The word Genesis means "beginning" and we read "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (Gen.1:1). Now the question arises, How long ago was that?  It is obvious that the Bible does not give us a clear distinct answer.

The word created, as used in the first verse of chapter I, is the Hebrew word "bara". It is only used three times in the entire Bible and it is that capacity of creating something out of nothing. It is a capacity that is exclusively God's. There are two other words, "asah" and "yasar", that are translated, made or formed; which are the Hebrew words used for the assembling of existing materials. You may say someone created a television set, but they have only assembled existing parts. It's not like saying, "Television be" and suddenly there was a television. Creating out of non-existing materials is something only God has the power in the Hebrew word, bara.

It is interesting that in this account of creation the word "bara" is used in the first verse and then God made and God formed afterward. Once God had created the heaven and the earth, He used existing materials and assembled things together out of those materials.

The Book of Genesis goes back to the beginning of creation, the material universe, the beginning of time. Time is related always to the material. There is a dimension in which time does not exist, which is the Eternal. Our finite minds are not programmed to think in that dimension. To us everything has a start and a finish; a beginning and an end. We can't conceive timelessness or the eternal.

Just how long ago, in our time, was the creation of the universe? You see, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" but, before He created them God thought about you. Christ was crucified before the foundations of the earth. Before God even created a material universe, He thought about you and loved you and planned for your redemption. It's hard to conceive but this is what the Scripture teaches.