeper, he asked God? God declared Cain a fugitive and a vagabond. Cain worried that people would kill him, however God set a mark upon Cain to protect him. And Cain left the presence of God and dwelt in the land of Nod. (The location of Nod is unknown, and the land of Nod is mentioned in the Bible only once — in Genesis.)
The story of Cain and Abel shows God wanting good things for all His creation. He knew Cain’s heart was not pure and told him that sin was within him. Yet, he did not take Cain’s life for the murder of his brother. He gave him protection by marking him so that he could take a wife and father children.
(Now this gives us pause to think. If Cain could find a wife in the land of Nod there were people there. How did they get there? Did Eve have many children while she and Adam were in the Garden of Eden, and these children migrate to other areas of the world? Or did God make other Adams and other mates in other places? Consider Genesis 5:2 that says, “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”)
Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, and he lived another 800 years, fathering sons and daughters. (Genesis 5:4)
Seth lived 912 years. Seth begat Enos. Then, says Genesis, men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Enos begat Cainan. Cainan begat Mahalaleel. Mahalaleel begat Jared. Jared begat Enoch. Enoch was the father of Methuselah, who lived 969 years. Methuselah begat Lamech, who begat Noah. (Genesis 4 & 5)
In Enoch, we get another glimpse of God. It is written, “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” (Enoch was one of two who did not experience death. The other was Elijah, who was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. —2 Kings 2:11)
Weird Happenings In Genesis
Genesis, Chapter 6, portrays a world consumed with evil. There were giants in the earth. The sons of God found the daughters of men lovely to look at and took their pick, and the women they picked bore children. Who were the sons of God? Some Bible interpreters see the sons of God as fallen angels, according to a BlueLetterBible posting.
Sons of God are mentioned three times in Job:
• Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. (Job 1:6)
• Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. (Job 2:1)
• When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)
God set the life span of man at 120 years.
God saw a world of wickedness and said He would destroy man and beast and fowl and all creeping things.
Noah
Noah, however, walked with God and found grace in God’s eyes, according to Genesis. God told Noah that He would bring a flood to the earth that would destroy all flesh. God told Noah to make an ark. He gave specific instructions on the making of the ark.
God told Noah to bring a male and female of every species into the ark and keep them alive. Noah also was to bring his wife, his three sons and sons’ wives with him into the ark. And Noah was to bring food for his family and for the animals.
Rain fell for 40 days. The mountains were covered with water and the flood waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days, according to Genesis, Chapter 7.
The land dried. God spoke to Noah and instructed him and his family to leave the ark and release all the animals. The earth would be replenished. Noah built an altar to the Lord. And the Lord said in his heart,
“I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” — Genesis 8:21
Comment
Glimpses of God
In Genesis, we have a glimpse of a God who is master of all creation. God created the heavens, the earth and all therein. He created man and woman.
We have a glimpse of a giving God. He gave the man and woman He created a garden of paradise to live in. Their food was provided for them; they had only to reach out, pick, and eat. God talked to them. God walked with them. He provided for all their needs.
In the garden were two special trees, one was the tree of life and had they chosen to eat of it, they would have lived forever. The other tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God warned that should they eat of its fruit, they would die.
After being told by the serpent — aka the devil, aka Satan — they would be as gods if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they chose to ignore God’s warning.
God called them to account. Eve blamed the Devil. Adam blamed Eve. However, the blame game doesn’t work with God. Adam was accountable for his act; Eve for hers.
And God was true to His Word. Adam and Eve lost their place in paradise. They were the first parents and they populated the earth.
The people of earth did not seek God. And an angry God would not accept the evil ways of mankind. He sent a great flood to kill all the people of the earth, saving only Noah, who knew the Lord, and Noah’s family. God also ensured survival of the animals He created.
Unknown is the length of time Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they tested God, and were driven from their home in Paradise. Unknown is the number of children they may have had, and unknown is how such children migrated to other parts of the earth. Genesis 3:16 (King James Version) reads in part: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.”
(Other versions use the word pain instead of sorrow.) So it seems logical that they had children while in Eden, because their son Cain (born after Adam and Eve were driven from Eden) found a wife in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Genesis 4:17 reads, “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.”
Genesis is called the First Book of Moses. God spent 40 days with Moses, who received instructions from God. (Exodus 34:28)
The Doubters
There are many who say they would rather put their faith in science than in some mysterious, magical and unseen God. Yet what is accepted as scientific fact today in human understanding may not hold true tomorrow. Science is ever-changing because of new discoveries, and new interpretations of old discoveries.
Briefly, the current scientific explanations are:
Scientific Explanation of the Universe
Source: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/big-bang/en/
When the universe began, it was just hot, tiny particles mixed with light and energy. It was nothing like what we see now. As everything expanded and took up more space, it cooled down. The tiny particles grouped together. They formed atoms. Then those atoms grouped together. Over much time, atoms came together to form stars and galaxies.
The first stars created bigger atoms and groups of atoms. That led to more stars being born. At the same time, galaxies were crashing and grouping together. As new stars were being born and dying, then things like asteroids, comets, planets, and black holes formed!
This version of creation puts the ever expanding universe at 13.8 billion years old.
Scientific Explanation of Earth
For more information, see https://www.space.com/19175-how-was-earth-formed.html
How planets like Earth form still remains a subject of great debate. Currently, there are two leading theories on planetary formation.
The first and most widely accepted theory is the core accretion model, which provides an explanation of the formation of terrestrial planets like Earth but doesn’t fully account for giant planets. The second theory, called the disk instability method, may account for the creation of larger planets. These two leading theories are joined by the pebble accretion theory which helps to additionally explain how different objects might form.
Scientific Explanation of Man
Note: Condensed from Britannica for Kids. For full article see: https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/human-origins/353271
Scientists have many different theories about human origins. But they agree that humans developed over many millions of years from early ancestors that were like apes. The bodies of these ancestors changed over time. In general, their brains became larger. The jaws and teeth became smaller. Human ancestors also began walking upright on two feet and using tools. As they did, the shape of their legs, feet, hands, and other body parts changed.
Humans did not evolve from apes. Instead, modern humans and apes both developed from the same apelike ancestor. The ancestors of humans became separate from the ancestors of apes between about 8 million and 5 million years ago. After that each group developed on its own.
Modern humans and apes are still closely related. In fact, most scientists consider humans and great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans—to belong to the same scientific family. But there are many important differences between humans and apes.
Today only one species, or type, of hominin exists—modern humans. In the past, two or more species of hominin often lived at the same time. Scientists do not always agree about which species are the direct ancestors of other species. But all hominins are closely related.
According to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans. Scientists do not all agree, however, about how these species are related or which ones simply died out. Many early human species — certainly the majority of them – left no living descendants. Scientists also debate over how to identify and classify particular species of early humans, and about what factors influenced the evolution and extinction of each species.
Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago. They entered Europe somewhat later, between 1.5 million and 1 million years. Species of modern humans populated many parts of the world much later. For instance, people first came to Australia probably within the past 60,000 years and to the Americas within the past 30,000 years or so. The beginnings of agriculture and the rise of the first civilizations occurred within the past 12,000 years.
For full article, see https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution
Comment: This writer not only accepts true and proven science, this writer believes God created science. This writer accepts the reality of current scientific knowledge of space as gained through telescopic photos, scientific measurements, and such. This writer believes the fossil remains, and items uncovered in archeological digs have much to tell us, but this writer does not accept as indisputable fact all the conclusions reached by the researchers who uncovered them.
Indeed, many writers of articles on the topics of big bang and evolution theories point out disagreements over the many theories of the origins of the universe, earth, and man.
Saying that man evolved from ape-like primates does not answer the question of where did the ape-like primates come from? Nor does it answer the question: Why is it that only man has the ability of speech?
Therefor, this writer cannot accept that this earth — that moves precisely in orbit, that has its seasons, that has seas whose tides are timed; that this earth filled with fish, fowl, and animal; each with its own genetic code — is the result of some random accident in space. Nor do I believe the earth’s elements came into existence on their own.
This writer chooses to believe Genesis 2:7 that says, “And 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.”
Awesome! Our breath is God’s breath!
Disclosures / Sources
Disclosure: Glimpses Of God is a personal website that shares thoughts about God, and His Word as provided through Bible Scripture. In an effort to help understand God’s Word, this writer has included historical background information from various sources. In addition to quoting and summarizing many parts of the Old and New Testaments, this writer has included personal thoughts and comments.
Source: The King James Version of the Bible was primarily used for this site. When other sites were used, site links are provided.
Most of the links in this site require cut and paste to access them. However, because the King James Version was used extensively, a direct link is provided here: King James Bible: https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org
An audio version of the King James Bible may be found at: https://audiobible.com/bible/Bible.html
Please read the Bible for yourself. There is a lot of misinformation about what it says, what it means — some unintentional, some intentional. I pray that what I write is true to God’s Word.