---
title: Genesis 1:31
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-1-31/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/genesis-1-31.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Genesis 1:31
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Genesis 1:31

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "After that God saw everything he had made, and look! it was very good."

## JW Usage

JWs accept the goodness of the original creation and cite this verse in defence of the material world's intrinsic worth. The Watchtower's "Satan also blesses worldly people" rhetorical move sits in tension with this affirmation but is rarely brought into direct conversation with Genesis 1:31.

## Protestant Usage

The capstone of the creation week — the Creator's own verdict on what he made: "very good". This is the foundational common-grace text. Genuine earthly goods — physical bodies, food, marriage, work, beauty, the structures of family and culture — were declared good before the fall and remain good in their created essence after the fall, even though the fall introduced corruption. The doorstep insight: when a Witness encounters genuine flourishing outside the organisation (a happy non-JW marriage, a non-JW neighbour's honest work, a non-JW musician's beautiful song), scripture says the goods themselves trace to the Creator's "very good", not to satanic counterfeit. Pair with 1 Timothy 4:4, James 1:17, Matthew 5:45, Acts 14:16-17. The rhetorical move "Satan also blesses worldly people" requires Genesis 1:31 to be effectively reversed for non-JW flourishing — a move scripture does not authorise.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- ['Satan Also Blesses' — Common Grace vs Demonic Conspiracy](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/satan-blesses-worldly-success.md) — Matthew 5:45 — He sends rain on the just and the unjust [Epistemology]