And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning -- the sixth day.
Read Full Chapter →Commentary for this Verse
God's account of the six days ends with a survey and a verdict: He looks over the whole finished work and calls it very good. That verdict raises three questions: what makes it very good, what happened to it, and whether God will ever say it again.
The Final Verdict
Earlier in the chapter God repeatedly calls His work good. The last verdict is different because of what God has just added to the scene.
A J PollockWith the creation of man, God's work had reached its high point. Up to now we have read the same words four times over: "And God saw that it was good." That covered all the rebuilding and creating, apart from the creation of man. But on the sixth day God surveys the whole scene, including man and woman in their ordered place with dominion over it all. Then we read, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was VERY good."
The verdict covers material things — soil, sea, animals, human bodies. That rules out a whole way of thinking about the physical world.
F. B. HoleTake note of this, for it destroys at one blow the whole system of error wrongly called "Christian Science." One of its most basic teachings is the idea that matter is evil and only spirit is good. The truth is the exact opposite, for when evil entered it came in by way of spirit, not matter.
Why Only Scripture Can Report It
Nobody watched the world in its first condition. No study of the world as it is now can rebuild that picture for us. This verse comes to us as revelation.
William KellyHere experience must fail us. Only the Bible could give us the truth about the first condition of man and the creatures around him. But once it is revealed, it proves itself at once. It is the only state we can imagine in which the Creator could have placed creation and its head in a way that fits His own goodness. That is the force and moral beauty of His final survey in the last verse. With the one exception of the second day, He had called each thing "good"; now, as a whole, it was good in the highest degree in His eyes.
Kelly presses the point against those who assume the world has always looked as it does now:
William KellyIt is illogical, and unbelieving too, to assume that the present state is the normal one, or that God made men sinful, vain, proud and selfish… Clearly the state of the world is offensive to God, and it has been so as far back as man's records reach. This is a fact, Bible or no Bible.
Satisfaction, Then Rest
The verdict leads straight into the seventh day. It also tells us what God's rest is like.
Hamilton SmithThis led to creation rest, with its two marks. First, God was satisfied with all that He had made, as we read, "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." Second, He stopped all His creation work completely, as it is written, "he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done." (Gen. 1:31; Gen. 2:2).
How Quickly the Verdict Changed
The world we live in no longer matches this description. The man God set over it is the reason.
J Wilson SmithSin broke God's Sabbath, His rest in creation. From then on the verdict He had just pronounced had to change from "very good" to very bad. Man, the masterpiece, fell, and dragged down with him the creation God had placed him over. The beautiful work of God's hand was spoiled, as it were, in a moment.
The point is not that God's work was faulty, but that He tied its wellbeing to the obedience of one man:
William KellyIt pleased God to make that first creation dependent on its head, the first Adam. He listened to a voice which he ought not to have listened to; sin came in by him, and by sin death, and now the whole creation groans in bondage. (Rom. 5 and Rom. 8)
The Verdict Recovered
Genesis 1:31 is not God's last word on His creation. Writers point forward to a day when the same delight returns.
Hamilton SmithSin has marred the fair creation, so that now the whole creation groans and suffers pain. But the saints in heaven share the mind of the Lord, and they can see that all the evil will be dealt with in judgment. Then God can take pleasure in His creation once again, just as He did long ago, when the creation work was finished: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).
The first verdict came by a word. The satisfaction still to come is reached through suffering:
J Wilson SmithHe declared the work of His hand to be very good, but in the anguish of His soul He will find satisfaction. The first creation, for all its beauty, was quickly marred by sin.
Summary
- Verdict. Earlier statements call the work "good"; only after man and woman stand in place over the whole does God survey everything and call it very good.
- Vindicated. Matter is not the source of evil; evil came in by way of spirit. And no study of today's world can tell us what the first world was like. Only Scripture reports it.
- Rest. The verdict produces the seventh day: satisfaction in the result, then the complete end of the work.
- Ruin. Sin broke God's rest: man, the masterpiece, fell and dragged down the creation he had been set over, and "very good" became very bad.
- Restored. The verdict returns — God will take pleasure in His creation once more, and the One who spoke it will find satisfaction through the anguish of His soul.