First published: Creation 27(4):24–27 September 2005 Browse this issue Subscribe to Creation magazine

When God made something out of nothing

Day 1

by Russell Grigg

Long ago, there was nothing at all. There was no universe, no sky, no sun, no moon, no stars, and no Earth. There was no water. There were no plants, no trees, no animals, and no people. Nothing existed. Nothing at all. Except, of course, God. He has always existed.

God made four important things on Day 1 of Creation Week: time, space, matter, and light.

God decided that He wanted all these things to come into being. He would take six whole days to make them all, and He would create something different every day for a week. We call this week Creation Week.

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.’
Genesis 1:1-5.

On Day 1 of Creation Week, God made four important things!

1. Time. You may be surprised to learn that God had to create ‘time’ itself. ‘Before’ then, even time did not exist. Only God existed. He is eternal.
   So ‘before’ the beginning (Genesis 1:1), there was no time or …
2. Space. God had to create space. This was so there would be somewhere for God to put everything after He had created it.
3. Matter. God also had to create the earth. To begin with He created the stuff which makes up the earth, and lots and lots of water. God created all this material, and everything else too, from nothing. How could that be? Well, God simply commanded it all to come into being, and it did. His Word is so powerful that this was all that was needed.
   At first, the earth was all covered by water, so it wasn’t a molten blob. God’s Spirit was there. Over the next few days His power and energy would make the earth into a beautiful place for animals and people to live. But first God brightened the place up with …
4. Light. In the beginning, it was very, very dark—inky black—everywhere. So, early on Day 1, having made time, space and matter, God then created light. How did He do this? He just said, ‘Let there be light!’ and there was light. No problem for God. Again, His Word was all that was needed.

This light was not the sun, as God had decided that He would not make the sun until the fourth day. So where did this light come from? The Bible doesn’t tell us what this light source was, but we know it was shining onto the earth to begin with, as the earth rotated. In the new heavens and new earth, God Himself will be the source of light (Revelation 22:5).

If the light was on one side of the earth, then, as the earth turned around, part of it would have been in the light for a while, and part of it would have been in the dark. God gave names to these two periods of time. He called the light ‘day’, and He called the darkness ‘night’. He had made the first 24-hour day, and a way for us to measure time by.

God said that the light was ‘good’. This means it was a perfect part of God’s plan for creation, and God was pleased with it. He knew that we would need light to see our way around. He knew too that we would also need darkness to help us sleep at night.

Creation needs a Creator

God did not have a beginning. He created time, space, matter, and light. We can trust this, because He says His thoughts are higher than our thoughts in Isaiah 55:9

Some people who believe in evolution try to tell us in TV programs and books that time, space, matter, energy, and everything else all made themselves, and by accident. But how could anything make itself before it existed?

Others say that the universe has always existed. This cannot be so. If the universe had existed for ever, our sun and all the stars would long ago have used up all their energy and stopped shining. This condition would make everything so cold and lifeless that it has been called ‘heat death’. But this hasn’t happened, has it? The sun and stars are all still here, so the universe could not have existed forever.

Some scientists, but not nearly all, suggest that there was once a big bang that made everything. But when did you ever see ‘an explosion’ produce anything other than a huge mess? And we know from God’s Word (the Bible) that God didn’t use evolution or the big bang to make everything. He didn’t use evolution or the big bang to make anything! He didn’t need to. He is almighty. This means that He is absolutely powerful. Powerful enough to do anything He wants to do. Like creating time, and space, and matter, and energy, and every­thing else. He created everything—just by His Word.

God didn’t need to experiment either. Everything He did, He did right the very first time.

Who made God?

Some people ask: ‘If everything needs someone to make it, then who made God?’ The answer is that everything that has a beginning needs someone to make it. But God did not have a beginning. He has existed forever. So He did not need anyone to make Him!

Evolutionists like to say that the universe is billions of years old, but the Bible denies this. Adding up people’s ages and other time periods in the Bible (for example Genesis 5 and 11, 47:9; 1 Kings 6:1), we find that Creation Week was about 6,000 years ago.

The creation account that God has given us in Genesis is neither a fairy story, nor poetry, nor a parable. It is a reliable record of what actually happened.

It is the history of the earth and the universe from their very beginning, and of how everything came into being. It is scientifically accurate, and it shows us the power, wisdom and goodness of our almighty Creator God.

Dark and light; day and night

What you need:

A torch/flashlight, and a friend (or someone in your family) to hold it (see pic) Somewhere very dark (or wait until night-time) Some thread with one end fastened (try sticky tape) to a ball Somewhere to hang the ball so it can spin around freely A coloured sticker/tag

Let’s spin it again to see the tag go through six days!

What to do:

1. Firstly memorise Genesis 1:3. Then, after you have hung the ball, ask your friend to be ready to shine the torch on it.
2. Switch off all other lights.
3. Call out Genesis 1:3 to the person holding the torch: ‘Then God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light.’
4. Look at the ball. You should see that only one half of the ball is in the light, while the other half is in darkness.
5. Now stick the coloured tag onto the ball at the boundary line between the light half and the dark half of the ball. Turn the ball slowly so that your coloured tape travels first through the dark, then emerges into the light on the other side, and returns near to you again.

So what does this all mean?

Remember in Genesis 1:5, ‘God called the light day, and the darkness He called night’. So if the ball represents the earth, it’s the light half of the ball (the earth) where it’s day-time, and the dark half of the ball (the earth) where it’s night-time. One night/day cycle represents one day—the time it takes for the earth to rotate once. Who invented that? God did! When you turned the ball (the earth) so that the coloured tag passed first through dark (night) and then through light (day), it was like what happened on the very first day: ‘And there was evening [night-time] and there was morning [day-time], one day.’

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