Readers often like to pick and choose from the events presented in the Creation narrative, and these two verses are ones that effectively all Christians affirm as being true, to varying degrees.
All would generally affirm that God created the heavens and the earth, but even to the extent that the earth’s matter exists separate from God is questioned by some:
If the earth was void and there was “water” to hover over, was the universe actually empty before God, or was He acting on other permanent material?
The word for “void” is:
וָבֹ֔הוּ (wā·ḇō·hū) A vacuity, an undistinguishable ruin
Verse 1 is describing what God is going to make in the coming chapters, which is all of reality that angels and man exist within. Verse 1 can be seen as the initial production by God of the primordial matter that makes up creation, and presumably the angels were created in this verse as well.
This primordial matter is what the “water” within the “void” represents.
God is not co-eternal with primordial matter, but the progenitor of it.
Gap theory must be presented here, as it has become common in contemporary Christianity.
Quoting John Gill’s exposition on Genesis 1:2, for I find his response to be the most reasonable:
“Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) in 1814 was the first to purpose that there is a gap between verse 1 and 2. Into this gap he places a pre-Adamic age, about which the scriptures say nothing. Some great catastrophe took place, which left the earth "without form and void" or ruined, in which state it remained for as many years as the geologist required. {g} This speculation has been popularised by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible. However, the numerous rock layers that are the supposed proof for these ages, were mainly laid down by Noah's flood. In Exodus 20:11 we read of a literal six day creation. No gaps, not even for one minute, otherwise these would not be six normal days. Also, in Romans 5:12 we read that death is the result of Adam's sin. Because the rock layers display death on a grand scale, they could not have existed before the fall of Adam. There is no direct evidence that the earth is much older than six thousand years. However, we have the direct eyewitness report of God himself that he made everything in six days. Tracing back through the biblical genealogies we can determine the age of the universe to be about six thousand years with an error of not more than two per cent.“
So when we describe verse 1 as the creation of primordial matter, we must clarify that this is part and parcel with the first day where light is created.
Which person of the Trinity is the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters?
It is pretty clearly the Holy Spirit’s participation in creation.
"And wind (also: 'spirit') from Elohim" (Ibid.) ALLUDES TO the spirit of holiness that proceeded from living Elohim and "moved over the surface of the waters" (Ibid.). THIS MEANS THAT after this wind blew, a thin layer from the refuse was refined, just as the filth flies off and away. In this manner, it was refined, covered and purified over and over again until the foulness was left without any filth.
Interestingly enough, they use the same description we would of how the Son proceeds from the Father (and due to the Filioque clause, how the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son).
Gap theorists will claim that, before the light came, there was an indeterminately large period of time which passed where there was at least no sun.
This gap allows for an explicit time for Satan and his brood of angels to sin against God and fall.
There is also a claim that this is where the great expanse of time that science claims is needed for universe expansion comes in, however, that would necessitate some kind of light.
The light in scripture then would have to specifically be the sun.
Not actually speaking about light itself, which would be present through traditional universe expansion.
God separates the water that is present on the earth into the various layers of the atmosphere.
There is a specific grand detail here though that is important later in the flood narrative, for it separated “the waters from the waters.”
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
There was water deep within the earth and waters from “the windows of the heavens” which flooded the earth.
We now consistently receive rain from the sky via the water cycle, but we do not have some consistent cover of water around the earth the way that Genesis 1 seems to describe.
The waters from above would almost certainly have changed the nature of life on earth, for we would live in some kind of intense humidor.
Even now, the ozone layer is quite sensitive, and whatever we shove into the air seems to affect our lives to some degree, so we can imagine that greatly increased water content in the atmosphere would have affected life dramatically.
So if we are not to take this narrative accurately as it is laid out, we have to also question the Flood itself. There is a cascade of implications that come from Genesis 1, so let’s spend a small bit of time on the Flood and the Noahic covenant:
If the flood was local, this affects the scope of the Noahic Covenant.
God makes a covenant with Noah, permitting humans now to eat meat, requiring us to pay back murder with the death penalty, a promise that seasons and the day-night cycle will persist, and a promise to never destroy the earth with water.
God explicitly marks the covenant as being applied to Noah, Noah’s offspring, and all creatures in the ark, then in following verses God refers to these same groups as “all flesh”
Genesis 9:15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
If the flood was local, not all man is under this covenant, but only the fleshly descendants of Noah.
If/since the flood was global, the Noahic Covenant applies to all flesh.
So it is easiest to accept the flood was global, and traumatic to the earth, and all further implications of that, if there was a great deluge of water released from both the heavens above and the earth beneath.
This day of creation always brings forth a specific question from people “I thought light and darkness had already been created on the first day?”
The simple answer is “correct”, the real puzzle is how could both possibly be true?
Even in the scientific explanation for formation of stars, nebulae cloud up, heat, and form into stars over time.
One could consider that on the first day, God created the various nebulae in the universe for the various stars, and especially the Sun, to provide a day-night cycle, for the nebulae would not be all-consuming the earth, for that would be chaotic and potentially cause destruction upon the earth.
It is on the fourth day then that God collected together all the nebulae to form the existent stars, and the nearest nebula into the Sun itself.
Another consideration is that Christ was first made manifest as the light on the first day, rather than any phenomenon like the nebula.
Christ is frequently referred to as the Light of the World.
Regardless, this imagery is helpful in a typical fashion, even if the light was from nebulae.
God declared man to be in His image upon creation, applying this to both man and woman.
Say you believe in theistic evolution, at what point did man get created into His image?
Did man at one point in time get gifted the image of God?
If man continues to evolve now, will we, in the same way we evolved into having His image, eventually evolve out of having His image?
There is a question of whether or not God’s image is immutable then, and of whether or not there is any specific value to be given to those creatures we evolved from.
Also, if evolution is to be understood as the method by which man came about, were Adam and Eve particularly enlightened, but their unnamed parents not human enough? Were Adam and Eve then siblings?
So many questions come up when you take a theistic evolutionary view, with less potential answers, specifically around human dignity and divine image in man.
What if God did create us as specified here? That Adam and Eve had no earthly parents, and were made in God’s divine image.
Man has then always generally been in the state he is in, and male and female both have this divine image, not one more than the other.
All rights that are conferred by having God’s divine image then have been around for all of time for man.
We now see that God blesses man in a similar way as He did to the birds and sea creatures, commanding them to bear offspring and fill the earth with them.
This also establishes marriage as a divine ordinance, transcending any human tradition and decision, for we also see later that God describes Adam and Eve as married and can be inferred as a prerequisite to multiplying with one another.
God makes clear though the hierarchy here, by claiming that man has dominion, that man is over all creatures and the earth itself.
Does beg the question of whether or not man has a right to the planets and stars themselves? Is our dominion limited to the earth or does it expand to all celestial bodies?
Generally, old earthers and skeptics alike, question why we get this “second creation narrative”.
This chapter can be easily understood as a recap of the creation account, but focused upon the creation of things most pertinent to man, rather than the creation account from start to finish.
Chapter 2 also further legitimizes man’s claim to nature and the ordinance of marriage.