A while back, I taught a short series on creation for my Sunday school class. It was supposed to last for the summer and I had planned on covering several topics like the role of creation in evangelism, various ways some Christians reinterpret Genesis in order to fit it with popular scientific theories, and how to answer some of the more common objections people raise against creation. One lesson I had planned was to cover the days of the creation week, giving a short description on what happened each day. However, there were so many questions asked and such interest shown that the single lesson I had planned ended up being stretched over 5 lessons.
It was during that time that I realized that, even though the language of Genesis 1 is straightforward and easy to read, many Christians don't stop to consider the full impact of what is happening on each day – not so much from a spiritual perspective but rather from a physical one. To that end, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a short series of posts, each covering one day of the creation week. This isn't meant to be a treaty on the subject. Instead, I hope to simply open a few eyes to the realization that what is being described were real events that literally shaped the world. Even so, the posts will be a little longer than usual. I apologize in advance and only say that I will do my best to make them worth the while to read.
In this post, we’ll be looking at the events of Day 5.
Genesis 1:20-23, And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
The creation of marine life and flying creatures occurred on Day 5. The verses are self explanatory for the most part but there are a few points I want to address.
V. 20, And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
I find it interesting that the order of creation of living things precisely matches the order of creation of the inanimate things. God first created water, the sky, and finally the land. He then populates these realms with marine life, flying creatures, then terrestrial animals (on Day 6). I’m not sure if there's anything especially significant about this order but the fact that He created life in the same order He created the primitive elements suggests it was not merely coincidence.
Another thing about the order is that the revealed order of created animals differs from secular theories. Evolutionists, for example, believe dinosaurs evolved into birds. Here, we see that birds appeared before dinosaurs. Evolutionists also believe that life began in the sea and evolved onto land. However, Genesis tells us that terrestrial plants were created before marine animals. Marine mammals would also be included in the creation event of Day 5 so we see that some mammals were created before terrestrial dinosaurs. I could cite many more examples but it’s clear from the few I’ve cited here that the creation account in Genesis and the order of creation according to evolution differ on several points.
Moving on then, another important concept is also introduced on this day. We know that God has already created plants. However, in verse 20 we read, “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” We see similar wording in Genesis 2:7 when God creates man, “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.” So Day 5 also marks the creation of the first “living” things.”
It's surprisingly difficult to define exactly what makes something alive but most definitions include having metabolic function. According to modern biology, plants are living. However, the Bible does not recognize things like plants as living in the same sense as an animal or person lives. God intended plants to be food for man and the animals. Yet the Bible also says there was no death before sin so the plants eaten did not “die” in the Biblical sense.
Living animals are described with the Hebrew word nephesh (נֶ֫פֶשׁ nép̄eš). Wikipedia actually has a reasonably accurate (not entirely accurate) article talking about the biblical concept of nephesh life. Certainly the Bible draws a clear line between plant and animal life. However, it's somewhat more difficult to classify other types of life. The Wiki article seems to suggest that fish and reptiles don't possess nephesh life but they seem to ignore the very passages they cite. Fish would be included among the marine animals created on Day 5. Many scholars believe that the “creeping things” created on Day 6 means reptiles – which are noted for having a sprawling gate. So the Bible seems to include both of these groups among living creatures.
Does the Bible regard insects as being alive? What about microbes? When we consider the role of things like bacteria in the decomposition of plants or the digestion of food, it's likely that things like bacteria, viruses, etc, are not alive in the biblical sense. Some people neither include insects with animal life since the Bible does not include them anywhere in the description of living animals on days 5 or 6.
In our modern world, I don't see a strong need to be able to rigidly draw a line between the living and nonliving. Death has reigned since the Fall (Romans 5:17) and now every living creature will die. What is important to understand is that death is not the tool God used to create everything (as is suggested by theistic evolution). Also, we should understand that God will restore His creation to what it was before the Curse (Revelation 21:3-4), thus there will someday no longer be death.
V. 21a, And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind:
Just as plants were created in kinds, we see now that living things are also created according to their kinds. The use of the word “abundantly” suggests that not only were there many “kinds” but also a large population of each kind. God likely didn't create only two (male/female) of the “dolphin-kind,” for example. Having a large, untainted gene pool of each kind guarantees the potential for lots of diversity among its descendants. Of course, during the Flood, each kind suffered a sort of bottle-neck so the variety we see among kinds today is likely dwarfed by the variety possible at the creation.
It should be noted that marine life would include the different classes – reptiles, fish, and mammals. The same is true of winged animals. Besides birds, winged creatures would include mammals (bats) and reptiles (pterosaurs). God created these animals according to their method of mobility rather than class. That is, God created some mammals now (those that swim) but would create other mammals later (those that would live on land). Again, we see the order of the appearance of these creatures differs between creation and evolutionary theories. Evolution proposes that mammals evolved on land first as tiny, rodent sized creatures, then evolved back into the oceans as whales, dolphins, manatees, et al.
V. 21b, and God saw that it was good.
As God created these kinds of swimming and flying creatures it was “good” each step of the way. The chronic use of this phrase seems to reduce the idea of theistic evolution to absurdity. According to TE, there were millions of years of death and struggle and death and struggle of creatures evolving until man finally appeared. Such a theory contradicts the clear words of the Bible that the creation was “good” every step of the way.
V. 23, And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Finally, we see the familiar phrase “evening and morning.” All of the sea creatures and all of the flying creatures were created in the span of a single, ordinary day. An evening and morning can only mean a single rotation of the earth – not the millions or billions of years theorized by evolutionists.
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