5: Les Feldick Bible Study 5: Lesson 2 Part 1 Book 1 – Adam and Eve Created – The Three Circles Genesis

Well we’re going to continue right on where we left off last week, so if you’ll turn with me to Genesis chapter 1, we’ll pick right up with verse 6. We trust that you’ll study your Bible with us, because the only reason we teach is that people might understand what the Bible says, and what it doesn’t say. We also trust that with the help of the Holy Spirit the Scriptures will become clear to you.

Remember in our last lesson when we left off I encouraged you to read these next few verses from verse 6 all the way down through verse 23, and take note of the fact that there is not a single word that indicates creation as such. But rather the language is that God has taken that which we have found in the previous verses, which was underwater, was under darkness, as a result of a previous judgment, and now we find God is simply restoring everything to a functional operation. Then when we get down to verse 20 we’ll see that God reinstates the act of creation in the animal kingdom and then the creation of mankind. But from verse 6 through 19 it’s merely a restoration process.

Genesis 1:6

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it (the firmament) divide the waters from the waters.”

Now all you have to do here is just very carefully analyze the wording, and it becomes evident what took place. The word firmament is what we call our atmosphere, it’s what we call our sky, and it may also involve a certain portion of what we would call space, the closer planets or whatever. But for the most part I like to look at firmament as our atmosphere. If you pick that verse apart carefully it says, “that God is going to divide the water that was covering the earth as a result of earlier judgment in the form of a flood.” I referred to it earlier as the first flood.

But now the Scriptures said that God is going to divide this water by taking ½ of it and moving it above the atmosphere. I like to picture that, if I may, as a giant vapor belt out in space, above the earth. Later in the Scriptures we’re going to see that vapor belt come back on the earth in the form of Noah’s flood, which was several hundred years later. But for now let’s just picture this vapor belt out here in space, but remember that ½ the water has been left on the earth. Now let’s read what happens next in verse 7.

Genesis 1:7

“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament (the atmosphere) from the waters which were above the firmament: (atmosphere) and it was so.”

See that’s just plain English. He takes ½ the water, and He lifts it up above the atmosphere, but He leaves ½ of the water on the earth. Now verse 8.

Genesis 1:8a

“And God called the firmament Heaven,…”