Day three of creation marks the beginning of life on Earth. Prior to day three, God created the heavens and the earth including time, matter, energy and space. He covered the earth with water and separated the water into an atmosphere and the seas. On day three, God separated the oceans and dry land. The rain cycle then watered the dry land and God created plant life on land.
Genesis 1:9 tells us, 9 God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth. The gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day. NKJV
This passage tells us the waters were gathered together to form the Seas and then the dry land appeared. An examination of the Earth’s crust reveals the outer crust of the Earth is not level. Mountains, valleys, hills and plains exist on both dry land and the bottom of the Seas. Scientists have estimated there is enough water to cover the face of the Earth completely if the outer crust of the Earth was level.
However, waters erode and the earth erupts to form valleys and tunnels that reach down into the outer crust of the Earth. This causes the waters to gather into pools, which in turn results in the higher elevation portions of the earth’s crust drying and forming land. As we will later explore, the Noahic flood involved both rain and the waters bursting up from the deep. This would be consistent with water seeping into the crust of the earth.
Consider what science says about the Earth. The Earth is approximately 7,900 miles in diameter. The radius from the surface to the center of the earth is approximately 3,950 miles. The radius of the solid inner core is approximately 775 miles. The liquid outer core is approximately 1,370 miles thick. The mantle is approximately 1800 miles thick. The crust is between 3 miles to 60 miles thick with an average thickness of the crust being about 21 miles thick.
The Earth has a core consisting mostly of iron and nickel, with smaller amounts of gold, platinum and cobalt melted into it. The core ranges in temperature from approximately 6,000 ℃ (about 10,800 ℉) at the solid inner core to approximately 4,000 ℃ (about 7,200 ℉) at the boundary of the liquid outer core with the mantle.
The inner core consists of an inner core and an outer core. The inner core is under immense pressure and is extremely dense. This results in this metal inner core resembling a solid state (i.e., a plasma) even though it is 6,000 ℃. The outer core is liquid metal that rotates around the inner core as the earth rotates and is responsible for creating the Earth’s magnetic field. The Earth’s magnetic field is responsible for protecting life from the solar winds of the Sun.
The mantle consists of solid rock, magma and minerals. The mantle ranges in temperature from about 4,000 ℃ (about 7,200℉) near the core to about 1,000 ℃ (about 1800 ℉) near the crust.
The crust consists of various types of rock and minerals that are arranged into tectonic plates that float on top of the mantle. The crust ranges in temperature from about 1,000 ℃ (1,800 ℉) near the mantle to the temperature of the atmospheric environment at the surface. The surface can be below freezing (the freezing point of water is 0 ℃ (32 ℉)). The crust is very rigid, thin and brittle. it erodes, cracks and forms mountains, valleys, hills and plains. The surface of the earth is covered with a significant amount of sedimentary rock.
These tectonic plates collide and separate from each other. This causes the formation of an uneven surface with high mountains and deep valleys on both dry land and under the Seas. The majority of the Earth’s crust is under water. Thus, God caused the waters to gather into the deeper valleys of the Earth’s crust, thus exposing the higher elevations to the atmosphere.
With the dry ground now exposed to the atmosphere, the Earth is ready for the beginning of life. God creates the first life on land. Modern scientists speculate that life began in the seas and evolved to land. Genesis, however, is clear that life began with the plants on dry land.
Genesis 1:11 says “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’ and it was so.” This passage is not clear whether God created the seed of the grasses, herbs and fruits and they grew or created the plants in their mature state. The answer to this is irrelevant for what the Word of God tells us in Genesis. What is important is that each of the plants appeared according to their own kind and reproduced according to their own kind. There is no cross-speciation then, and there is none now. This is the beginning of life on Earth.
During the middle of the 1800s, Louis Pasteur and others disproved the doctrine of spontaneous generation. The term “Spontaneous generation” describes the appearance of life without descending from an ancestor. Absent the intervention of God, life does not occur spontaneously. Pasteur and others proved spontaneous generation was not true. Spoilage of food came through the presence of existing bacteria. The way to keep food from spoiling was to eliminate the presence of germs/bacteria.
Through his experiments, Pasteur created the process of pasteurization. This is process by which existing bacteria is killed so that it cannot reproduce and spoil food. This process is used to this day to preserve certain perishable foods like milk. This refutation of spontaneous generation by Pasteur and others supports the Genesis account that all life reproduces according to its own kind.
When Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, he believed that the fossil record would prove his hypothesis of gradual evolution. He believed further investigation would show intermediate stages between old species and new species. He believed all life came from a single source and evolved. This process, however, would not explain the beginning of life on earth.
However, Darwin admitted that he was perplexed by the sudden appearance of highly formed life in the Cambrian sedimentary rock layers and the lack of transitory forms of species. He believed that time would bear out his theory. More than 160 years have now passed. Not only is there no proof of transitions between species, the transitions observed by Darwin have been refuted. Thus, despite the extensive efforts of scientists to find these proposed transitions, it remains today that all species reproduce according to their own kind, just like Genesis 1 says. There is no cross-speciation.
On a final note, I would like to point out that God provided the energy and light necessary for the beginning of life. God had not yet created the sun, moon and stars to light the Earth. The creation of the sun, moon and stars occurs on Day Four of Creation.