I learn from this, that " in the beginning," before heaven or earth existed, there was " God who created" them, that it was He who originated them. I learn, too, that at first, " the earth was formless and void;" and also that "darkness was upon the face of the deep."
How long ago was that? I know not; nor how long it lasted. That which God wrote, I receive and consider to be fact, not fiction.
God's written word then adds (at the close of v. 2), " And the Spirit of God moved over " (that which I knew not before to have existed) " the face of the waters."
From internal evidence, in the difference between that which precedes, and that which follows after (apparently a new subject) from verse 3, I have the impression that this portion is as the close of that which precedes it; and is not the commencement of what follows afterward. But impression takes its place in my mind, and is a very different thing from what is a fact in God's presence received by me, otherwise ignorant of it; but now accrediting it as a reality, because of a plain and definite statement made by God and written in His word. I am sure that God wrote it, and I receive it; but I wait for fuller light ere I can speak of the connection of that fragment rather with what precedes, or with what follows it.
Creation (the creation of the heaven and the earth), and the ordering of the Adamic heaven and earth (and the account of which we then have),.are two distinguishable things, and might have been at two distinguishable times. I might, indeed, add a third thing; for it is written: " Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Where vast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:2,4,6,72Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? (Job 38:2)
4Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. (Job 38:4)
6Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:6‑7).)
Here, while addressing Job a man on earth, God names sons of God as having been present, and expressed their delight, when the foundation of the earth was made fast, and the corner-stone laid. There were then some intelligent creatures, heavenly beings (and they do not appear to have darkened counsel with words without knowledge), that witnessed the preparation of earth for man.
The first of the two things named above is creation of the heaven and the earth.
The second is, from verse 3 onward, the ordering and arranging the Adamic earth according to the Mosaic account.
Between these (the first, and the second), if twelve millions of years existed for the geologist to explore the remains, in any order which investigation may discover to him, nevertheless he gets the origin of that state from
God, through Moses; as also is the continuation of the account of the ordering and arranging of the earth as a residence for man.
But if there be a parenthesis or gap which is void, let us be cautious and humble; for it is guess-work at best, when man has nothing but his own observations, and not facts stated by God, to go upon.
Let him take heed lest he overlook this possible hiatus, and create a world for himself, and accuse God falsely, objecting to a Bible written with a specific object (not geology), just because he does not see this hiatus. I object not to observations; but I do altogether to the proud spirit which sets fallen man's observations above revelation made by God.
Blindness in many has, through their self-satisfaction, hindered their seeing this possible gap; many of them have overlooked, too, the difference of things observed, mid the accounting for them; and degraded both themselves and the study of existent nature. Of this globe's duration, whatever changes may have taken place upon it, we have the testimony of men that were competent to gather evidence about it, that it had run a course of something like 4,000 years ere the Christ was born: this with 1378 since, and the certified statement of the only One that knows futurity, that He, the Christ, shall reign over it for 1,000 years, leads, as do various texts, to the thought common to many of a 7,000 years' course for it.
He that reads what God has written, must divide between impressions formed in his own mind, and observations of his own, and that of which he can say: " But this is written." Otherwise he will give his impressions as though they were prophecies by God.