“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard.”
Psalm 19:1-3
When we looked up at a starry night sky, we ponder the universe’s origin.
(Seen from about 6 billion km from the sun, Earth appears as a tiny dot – less than a pixel, within deep space: the blueish-white speck, photo taken on Feb 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe.)
God has revealed to us as to how our world and the Universe came to be, showing forth His awesome and incredible power plus creativity, among other attributes.
The finely tuned Universe with planet earth as a pale dot in the vast expanse of space, whisper to us day by day that there is a Creator God. ~ Dr. Cheong Kok Weng.
The crown of God’s creation is man. (Genesis 1:1 -31)
(Note. After God created man, He said it was very good, but the rest of Creation it was good.)
Humans are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)
For instance, each of some of our cells has 6 billion base pairs in our DNA. One strand of chromosome has 3 billion base pairs of DNA!
Very Briefly
Humans are complex organisms made up of trillions of cells, each with their own structure and function. Scientists have come a long way in estimating the number of cells in the average human body. Most recent estimates put the number of cells at around 30 trillion. https://www.healthline.com/health/number-of-cells-in-body
New data show that the number of bacterial cells inside a human body is around 38 trillion. Thus, there are more bacteria cells in our body than our cells in the human body. 🙂
When we look at a cell’s worth of DNA under the microscope, we can see that DNA is actually organised into structures called chromosomes. The human genome of Homo sapiens is stored on 23 chromosome pairs, each one of them consists of double-stranded DNA.
Most cells in our body have two copies of the genome with 6 billion base pairs of DNA. Germ cells only have one copy of the genome made up of 3 billion base pairs of DNA. When the egg and sperm come together at conception, the two genomes combine. This is why we ultimately have two genomes in each cell.
(We know that the cells in our body have two genomes and germ cells have one genome. Every genome is housed in an area of the cell called the nucleus. Not all of the cells in our body have copies of the genome. Red blood cells, and some cells in our skin, hair, and nails don’t have any genomes in their nuclei. They start off with genomes in order to grow properly. But getting rid of their nuclei later on is important for the job they have in the body.)
Earth from Voyager 1
https://sl.bing.net/dSnaPTSwajI
The Account of Creation – God has spoken to us in Genesis Chapter 1.
- Day 1 – light and darkness (Gen 1:3-5)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 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.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
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Day 2 – the sky and “separated” waters (Gen 1:6-8)
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 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.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
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Day 3 – dry ground, bodies of water, and plants (Gen 1:9-13)
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
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Day 4 – the sun, moon, stars, and planets (Gen 1:14-19)
14 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:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 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.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
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Day 5 – every living creature of the seas and every winged bird (Gen 1:20-23)
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.
21 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.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Day 6 – land animals and humans (Gen 1:24-30; 2:7)
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2:7 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.
Note:
The establishment of “light” on Day 1 and the subsequent formation of the sun on Day 4 are neither contradictory nor incongruous when considering that God can create light independently of the celestial bodies. The passage states that God spoke light into existence (Gen1:3). The text does not indicate that God needed a physical luminary, but rather that God Himself generated or called forth luminosity.
Since the Bible consistently teaches that God has the power to create ex nihilo (“out of nothing”), the creation of light by His sheer command falls within the realm of His sovereign ability.