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a. The first day.
On the first day the light was created, and by the separation of light and
darkness day and night were constituted. This creation of light on the first day has been
ridiculed in view of the fact that the sun was not created until the fourth day, but science itself
silenced the ridicule by proving that light is not a substance emanating from the sun, but
consists of ether waves produced by energetic electrons. Notice also that Genesis does not
speak of the sun as light (or), but as light-bearer (ma’or), exactly what science has discovered it
to be. In view of the fact that light is the condition of all life, it was but natural that it should be
created first. God also at once instituted the ordinance of the alternation of light and darkness,
calling the light day and the darkness night. We are not told, however, how this alternation was
effected. The account of each day’s work closes with the words, “and there was evening and
there was morning.” The days are not reckoned from evening to evening, but from morning to
morning. After twelve hours there was evening, and after another twelve hours there was
morning.
b. The second day.
The work of the second day was also a work of separation: the firmament
was established by dividing the waters above and the waters below. The waters above are the
clouds, and not, as some would have it, the sea of glass, Rev. 4:6; 15:2, and the river of life, Rev.
22:1. Some have discredited the Mosaic account on the supposition that it represents the
firmament as a solid vault; but this is entirely unwarranted, for the Hebrew word raqia does not
denote a solid vault at all, but is equivalent to our word “expanse.”
c. The third day.
The separation is carried still further in the separation of the sea from the dry
land, cf. Ps. 104:8. In addition to that the vegetable kingdom of plants and trees was
established. Three great classes are mentioned, namely, deshe’, that is flowerless plants, which
do not fructify one another in the usual way; ’esebh, consisting of vegetables and grain yielding
seed; and ’ets peri or fruit trees, bearing fruit according to their kind. It should be noted here:
(1) That, when God said, “Let the earth put forth grass” etc., this was not equivalent to saying:
Let inorganic matter develop by its own inherent force into vegetable life. It was a word of
power by which God implanted the principle of life in the earth, and thus enabled it to bring
forth grass and herbs and trees. That it was a creative word is evident from Gen. 2:9. (2) That
the statement, “and the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and
trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind” (vs. 12), distinctly favors the
idea that the different species of plants were created by God, and did not develop the one out
of the other. Each one brought forth seed after its kind, and could therefore only reproduce its
kind. The doctrine of evolution, of course, negatives both of these assertions; but it should be
borne in mind that both spontaneous generation and the development of one species from
another, are unproved, and now largely discredited, assumptions.[Cf. O’Toole, The Case Against
Evolution, p. 28.]