Chapter 4: The Foundation

The first six days of creation are succinctly written in one chapter with 31 verses. The first day is a mere five verses (1-5) long and speaks of the creation of space, darkness, Earth as water, and light. The second day is three verses long (6-8) and recounts the separation of the waters from the waters.

By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. Psalm 33:6 & 9.

The power of the Almighty God, who is eternal and self sufficient, created all that exists, which is declared in the first chapter of Genesis. The Bible gives us an inkling of understanding God's power in how He created all things.

FAITH AND THE WORD

Hebrews 1:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for," and also, in 1:3, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God." Second Corinthians 4:13 says, "We having the same spirit of faith ... as it is written, I believed and therefore I have spoken." These verses and others suggest that God created everything by believing and speaking them into existence. These verses suggest that faith is the substance of creation and the Word is the form of creation. Substance is a noun, therefore a something. That something came from God. According to 2 Corinthians 4:13, faith is a spiritual entity. From this entity the two worlds were created: i.e., the physical and the spiritual with all that resides therein. The continuation of Hebrews 11:3 says, "so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." The doctrine that God created everything ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing, doesn't mean absolutely nothing. Rather, it means by no physical substance. There is a substance used in creation, to wit, a spiritual substance, i.e., faith.

THE SONG OF CREATION

It is possible that God more than spoke all things into existence - He may have sung it! The prophetic word has many times come forth in song. Paul exhorts believers to "sing with the spirit" (1 Cor. 14:15b) and for us to speak "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19). LaMar Boschman contends that Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets sang their prophecies before they were written down [1]. Much of the messianic psalms of David were sung first, then recorded on paper. There is a link between the spirit and singing that we all experience when we worship in church.

An intriguing experiment by a Japanese geneticist was reported by a news magazine on TV back in 1987 [2]. This scientist took DNA codes and transcribed it to musical notation. The transcription was played by musicians which provided beautiful music. They acknowledged that artistic liberty was taken for rhythm and arrangement. Then they tried taking previously composed music and transcribing it backward to see what DNA molecule it produced. When they used the funeral march song it turned out to be the same DNA as for cancer! There is a great likelihood that God spoke and sang the universe into existence.

THE BREATH OF LIFE

If faith is the substance of creation, then something called His breath is the material of life. This is an intriguing concept. If God is the only existence, meaning there was no environment that He lived in, what then did He breathe? This has to be an anthropomorphic statement. Obviously, God doesn't breathe air, since air is a part of His creation. Many times, air is all that the breath of life means. For example, when the Flood came the Bible says, "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died" (Gen. 7:22). But it is clear that it means more than just air. As the opening verse to this chapter reads, "the host of [heaven made] them by the breath of his mouth" (Psa. 33:6). With Adam He "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen. 2:7). Not only Adam but all the animals of creation have His breath of life. "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life" (Gen. 7:15). And in all mankind, "In whose hand [Yahweh] is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). Job sums it up succinctly, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life" (Job 33:4). Two Hebrew words are translated as breath in these passages. For the animals of Gen. 7:22 and Adam in Gen. 2: 7, the Hebrew word for "breath" is neshamah %/:1 (nesh-aw-maw) and means wind, vital breath, divine inspiration, intellect: and sometimes is translated as the soul [3], or the spirit. The host of heaven in Psalm 33:6, mankind in Job 12:10, and the animals of Gen. 7:15, use the Hebrew word ruwach ({9 (roo-akh) for breath and means wind, but specifically spirit. Yahweh said through Zechariah that He "formeth the spirit of man within him" (Zech. 12:1). The Hebrew word for spirit in man is ruwach. It is God's breath that is used to form the soul and spirit in creatures.