Gramps In Genesis, God formed the earth, then made the sun, moon, and stars. Do you think our earth was created before the rest of the universe? Wanda, from Columbia, Maryland Dear Wanda, The creation story recorded in Genesis is incorporated in a few verses of the first chapter. Such a vastly abbreviated account of such a major series of events cannot begin to express any details about the process or about the order of the creation process. Genesis 1:1-3, states that the heaven and the earth were created in the beginning.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
The question is, in the beginning of what? The answer is, in the beginning of the process by which the earth was created. In Genesis 1:14-16, we read—
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
To say, Let there be lights… to divide the day from the night, does not mean that the lights were created at that time for that singular purpose. Vegetation was placed on the earth in the third day (period of time), and the seasons weren’t introduced until the fourth day. So the actual creation process undoubtedly took long periods of time. In the Genesis account, each “day” or period of time was translated from the Hebrew “yohm” which can be rendered in English as either “day” or “time.” So when the word “day” is used in the context of the creation , it certainly does not mean a 24-day, or even a thousand year day, according to the revolutions of Kolob. It simply means a period of time, whose duration is indeterminate. The word “day” in Genesis is used in the same sense that we would say, “in the days of our forefathers.” Brigham Young, in the Journal of Discourses, 17:, p.143, gives a much more detailed description of the creation process. He recorded—
“ When the earth was framed and brought into existence and man was placed upon it, it was near the throne of our Father in heaven…. And when man fell, the earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system, and the sun became our light. When the Lord said-”Let there be light,” there was light, for the earth was brought near the sun that it might reflect upon it so as to give us light by day, and the moon to give us light by night.”
So the sun was a pre-existing orb, and the phrase, “Let there be light,” has nothing to do with the creation of the sun, but with the earth traveling though space, from near the planet Kolob, which is the great governing star located closest to the celestial throne of God, to our present solar system. Gramps.
