The Creator’s Satisfaction

As we come to Genesis 1:31, we come to the close of the sixth day and God’s final assessment of everything He had made.

Throughout Genesis 1 there is a pattern on the page. God speaks. What God speaks comes into being. Then God looks at it, and again and again we read,

“And God saw that it was good.”

The word for good here is tov, and it is a wide word. It carries good, pleasant, agreeable, beneficial, and more besides, and which of those it means depends on where it is standing. So let me say what I take it to mean here and not pretend the dictionary handed it to me. In this chapter I read it as right, whole, working exactly as it was meant to, and I read it that way because of what God is looking at each time He says it.

So when God saw that it was good, I do not think He was only admiring a beautiful thing. I think He was seeing a thing that was working just as He designed it. And Genesis does not say which, so that is mine. But now something has changed, and Moses writes,

“And God saw every thing that he had made...”

God is no longer looking at one day or one part of creation, and He is looking at the whole.

The light, the heavens, the seas, the earth, the vegetation, the sun, moon, and stars, the fish, the birds, the beasts, and finally, the man and woman He created in His own image.

Nothing is missing, and nothing is incomplete. And I am not saying that out of nowhere, because the very next verse says it.

Finished. That is Moses saying it and not me. And when I go on and say everything is exactly where God intended it to be, that part is mine. Then comes God’s final verdict, and not simply,

“It was good.”

But,

“Behold, it was very good.”

The words here are tov meod. It is tov intensified by meod. Very good. Exceedingly good.

Why very good? Now Moses does not tell me why the word changed, so this is my answer and not his. Creation is now complete, the image-bearers have been created. The blessing has been spoken, the commission has been given. Everything God intended has now been established, the world is functioning according to the purpose of its Creator. Every part of creation is in harmony with God’s design.

And this is how I read Genesis 1, and I will say that it is my reading of the chapter. God did not create a world filled with confusion, He created a world filled with order. In everything this chapter shows me, He created with purpose, and He did not create life merely to exist. He created life to fulfill His will.

Notice something beautiful, and God never called creation “very good” until man was created.

That does not diminish the rest of creation, because God had already said good again and again in that chapter, over the light, the dry land, the grass, the lights, the fish and fowl, and the beasts. And not after every day, because look at the second day and you will find no good said over it at all. But the whole work had not reached its intended completion until humanity, the bearers of His image, had been created, blessed, and commissioned.

And now I am going to use a word Genesis 1:31 does not use. Delight. The verse gives me a verdict, very good, and it does not tell me what God felt. Now here is a verse that speaks of God rejoicing, and I have to tell you something about it before I use it.

The LORD shall rejoice in his works, and that is how the King James reads it. Other translations render it may the LORD rejoice, as a prayer rather than a statement, and the Hebrew allows that. So I will not make that verse prove what God felt in Genesis 1:31. What it does give me is Scripture joining the LORD’s rejoicing with His works, and I am the one carrying that thought back into Genesis. And when I go on and say He delights in what reflects His wisdom and in what functions according to His purpose, those two are mine.

As we close this chapter, here is what I take away from it. In this chapter God speaks with purpose, He creates with purpose, He blesses with purpose, and He commissions with purpose.

And when everything He has made stands in the place He intended, God Himself declares it very good.

That is what I am calling the Creator’s satisfaction. Genesis gives me His verdict, very good. And when I hold that verdict beside the Scripture that speaks of the LORD rejoicing in His works, I read delight there too. That joining is mine.

So Genesis 1 closes with the Creator looking upon everything He had made and declaring it very good. The labor of the six days is complete, and the next thing Moses will show us is God resting from all His work.