On the Third Day, the Words of God Give Birth to the Earth and the Seas, and the Authority of God Causes the World to Brim With Life 

The first sentence of Genesis 1:9–11: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear.” What changes occurred after God simply said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear”? And what was there in this space apart from the light and the firmament? In the Scriptures, it is written: “And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good.” Which is to say, there was now land and seas in this space, and the land and seas were separated. The appearance of these new things followed the commandment from the mouth of God, “and it was so.” Does the Scripture describe God busying about while He was doing this? Does it describe Him engaging in physical labor? So, how was all this done by God? How did God cause these new things to be produced? Self-evidently, God used words to achieve all of this, to create the entirety of this.

Let us continue to the final sentence of this passage: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth: and it was so.” While God was speaking, all these things came into being following the thoughts of God, and in an instant, an assortment of delicate little life forms were unsteadily poking their heads up through the soil, and before they had even shaken the bits of dirt from their bodies they were eagerly waving to each other in greeting, nodding and smiling to the world. They thanked the Creator for the life that He bestowed upon them, and announced to the world that they were a part of all things, and that they would each devote their lives to showing forth the authority of the Creator. As the words of God were spoken, the land became lush and green, all sorts of herbs that could be enjoyed by man sprang forth and broke from the ground, and the mountains and plains became thickly populated by trees and forests…. This barren world, in which there had not been any trace of life, was rapidly covered by a profusion of grass, herbs and trees and overflowing with greenery…. The fragrance of grass and the aroma of the soil spread through the air, and an array of plants began to breathe in tandem with the circulation of the air, and began the process of growing. At the same time, thanks to the words of God and following the thoughts of God, all the plants began the perpetual life cycles in which they grow, blossom, bear fruit, and multiply. They began to strictly adhere to their respective life courses, and began to perform their respective roles among all things…. They were all born, and lived, because of the words of the Creator. They would receive the unceasing provision and nourishment of the Creator, and would always tenaciously survive in every corner of the land in order to show forth the authority and power of the Creator, and they would always show forth the life force bestowed upon them by the Creator …

The life of the Creator is extraordinary, His thoughts are extraordinary, and His authority is extraordinary, and so, when His words were uttered, the final result was “and it was so.” Clearly, God does not need to work with His hands when He acts; He merely uses His thoughts to command, and His words to order, and in this way things are achieved. On this day, God gathered the waters together to one place, and let the dry land appear, after which God caused grass to sprout forth from the land, and there grew the herbs yielding seeds, and trees bearing fruit, and God classed them each according to kind, and caused each to contain its own seed. All this was realized according to the thoughts of God and the commands of the words of God, and each appeared, one after the other, in this new world.

When He had yet to commence His work, God already had a picture of what He intended to achieve in His mind, and when God set about achieving these things, which was also when God opened His mouth to speak of the content of this picture, changes in all things began to occur thanks to the authority and power of God. Irrespective of how God did it, or exerted His authority, all was achieved step by step according to God’s plan and because of the words of God, and step by step changes occurred between heaven and earth thanks to the words and authority of God. All of these changes and occurrences showed forth the Creator’s authority, and the extraordinariness and greatness of the power of the Creator’s life. His thoughts are not simple ideas, or an empty picture, but an authority possessed of vitality and extraordinary energy, and they are the power to cause all things to change, recover, renew, and perish. And because of this, all things function because of His thoughts, and, at the same time, are achieved because of the words from His mouth….

Before all things appeared, in the thoughts of God a complete plan had long ago been formed, and a new world had long ago been achieved. Although on the third day there appeared all sorts of plants on the land, God had no reason to halt the steps of His creation of this world; He intended to continue to speak His words, to continue to achieve the creation of every new thing. He would speak, would issue His commands, and would exert His authority and show forth His power, and He prepared everything that He had planned to prepare for all the things and the mankind that He intended to create….

—The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique I