What Did Jesus Believe About the Creation Account in Genesis?

Have you ever thought about what Jesus, whom Christians believe to be God incarnate, believed about the beginning? Yes, I understand the temptation to call this a silly question. It’s kind of like wondering, after thirty years at a protestant church and under the same leadership, what your pastor believes about Jesus being the only way to heaven. You would probably say the answer is obvious, but whatever the answer is, it’s extremely important to know, wouldn’t you agree?

So did Jesus believe in the beginning? Did He believe in the traditional view of creation that we read about in Genesis 1? Though you probably think you already know the answer to that (and you wouldn’t be wrong!), there is merit in researching the answer to this question in the Scriptures; and you will see why this is not, in fact, a silly question to ask. 

So let’s ask it again: What did Jesus believe about the creation account in Genesis?

Jesus Believed in the Beginning

In Matthew 19, Jesus more or less asked the crowd if they had read the scriptures that we refer to as Genesis 1. He asked, “Have you not read [in Genesis 1:27] that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” Though He may have been citing this scripture to answer the Pharisees’ question about divorce, by using it to share His unwavering stance on marriage and divorce, He was also revealing His belief in a “beginning.”

He also uttered other such words about the beginning and creation:

• “But from the beginning of creation, God created them male and female.” (Mark 10:6)
• “...the beginning of the creation which God created…” (Mark 13:19)
• “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 13:35 NIV)
• “...from the beginning of the world . . .” (Matthew 24:21)
• “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” (Matthew 24:21 NIV)
• “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.” (Matthew 19:8)

These words of Christ have rung loud and clear for two thousand years. Jesus believed in the beginning—the beginning of creation, which God created. 

Jesus Believed the Traditional View of Genesis 1

So if Jesus clearly believed in “the beginning,” what exactly did He believe about it? Specifically, did He believe in the traditional view of Genesis 1, which tells us that God created the world in six days (yom, in Hebrew) and rested on the seventh day?

Yes, I believe He did. When Jesus said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” His listeners knew He was referencing Moses’ book that we refer to as Genesis. His listeners, in large percentages among the Jewish populace, would have understood him as aligning with and endorsing what they themselves believed about the creation narrative, which served as the foundational teachings in Moses’ writings. This includes the concept of a six-day creation and the special creation of Adam and Eve (which I will explain in my next point).

By implication, Jesus in essence signed off on Genesis 1, which reveals in broad assertions that God spoke and everything came into existence over six days.

• Day 1: God said, “Let there be light,” and He separated it from darkness, giving us day and night.
• Day 2: God said, “Let there be an expanse,” and He divided the waters on earth to form the sky, where we have our atmosphere.
• Day 3: God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place,” and He separated the waters to reveal dry land and brought forth plants and trees.
• Day 4: God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse,” and He made the sun, moon, and stars, which provide us with day and night and seasons.
• Day 5: God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth,” and He created fish and birds, filling our oceans and skies with life.
• Day 6: God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures,” and He made land animals, including livestock and wild creatures, and then said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image,” and He created humans—our ancestors, Adam and Eve.

In all of the four Gospels, Jesus gave no indication He believed otherwise, and there is no sound reason to argue He believed wrongly. 

Jesus Believed in Two Realms of Creation

Jesus would have believed in two realms at creation.

What do I mean?

For example, on the third day of creation recorded in the narrative of Genesis, when God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them” (Genesis 1:11), the reader is expected to differentiate, as did Jesus, between the fully developed and created vegetation, plants, and trees that came into existence immediately and supernaturally from subsequent vegetation, plants, and trees that would naturally form from seeds. After all, the Scriptures Jesus believed to be true and accurate clearly say that God created “plants yielding seed,” not “seeds that would become plants,” and “fruit . . . with seed in them,” not “seed that would grow into fruit.”

Jesus would have assumed that God expected the reader to believe the tree He created came about fully mature by divine command on the third day. That event, however, differed from the natural order of how trees would later grow from seeds. In whatever language first-century Jews would have worded it, the readers were to believe in the non-natural (e.g., an instantaneously formed apple tree). Something happened at creation within the supernatural realm where time and matter did not operate as they knew it from experience. If they wanted to grow an apple tree themselves, they needed to start with a seed. But at the beginning, God created a fully formed apple tree—something never repeated since.

The same applied to the sixth day of creation, when God created mankind. God supernaturally created Adam and Eve as special creations. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” As God created fully formed trees at creation, which Jesus confirmed and assumed His readers believed as well, He also created mature adults, not embryos or even babies.

Once again, this was a one-time event, never to be repeated again. For Jesus and the Jews read of Adam and Eve having children, beginning with Cain and Abel. God designed the first couple to reproduce naturally, which we know comes from sperm and egg. Jesus did not say, “Have you not read how God created Cain and Abel in the same way He created their parents?”

As a first-century Jew, Jesus believed in these two realms: non-natural and natural. The first realm is referred to by theologians as a special creation. God supernaturally formed Adam and Eve as two mature adults. The second realm is that humans came into existence through the birth process all humanity experiences. Cain and Abel were not supernaturally created.

Jesus and the Jews would have believed in the miracle of creation. That is not a subtle point. That is the point (which is why this is not a silly question after all!). God created instantaneously with near-infinite intensity, nearly impossible-to-measure masses, and incomprehensible complexity. No wonder God rested on the seventh day! 

What Jesus Believed about the Beginning Has More Merit Than Skeptics Claim

Skeptics should not act as though a supernatural creation is irrational. Anyone who reads what scientists assert is true about the precondition of the Big Bang, knows of the otherworldly assumptions and assertions. Little if anything operated naturally. (Read my article “Harmonizing Science and Scripture: Exploring Non-Natural Phenomena in Creation” for more about this.) The whole description is about a non-natural realm. For me, the creation account in Genesis is more reasonable than a beginning without a cause. I prefer God as the first cause. As Romans 4:17 states, “God . . . calls into being things that do not exist.”

If science can argue in favor of the Big Bang with matter infinitely small, infinitely dense, and infinitely hot, or nearly so, which results in absolutely everything coming out of absolutely nothing, or nearly so, is it irrational by comparison to believe in the precondition that God is the first cause behind creation, as Genesis reports?

Sure, many scientists quickly jump on this and say, “But we are simply pursuing the natural law. We can only deal with the empirical evidence.” I agree. I am drawing parallels with the evidence that we have about quantum mechanics, for instance, evidence that certain realms exist within this universe that appear to be of another realm not operating or governed by traditional laws of physics. The same holds true with black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. Therefore, drawing that comparison with God and claiming He acted in a similar realm outside of traditional physics is not unreasonable. I have no proof other than the nature of these parallels. But I thank the Lord for quantum mechanics and other non-natural phenomena.