Chapter 6: Remake—Made—Create

After the fall of Lucifer—the chaos he caused, and the ruin of the once-beautiful earth, which became without form, an empty waste, covered with darkness upon the face of the deep—the Spirit of God began to move over the surface of the waters (Genesis 1:2), and God began to re-order the earth in six days. By the time this work began, Lucifer had already fallen and was now called Satan, so that he observed God re-ordering the earth across those six days.

It is not the intention of this book to settle the debate over whether the six days were ordinary days or not; we will simply hold to what the text says—six days. (It is worth noticing that for the first three days the sun, moon, and stars did not yet exist, for they were appointed on the fourth day; since our reckoning of a twenty-four-hour day depends on the rotation of the earth relative to the sun, it is not obvious how the first three days were measured in our terms. We leave that question open and rest in the words of Scripture.) Nor will we labor the distinction between “create” and “make.” When the Lord God called into being things that had not been there, or re-ordered what lay in ruin, in both cases He was acting by His sovereign Word.⁷⁹

During this work of re-creation, God first brought forth light out of darkness and divided the two (Genesis 1:3). He named the light “day” and the darkness “night.” So day and night were established on the very first day, long before the sun and moon were appointed on the fourth.

This is worth pondering. On the third day God brought forth plants—and plants, as we know, need light to live. Yet the sun was not appointed until the fourth day. The light created on the first day was sufficient to sustain them. This is no accident: the Reformer John Calvin observed that God deliberately withheld the sun until the fourth day so that we would learn that light and life flow from His hand alone, and not from the sun—a deliberate rebuke to every form of sun-worship.⁸⁰ And the same truth shines at the other end of the story: in the new heaven and new earth there will be no need of the sun, “for the Lord God giveth them light” (Revelation 22:5). The God who gave light before the sun will one day be the light Himself.

Then God made the firmament: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day” (Genesis 1:6–8). Note carefully: of all six days, this is the only one of which God did not say that it was good. Of every other day the text says God saw that what He had made was good.

This making of the firmament gives us occasion to see how the single “heaven” of Genesis 1:1 comes to be spoken of, in the rest of Scripture, as more than one. The Bible uses the word “heaven” in three senses, which interpreters since ancient times have distinguished as three “heavens.” Paul himself speaks of being “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2–4), which implies a first and a second.⁸¹

The first heaven is the sky—the atmosphere where the clouds gather, the birds fly, the winds blow, and the rain falls. Scripture speaks this way of “the birds of heaven” (Genesis 6:7) and of the heaven that “gave rain” at Elijah’s prayer (James 5:18; 1 Kings 18).

The second heaven is the starry expanse—the realm of the sun, moon, and stars. “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven…” (Genesis 1:14). Moses warned Israel not to lift their eyes “unto the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven” and be drawn to worship them (Deuteronomy 4:19). And the Lord Jesus foretold a day when “the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven” (Matthew 24:29).

The third heaven is the dwelling place of God—the heaven of Genesis 1:1, where His throne is and where the heavenly creatures dwell. It is the “heaven itself” into which Christ has entered “to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24), where He “sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty” (Hebrews 8:1). As Solomon confessed, “heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee” (1 Kings 8:27).

Now we return to the striking silence of the second day. God did not call it good—nor did He call it bad; He simply did not pronounce the verdict. This omission has been noticed since antiquity, and Jewish tradition long ago linked it to the theme of division: on the first day God separated unlike things, light from darkness, and that was good; but on the second day He separated like from like, water from water, and the work of separation was not pronounced complete until the dry land appeared on the third day.⁸²

I would humbly suggest a further reason, offered as devotional reflection rather than dogma. The firmament drew a boundary between the waters above and the waters below—between, as it were, the abode of God and the realm of His creation. A barrier was now set between the holy presence of God and a creation in which rebellion had already arisen, and the second heaven would become the sphere in which fallen powers operate (Daniel 10:13; Ephesians 6:12).⁸³ A necessary separation—but not a thing to be celebrated as “good,” for it speaks of distance between the Creator and the creature, a distance God Himself purposed one day to close.

Scripture gives us glimpses of this barrier. The firmament Ezekiel saw above the living creatures was “as the colour of the terrible crystal” (Ezekiel 1:22). Before the throne of God there is “a sea of glass like unto crystal” (Revelation 4:6), “a sea of glass mingled with fire” (Revelation 15:2). The face of the deep is described as frozen, hidden as with a stone (Job 38:30). This crystalline sea of separation stands between the heaven above and the world below.⁸⁴

And here is the glory toward which the whole story moves. That barrier was never meant to be permanent. When the Lord Jesus Christ died, the veil of the temple—the very curtain that shut sinners out of the holy of holies—was torn from top to bottom, and a new and living way was opened into the presence of God (Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 10:19–20). And in the end, when God makes all things new, the sea of separation is removed forever: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1). What was “not good” at the second day—the barrier of separation—is at last taken away, and God dwells with His people.⁸⁵

In the six days, then, the Lord God created, called into being, and made:

• The light, and separated light from darkness.

• The firmament—giving rise to the three heavens and the sea of separation between the third heaven and the two below.

• The dry land, the seas, and the plants and trees.

• The sun, moon, and stars, for signs and seasons, days and years.

• The creatures of the sea and the birds of the air.

• The animals of the land—and, at the last, man.

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

In the beginning it was “heaven” and “earth,” a single heaven (Genesis 1:1). After the six days, the singular heaven had become the three heavens we have seen, and Scripture now speaks of “the generations of the heavens and of the earth… in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” (Genesis 2:4). But in the end, as the book of Revelation shows us, we return to the original pattern—one heaven and one earth: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1).⁸⁶

Remember that all this work of creation and re-creation was accomplished by the Word, and “without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). God, being holy, set His abode apart from the realm of the fallen angels and from His physical creation. He could visit, but the constant, unbroken communion between His dwelling and His creation awaited the finished work of Jesus Christ—His death and resurrection—and will be fully manifested when He makes the new heaven and new earth, removing the sea of separation forever. We will trace this in the chapters to come.

Let us pause and reflect. Is there a pattern of life, or a daily choice, that runs contrary to God’s character—something that sets up a separation between us and Him? If so, take a moment now: repent, turn to God, and be reconciled to Him. He desires fellowship with you, and to prosper every part of your life for His glory. If you wish, you may turn ahead to the section of this book on being reconciled to God, and then return here to continue.