—GENESIS 1:1-25.—JANUARY 6.—
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
WE BELIEVE that we serve the interests of our readers best by not attempting a discussion of this lesson here. Instead we refer them to the quite comprehensive discussion of the subject presented in the DAWN SCRIPTURE STUDIES, Volume VI., Chapter I. This will not only serve their purposes better, but save our space in this issue for other matters.
We content ourselves here with a mere reference to the Golden Text, noting the fact that the Bible records assume the existence of the Creator himself "from everlasting to everlasting." (Psa. 90:2.) This lesson discusses merely the things pertaining to this world—their beginnings—leaving out of account entirely the other worlds of the universe. It is our thought, however—and the general inference of Scripture, we think—that the other worlds are less advanced in their development than this one. For aught we know to the contrary, the lessons and experiences wrought out on our earth are yet to have to do with other planets whose inhabitants have not yet been created. All that, however, is beyond us, and we are not authorized to speculate on it, and hence must restrain our imaginations and content ourselves with the things which God has [R3921 : page 12] already revealed, assured that we shall have in this a sufficiency to occupy our limited time and talent.
Nothing in this lesson takes in the wide scope of John 1:1, which declares, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God and the Word was a God....All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." The beginning here mentioned was evidently long prior to the beginning mentioned in today's lesson. Our Lord himself, we are told, was "the beginning of the creation of God," and divine power was exercised through him in the creation of the various orders of angels, for "without him was not anything made that was made." (Rev. 3:14; John 1:3,10.) This comprehensive statement would undoubtedly embrace the creative work mentioned in the lesson of today. We thus have an assurance that the Only Begotten of the Father, the beginning of the creation of God, was the superintendent of the various affairs connected with the creation of the earth and its inhabitants.
For the details respecting the six creative periods, the harmony between the Scriptural statements, and the best findings of Geology, see DAWN, Vol. VI., Chapter I.