The Habitable World: The Third Day Text: Genesis 1:9-13
Introduction: A God Who Makes Room
As we continue our walk through the foundational chapter of all reality, we see the pattern of God's work solidifying. God is a God of order, and He creates by making distinctions, by separating, and then by filling. In the first two days, He has formed the basic structure of time and space. He separated light from darkness, creating the rhythm of day and night. He separated the waters above from the waters below, creating the sky. The canvas is prepared, the basic architecture is in place, but the world is not yet a place for life as we know it. It is a world of sky and sea, but with no place to stand.
On the third day, God continues His work of forming, but He also begins the work of filling. He is making the world habitable. He is preparing a home for the creatures He intends to make, and ultimately, for the man who will bear His image. This is a profound truth we must not miss. God is not a distant, abstract deity. He is a home-builder. He is preparing a place. This is what He does in creation, and it is what Jesus promises to do for us in redemption: "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). The pattern is the same. First the forming, then the filling. First the house, then the inhabitants.
The events of the third day are a direct assault on the pagan mind, both ancient and modern. For the ancient, the sea was a symbol of chaos, a raging, untamable deity. Here, God commands the sea, and it obeys. He sets its boundaries with a word. For the modern materialist, life is a cosmic accident, a lucky chemical soup that spontaneously generated complexity. Here, life is a direct result of God's spoken command. Vegetation does not crawl out of the primordial ooze over millions of years of trial and error. It springs forth, fully formed, mature, and seed-bearing, at the word of its Creator.
This is not poetry, though it is beautiful. This is not myth, though it tells the truest story. This is the divine record of how God made a place for us to live, and how He filled it with the glories of His creative goodness. It is a world made by speech, which is why it is a world that has meaning. It is a world of fixed kinds and purposes, which is why it is a world of order. And it is a world He calls good, which is why it is a world worth redeeming.
The Text
Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.
And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.
(Genesis 1:9-13 LSB)
Commanding the Chaos (v. 9-10)
The first action of the third day is to bring forth a stable place for life to dwell.
"Then God said, 'Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear'; and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:9-10)
Once again, God speaks, and reality rearranges itself to obey. The image is one of a global ocean, the "waters below the heavens," being commanded to retreat. This is not a gentle suggestion. The Psalmist later describes this event with dramatic, poetic force: "The waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled, at the sound of Your thunder they hurried away" (Psalm 104:6-7). This is an act of raw, sovereign power. The sea, that ancient symbol of chaos and dread, is here shown to be God's creature, utterly subject to His will. He tells it where to go, and it goes. He sets its boundaries, and it obeys (cf. Job 38:8-11).
This act of separation, gathering the waters and revealing the land, completes the foundational "forming" work of the first three days. God has now established the three basic realms of the cosmos: the heavens, the seas, and the earth. He has created the stage. This is the world-building of a master storyteller, setting the scene for the drama that is to unfold.
And then God exercises His authority by naming. "God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas." As we have seen, naming is an act of sovereignty. It is the right of the maker. We do not get to define what the earth is, or what the sea is. God has already done so. Our task is to receive His definitions and live within them. When we reject God's definitions, whether of land and sea, or of man and woman, or of good and evil, we are attempting a coup against the Creator. It is an act of cosmic treason.
And for the second time in this chapter, we have the divine evaluation: "and God saw that it was good." The raw materials were good, the light was good, and now the basic habitat of land and sea is good. This is a direct refutation of any Gnostic or ascetic worldview that sees the physical world as a trap, an illusion, or inherently corrupt. God is not a spirit who despises matter. He is a craftsman who delights in what He has made. The earth is not something to be escaped, but something to be stewarded, cultivated, and enjoyed to the glory of its Maker. The material world is good. It is very good.
The Fiat of Life (v. 11-12)
With the land established, God immediately begins to fill it. He does not wait for millennia. He speaks, and life appears.
"Then God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them'; and it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:11-12 LSB)
Notice the glorious impossibility of this from a naturalistic perspective. God creates plants before He creates the sun. The sun, moon, and stars will not be made until Day Four. This is a staggering theological statement. Just as God created light before the sun to show that He is the source of light, He now creates photosynthesizing life before the sun to show that He is the source of all life. Life does not depend on the sun; the sun, and all life, depend on God. He is teaching us from the very first page of the Bible not to worship the creature, the celestial bodies, but to worship the Creator of all things.
The command is for the earth to "sprout" or "bring forth." God delegates the action to the earth He has just made, but the power and the design are entirely His. The earth is the instrument, but God is the agent. And what does it bring forth? Three categories of plant life are mentioned: general vegetation or grasses, seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees. This is a world bursting with immediate, mature life. He did not create a seed and wait for it to grow. He created mature trees already bearing fruit, with the seed for future generations already packed inside. This is the doctrine of creation with the appearance of age, and there is nothing deceptive about it. God created Adam as a man, not an embryo. He created a world that was functioning and mature from the moment He spoke it into being.
And here we are introduced to a crucial biblical concept: "after their kind." This phrase appears ten times in Genesis 1. It is the foundation of all true biology. God did not create a single primordial organism that then evolved into everything else. He created distinct kinds of organisms, each with its own genetic boundaries. There is great variety possible within a kind, a dog kind can produce Chihuahuas and Great Danes, but a dog will never produce a cat. A pine tree will never produce an apple. This is God's created order. The modern theory of evolution is a direct rebellion against this revealed truth. It seeks to dissolve the boundaries that God established. It is an attempt to explain the glorious, designed diversity of life as the result of blind, purposeless chance. But the Bible is clear: God creates life in distinct, reproducing kinds.
And once again, the refrain: "and God saw that it was good." The land was good. The seas were good. And now the life that covers the land is good. This is a world overflowing with the goodness of God. It is a gift, a feast for the senses, a vibrant display of His creative genius and generosity.
The Liturgical Close (v. 13)
The day concludes with the now-familiar liturgical formula, marking the passage of a literal day.
"And there was evening and there was morning, a third day." (Genesis 1:13 LSB)
As we have noted, this is not some vague, poetic expression of a long age. This is the time-stamp of a real, 24-hour day, defined by a period of darkness and a period of light. God is establishing the rhythm of our lives, the week, which is grounded not in astronomical cycles like the day, month, or year, but in His own work of creation. We work for six days and rest for one because God worked for six days and rested for one.
The order, evening and then morning, continues to teach us the pattern of God's work. He takes the unformed and forms it. He takes the darkness and brings light. He takes the chaos and brings order. This is the rhythm of creation, and it is the rhythm of redemption. He takes the evening of our sin and confusion and brings the morning of His grace and truth. The third day ends, with the world now a habitable, beautiful place, clothed in green and ready for the next stage of God's creative plan.
A World Prepared for Redemption
The third day of creation is rich with gospel foreshadowing. It is a day of emergence, a day where life comes forth from the earth. The land emerges from the waters of the deep, a kind of resurrection from a watery grave. And then life itself springs up from that dry land. This pattern of death and resurrection is woven into the fabric of the world.
It is no accident that our Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, rose from the grave on the third day. He is the firstfruits from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20). Just as the earth brought forth fruit on the third day of creation, so the earth brought forth its greatest fruit, the resurrected Lord of life, on the third day of the new creation. His resurrection is the guarantee that the whole created order, which God called "good" but which has been marred by our sin, will one day be liberated from its bondage to decay (Romans 8:21).
Furthermore, the life that springs from the earth is seed-bearing life. The principle of the seed is central to the biblical story. God's Word is likened to a seed (Luke 8:11). The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31). And the promise of the gospel was first given as a promise concerning the "seed of the woman" who would crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). That seed is Christ. And all who are in Him become a new creation, bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
God made a world that was good, habitable, and fruitful. He prepared a place for us. Sin corrupted it, but God in Christ has acted to redeem it. He is making a new creation. And the pattern is the same. He speaks His Word into our hearts, He separates us from the chaotic sea of the world, He establishes us on the firm ground of His truth, and He causes His life to spring up within us, bearing fruit after its kind, to His everlasting glory. The God who prepared the earth on the third day is the same God who, on the third day, raised His Son to prepare a place for us.