In the Beginning

Before there were kingdoms, before there were nations, before there was man, there was God.

And then come the first words of Scripture:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

With that single sentence, the Bible opens the door to the greatest story ever told.

But Genesis is not the only place where Scripture speaks about creation.

Centuries later, God speaks to Job from the whirlwind—and suddenly we are given another glimpse of the beginning.

Before Man Walked The Earth

God asks Job:

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?”

God describes measuring the earth, laying its foundations and setting its cornerstone.

And then He reveals something Genesis does not explicitly mention:

“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

There were witnesses.

Before Adam ever opened his eyes, the heavenly realm rejoiced as God established the earth.

Genesis tells us what God created.

Job allows us, for a moment, to hear the celebration surrounding it.

The Deep and The Boundaries

In Genesis, the earth is without form and void, and darkness lies over "the deep."

Other biblical books speak repeatedly of this deep, the abyss, and the lower parts of the earth.

When God separates the waters, Genesis gives a brief description.

But Job again adds another image, describing the sea as something that burst forth and was restrained:

“Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.”

The waters have boundaries because God gives them boundaries.

What appears in Genesis as a command becomes in Job almost a conversation between Creator and creation.

Man and The Day

On the sixth day, humanity is created differently from everything before it. Made in the image of God, Adam is given life.

But with life comes a command.

Concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God warns Adam:

“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Yet Adam does not physically die before sunset.

According to Genesis 5:5, Adam lives 930 years.

So what does “in the day” mean?

Elsewhere Scripture gives us a remarkable comparison. Moses writes:

“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past.”

And Peter later writes:

“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Scripture itself introduces a relationship between a day and a thousand years.

Adam lived 930 years. He died before reaching one thousand.

The Seventh Day and Beyond

Creation stops.

God rests on the seventh day and sanctifies it.

Six days of work. The seventh day of rest.

Later, the Book of Revelation describes a future rest:

“And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”

Genesis gives us the sequence of creation.

Job gives us glimpses behind it.

Psalms changes our perspective on time.

Peter reminds us that God's measurement is not ours.

And Revelation introduces a thousand-year reign.

Scripture alone gives us these pieces. But how did ancient readers understand them? Did they see a pattern in the deep, the days, and the millennia?

To discover what was remembered outside the biblical canon, we must step through the second gate.