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Part One
Origins
Introduction
Origins. We all want to know from where we
came? Were we from a foreign
country? When did our people come to
the United
States for the first time? You see,
our past always enlightens our present.
If we do not know from where we come, we do not have a sense of our
own personal history. Thus, we
search genealogical tables to find out our origins. Personally this is very true, how much
more true for who we are as
humans.
Even
though all of us may not have any particular interest in our personal
origins, the whole human race, every individual that lives wants to know
how he got here so to speak. You know, how did we get here on this
tiny planet in this tiny solar system surrounded by greater solar
systems. For us today it is even a
more pressing question for man because man has developed and advanced in
such a way that we know that this universe is quite large. However, the Hubble telescope will never
answer these questions. No matter
how deep into space this craft penetrates, it can never satisfy the
questions found in the deepest and innermost places of our hearts. Man wants to know from whence he
came. He wants to know his origin!
Sure
some men come up with all kind of theories.
We talk about “big bangs” and perhaps an evolutionary
“chance” kind of origin, but this does not satisfy our
questions. Why? Just because we are made in the image of
God our Creator. You know, we modern
people are not the only ones that wanted to know their origins. Did you know that? The great nations of Egypt, Babylon and other nations all had creation accounts to tell how
they got here on this planet.
They had never walked on the moon, never sent out the Hubble telescope,
or taken pictures of mars, but they had longings, they had questions that
needed to be answered.
So
did the Israelites. When God
delivered them from Egypt in the Exodus with a mighty outstretched arm and
they crossed the Red Sea and God annihilated their enemies, they needed
to know more about this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 15). They had been in slavery in Egypt for over 400 years, but some had forgotten the
Lord their God. Some of the
Israelites, such as Moses were raised up in the knowledge and understanding
of Egypt.
Furthermore, because the surrounding nations had their own creation
myths, they needed to know the truth of the matter.
The
Israelites were the elect, first-born son of God, but they were about to
enter Canaan, the Promised Land, which would be surrounded by
many foreign and idolatrous nations that would deny their true God and
their true origin. So, because of
God’s grace to his people, He inspired Moses to write Genesis 1. God created the heavens and the earth in
the beginning, but much time had passed and those who did not know God, nor
called upon the name of the Lord had created other myths and tales to
account for the origin of all things.
In other words, because of sin among the nations the original truth
of creation had been perverted.
Does
anyone know what is a cosmology? Cosmology is the study of our universe,
and the way we understand our world.
It is related to phenomenology,
which simply means what we see around us: the phenomenon. The realm in which we exist, live, move
and have our being. We must
understand that even before Copernicus, Galileo Galilei,
Charles Darwin, and Carl Sagan, people had
“cosmologies”, or theories of the world around them.
Cosmologies
and theories of creation or creation narratives, “ancient or modern,
is a coherent articulation of the forces (divine or natural) that will
account for the observable universe.
In any culture this usually entails a positing of the unseen (forces
or personified forces usually understood as deities) acting upon the seen
(natural world) and an elaboration of the role they will play from the
beginning of time until the end. The
goal of any creation story is to explain the events by which the so-called
gods (or God, in the case of the Scripture) brought order out of chaos and
to elaborate the ongoing struggle against the forces of chaos and evil that
continually attempt to subvert order and uncreate
the universe.” [Creation and Blessing, Ross}
I
want to say a few things about the world-view of the Israelites in contrast
to our own scientific or modern
cosmology or worldview. An example
between our cosmology, worldview or phenomenological understanding compared
to the Israelites can be understood by considering a thunder and lightning
storm.
In
stormy weather, when we hear thunder and see lightning, we have
meteorologists and scientists to tell us not only what these things are,
but when they are going to come and when they will pass. We understand in our cosmology more than
what is in the appearance of the storm itself. We know this is a common phenomenon
experienced by all, and it will pass.
However, for the Israelite, when they heard and saw these signs,
these phenomenological manifestations had different connections.
First
of all without meteorologists and scientists, they neither knew when these storms were coming (or
going) and what in the devil they were!
They lived in a time long, long ago when other nations saw these
storms as manifestations of the wrath of their gods. Their gods needed propitiation and so
they would sacrifice to them.
Idolatry permeated the culture of the Israelites (thus the reason
for the first commandment and the prohibitions about making images of God). They had no idea about these storms and
were a nomadic and traveling people who were out in the elements, so their
very lives were threatened by these so-called “insignificant”
storms that we also experience. Yet
we merely go into the house, shut our windows, dim the lights, and turn on
a television show and drink cocoa or coffee unmoved and unafraid.
You
see the difference what a cosmology will make? Well, keep this in mind with the
Israelites. God is the God of all of
creation, all the waters, all forces of chaos such as the storms they experienced,
he was sovereign over all and loved his people. This was the purpose of Genesis 1! We should try to read Genesis first as an
Israelite might have read it after their release from Egypt when Moses was inspired to write it. We must be conscious of our rational, Enlightenment worldview as
best as we can, and try to experience a thunderstorm as the Ancient
Israelites did. Remember how
frightened the Israelites were at Sinai where the mountain thundered and
glowed with the power and majesty of the presence of YHWH! Exodus 19 records that they were
frightened to death by this phenomenon called a theophany, or an appearance
of God.
Genesis:
True and Inspired Theological History
Genesis
is 1 is true and inspired history. We
must remember that it was written after the time it took place, man was not
there during creation, but God was.
God tells Moses the author how it happened and what theological
perspective he must have when he wrote Genesis. But keep that in mind. Genesis was penned in the Torah, the Five Books that Moses
wrote, and it is after the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt in the Exodus.
Genesis
1 is indeed the beginning of history as far as time, the world, and man are
concerned. Although God is eternal, he
did truly in the beginning create
into nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days…and
all was very good. The thing we want
to remember is to not ask of Genesis (or any other Biblical text) to answer
all of our modern or scientific questions.
The purpose of Moses is greater than that. In fact, Genesis can be simply understood
as an introduction or origin for Israel and for the creation of order out of chaos.
In
other words, the purpose of Moses in Genesis 1 is not a science textbook,
and we should not expect it to answer all of the volatile and faithless
questions of our unbelieving friends.
In fact, as with all other Scripture, reason will never prove anything to anyone; no portion
of Scripture that speaks with authority concerning sinful man is going to
be received accept by divine illumination.
The purpose of Moses in Genesis 1 is to show the Sovereignty and
almighty power of YHWH as the Great Creator and Sustainer of the universe. The One Who is Almighty LORD of His
people. We must come to Genesis (as
with all biblical texts) with submission and ask the LORD to teach us what
he wants us to know about himself and our own origins. Again, Genesis 1 is not a science
textbook, it is a theological history!
Genesis 1 was written first to the people of God in the OT to teach
them the origin of all things, including their own origins as the people of
God. That is, from where they came and ultimately, From whose hand they came.
The
reason for discussing these matters is that all often times we ask the
wrong questions of Biblical texts.
We need to seek answers from Scripture, but we also need to ask the
right questions of Scripture. A good
starting place is to ask the question “What was Moses’ purpose
in writing Genesis when was it first read by the people of God? Although we want to later understand
Genesis from the perspective of the resurrection and ascension of Christ
(Luke 24:44ff), we should begin our interpretation in the context in which
it was written.
Although
the Israelites had been delivered, the LORD was gracious through Moses to
reveal to them the beginning of all things.
In contrast to all the so-called gods of the nations by which they
would be surrounded in Canaan, God was gracious to accommodate himself in
their language and time period in history to tell them as about his
Sovereignty and Power. God wanted
the Israelites to understand who they were as His people, as well as their
origin- - their beginning, before
the Exodus from Egypt, before the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, before sin had reached catastrophic proportions and God saved Noah
and his family, and before Adam and Eve fell in the Garden.
God
also wanted to reveal to them and to teach them that man was made in the
image of God, and is the apex of God’s gracious creative
activity. Genesis 1 was written in a
historical situation like all the books of Scripture and would have been
read in a particular historical situation.
Don’t forget that! We
shouldn’t merely read Genesis 1, then proceed to go to John chapter 1
and Colossians chapter 2, or Hebrews chapter 11, without considering the
“whole counsel” of God in redemptive-history—first! This is a good interpretive principle. Remember Genesis 1 is located in a very
important place as the prologue
to the covenant God makes with man.
It is the beginning or the prologue of the Kingdom [Kingdom
Prologue, Meredith Kline] to all that happens in chapters 1-11 which forms
one section to the Book, and chapters 12-50 which forms the second part of
the Book, and it should be read within this particular context.
So, we who are far removed from this
particular place in history, want to try (as best as we can) to see and
read Genesis as an Israelite would have long, long ago. That is, they did not have the scientific
and modern worldview that we have, so if we go back and read Genesis 1 with
this worldview and the questions our modern cosmologies raise, we will fail
to miss God’s gracious accommodation to them in language that they
could understand, but we will fail to understand the creation account as a
whole. Look at history, the people
of God have fallen into foolish traps by asking questions of Genesis 1 it
does not set out to answer.
In
other words, we should “speak where Scripture speaks and be silent
where Scripture is silent.” I
do not know the number of books that are written on Genesis 1 that are only
speculative, and ask questions that the chapter was not written to answer. You know, “the earth was without
form and void” how did the earth get that way? Or how about this one: “It says
that there was morning and evening on the first three days, but the sun was
not created until the fourth day…how can this be?” God doesn’t say; be should
satisfied with that. You may be able
to sell a lot of books to prove your speculation or theory, but you may not
rightly interpret this chapter nor find out the great encouragement that
our God has revealed in this
magnificent chapter of holy writ. Christians,
but particularly unbelievers, are always ironically allowing what God has
seen fit not to reveal to keep
them from the clear and gracious teaching of what he has revealed. So
with that said, we proceed with humility and caution, as we seek to
understand our origin, the origin of man who is made in the divine image!
Turn
in your Bibles to the first book of beginnings
(lit.) or the Book of Genesis.
NKJ Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was on the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the
waters.
3 Then God said, "Let
there be light"; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the
light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the
first day.
6 Then God said, "Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters."
7 Thus God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament; and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament
Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 Then God said, "Let the
waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the
dry land appear"; and it was
so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering
together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let
the earth bring forth grass, the herb that
yields seed, and the fruit
tree that yields fruit according
to its kind, whose seed is in
itself, on the earth"; and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth
grass, the herb that yields seed
according to its kind, and the tree that
yields fruit, whose seed is in
itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
13 So the evening and the
morning were the third day.
14 Then God said, "Let
there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the
night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
15 "and let them be for
lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth";
and it was so.
16 Then God made two great
lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night. He made the stars also.
17 God set them in the
firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18 and to rule over the day
and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw
that it was good.
19 So the evening and the
morning were the fourth day.
20 Then God said, "Let
the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly
above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens."
21 So God created great sea
creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters
abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its
kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them,
saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas,
and let birds multiply on the earth."
23 So the evening and the
morning were the fifth day.
24 Then God said, "Let
the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and
creeping thing and beast of the earth, each
according to its kind"; and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of
the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and
everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that
it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let Us
make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle,
over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the
earth."
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He
created him; male and female He created them.
28 Then God blessed them, and
God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue
it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and
over every living thing that moves on the earth."
29 And God said, "See, I
have given you every herb that yields
seed which is on the face of all
the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for
food.
30 "Also, to every beast
of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on
the earth, in which there is life,
I have given every green herb for
food"; and it was so.
31 Then God saw everything
that He had made, and indeed it was very
good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
NKJ Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of
them, were finished.
2 And on the seventh
day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day
from all His work which He had done.
From formless
and empty to formed and abundantly filled!
Let us
first consider the form in which
Moses communicated this to the Israelites then, and to us now. Then , we will consider an overview of the content, how it was
read by the people of God in the OT and the significance for the creation
account in redemptive history.
I want to
break down the verses into “bite-size” chunks and then consider
the theological instruction of the passages, but first let’s take a
look at the form of the creation
account. Notice first the way the
days of creation are arranged. God
makes the environment, or the realms for his creation, and then he creates
or fills the environment or realms with those who would exist in these
environments. Remember, according to
verse 2 the earth is without form and
void. The earth was literally formlessness and emptiness, or tohu and bohu. So what Genesis 1 teaches us is that
God on days one through three gave the formlessness, form and on days four through six, God filled the emptiness.
A) Environment for God’s Creation B) Created things
in these Environments
Day One- Day and Night Day Four- Sun, Moon, Stars,
etc.
Day Two- Firmament-Heavens-Seas Day Five- Creatures of the Air and
Sea
Day Three- Land Day
Six- Creatures of Land/ Apex: Man
Day
Seven- God Rested
Moses
teaches the Israelites not merely a science lesson, but a
redemptive-salvation lesson. He
shows his people in Genesis 1 how everything from the smallest to the
greatest was created by the God who had redeemed them out of the
Exodus. You could summarize Genesis
1 this way: “Out of the darkened chaos God sovereignly
and majestically created the entire universe in six days, bringing perfect
order and abundant fullness for people to enjoy and to rule, and then
blessed and sanctified the seventh day, which marked the completion of
creation.” [Creation and Blessing, Ross].
Now
let us look at the content of verses 1-5.
Verse one says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.” The reason I broke
down the first part into verses 1-5 was for the sake of appreciating the
foundational message for Genesis and even the rest of the Bible. Let’s consider the verbs and the
action that Moses teaches the Israelites then, and us now. But first, let me give you an overview of
what I am going to cover. We could
be here for days on this chapter, so I have chosen some particularly
important themes and theology to help us in studying all of redemptive
history.
We
will proceed thus:
1)
We will look at the verbs in verses 1-5 and ask what they communicate to
Israel when they were first penned and call this section GOD
THE KING OF CREATION.
2)
We will consider verses 6-10 under the heading of SKY, SEAS, AND LAND: the
Preparation for God’s Creatures, and how this would have
communicated and taught the Israelites when they first read this book. We will also consider the cosmology of
what the sky, seas, and land meant for these ancient, Near Eastern people.
3)
Then we will look at verses 11-13 under the heading of SEED: the
Continuance of God’s Creation.
4)
We then will look at verses 14-19 under the heading GUIDANCE, NOT IDOLATRY: the
Time for God’s Creation.
5) Next, in verses 20-23 we will look at SEA
CREATURES/MONSTERS: Creation over the Forces of Chaos.
6) Then we will consider verses 24-31, and
discuss THE KINGDOM:: Beasts and Man.
7)
Finally, we will look at 2:1-2 as a summary statement and GOD
RESTS.
I. God the King of all Creation
(Gen. 1:1-5)
Let’s
begin by considering the verbs in verses 1-5. There are six verbs with which I want you
to be familiar. 1) Verse 1: created bara; 2)
Verse 2: hovered rahap (cf. Deut. 32:11); 3) Verse 3: said
amar;
4) Verse 4: saw raah;
5) Verse 4b: divided badal; 6)
Verse 5: called qara. Notice the form of these verbs. Who is the subject of all these verbs and
what does this teach Israel then, and us now? Say it like this in summary: “God
created, hovered, said, saw, divided, and called.” Consider this summary statement about
Genesis 1:1-5: God is Sovereign, Majestic, and Powerful over everything
that exists.
In a land
surrounded by polytheists and pagans who had their gods associated with
everything in the sky, seas, and land, Gen. 1 taught the Israelites that
they were to be monotheists.
Worshipping the One and Living God, or Monotheism was not because
God was afraid his people might not like him as much as the other pagan
gods (that would be true enough at times due to their unbelieving hearts),
but God was the Only God and Creator, the Only Single Power over all
things, including Israel’s destiny and hope. A God who could do this could not only
comfort you in those frightful Ancient Near Eastern storms we spoke earlier
about, but this God was the source of all
life, and since their Exodus from Egypt, the source of their
redemption. Israel needed a true creation theology that would
enlighten their present living and give them hope for the future as they
believed the promises he revealed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus
2:24-25). God was gracious enough to
teach them so that they might better know him through Moses their
Mediator. They needed to know from
where or better from Whom they
came?
Notice what
these verbs would have taught Israel in the midst of paganism then, and in
the midst of our paganism now.
Remember, pagan gods could be attractive; it was the
“thing” to do in the ancient Near Eastern culture as well as in
our culture today. There is
persecution and criticism for then, as well as for today for those who
believe in the One and Only Living God.
For the people of God, those who receive God’s promises there
is always the temptation to have more than one God. This is reason Moses would instruct the
Israelites that God is One, and they are to love him with all of their
being (Deut. 6:4-6; cf. Matt. 6:24).
Even when Jesus comes, the One greater than Moses to reveal God to
His people, he says that “No one can serve two masters, of
gods.”
Considering
the difficulty of living among pagan peoples, while living for only One
God, think about the persecution and temptation that is ever before
them. During Israel’s time, if
you lived among a pagan people and you were required to
“propitiate” the wrath of the so-called gods, but failed to do
it, you could be mobbed and killed by the people. The pagans saw this as the irreverent act
of an individual that caused ill fortune to be brought upon the people as a
whole community. Remember that
living in Canaan, was not going to be easy as a monotheist.
First of
all, the pagans would have thought their gods were more in number than
Israel, and thus more powerful.
Additionally, they thought their gods showed many ways to find
divine favor and not just one way.
“Surely there is not just one God and not just one path to
this God,” they might have said.
You could hear the pagans speak to Israel and say: “What makes
you think you know the true God? Can
you prove he exists? How can you
believe in a Living God whom you have never seen? How do you know he exists? Join the others in following our gods,
get with our pagan program of peace if you want to prosper among our
people!” Sounds familiar, huh?
In contrast
to this pagan mindset that exchanges the truth of God for a lie (cf. Romans
1::23), look at what verses 1-5 teaches us.
1) God created, that is HE is the
Source of all things, including the pagans among whom they lived in Canaan.
The Hebrew word bara
or create is used only of God.
Hebrews and people made in God’s image were creative in the
sense that they “made” or asah things, but no one but
YHWH creates (cf. Gen. 1:27; 2:3; 5:1; Dt. 4:32:
Ps. 51:12; 104:30; Is. 40:26).
2) God’s
Spirit hovered, that is God
is the life and substance, the sustainer- - the One who gives form and
order to all things (cf. Deut. 32:11), including calling a people who were
not God’s people, to be God’s people. God’s Spirit would later hover over
the Israelites as fire by night and a cloud by day. God’s Spirit would hover over them
in lovingkindness and covenantal faithfulness as
he protects them and hides them beneath his gracious and Sovereign
wings. As God would later reveal
through the Psalmist: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…He will cover you with his
feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge” (Psalm 91:1, 4).
3) God said: God is the only True God
and the Only God with the right to say
or to declare…. and it is
so. God speaks the words which
brings all things into existence in the space of six days! The Living God reveals himself to his
people as the “speaking God” who will reveal himself to his
people so that they might know him.
He makes man with the ability to speak and to communicate as well as
his vice-gerents, or princes over his creation.
4) God saw: God not only speaks by divine fiat and it is so (or it
comes to pass without any resistance), but he declares it good when he sees
it- -He is the Judge and Absolute Authority to declare a benediction over
anything done.
5) God divided: Ultimate power to
create and make things they way he wants them to be…and they are.
He divides or separates by his mighty power to bring form to
formlessness and order to chaos.
6) God called: God not only has the
authority to create, sustain, declare, judge, and divide, but ultimately
the only one who names. He has the authority to name all
things. God called the
light…God called the darkness, etc.
Naming things was very important in the ancient Near East. For example, In the Babylonian creation
myth, the way the writer describes the reality before the creation of the
gods, he describes it: “Before anything had been
named…” The Israelites
would have understood the power of “naming” to be the power to
control and to understand. Only
YHWH-Elohim had the power and authority to name
all that exists, only he can control all things. In these verses, notice how throughout
Genesis 1, God is the Source of all things then continues from the very
beginning to sustain and uphold what he has created, while expanding up to the apex of his creation, which is man- -
made in his likeness or image.
[Note: the
use of Babylonian, or other pagan creation myths is to remind us that once
Babel occurred in Genesis 11, and God confused the tongues of the people
and they filled the earth, they perverted, or forgot, and exchanged the
truth of God for a lie because they were not the immediate receivers of
God’s special revelation in his Word.
This is why Israel was such a special people- cf. Rom. 1:18-25;
9:4,5]
Part Two
Remember,
from our last study, we discussed the fact that Genesis was written by Moses sometime after the Exodus from
Egypt and prior to the Israelites entering into Canaan the Promised Land
(or before the death of Moses recorded in Deut. 34). We discussed the fact that Moses did not
write Genesis merely as a modern,
scientific textbook, but as a literary, theological-history - -an inspired
and infallible, literary, theological-history! Israel needed to know from where they
came or better from Whom they
came because the people whom God had elected were to worship only one God
(to be monotheists), but they would be surrounded by cultures and peoples
who would test and tempt them toward polytheism in the land of Canaan and
among the peoples of the earth!
As an
“early, pre-Day of Judgment” (some call this an
“eschatological intrusion”), Israel was to be light to all of
the nations, and when they went into Canaan, the land God had promised to
Abraham, they were assigned by God to execute and kill all the people in
the Name of the LORD. This is not an
example set for the people of God today.
Today, since the fullness of times, our battle in Christ is
spiritual and not of the flesh (2 Cor.
10:3-5). However, Israel was going
to be used by God to bring early judgment on pagans living in the Promised
Land. Since they did not completely
accomplish this task because of disobedience (Judges 1-2), they would
always be susceptible to pagan religion and temptation. However, even before they entered the
Promised Land, they were tempted to go back to Egypt and they complained
against Moses their Mediator, and the LORD their God (1 Cor.
10:1-13).
If you had
been an Israelite in the midst of all these pagan nations and powers, you
would appreciate very much this summary of Genesis 1: “God is both
Author and thus the Authority over all things!” That means that not only had he shown his
might and power against Egypt, but he could and would by his grace keep his
promises to Abraham! He would create
his Kingdom and sustain it in the midst of wicked and perverse generations,
even in spite of his people!
The
creation account for Israel taught them that there was only One Supreme God
and Creator of all and that this God had made a covenant with them of all
the peoples of the world (Deut. 7:7ff).
Thus the Shema
of Deuteronomy 6:4-6: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is
one…” Not only that, but if God could command the creation from
chaos to order, then he could also redeem them from the chaotic ways of
sinful man and bring them into and sustain them as an orderly nation.
The truth
of creation teaches us concerning the Law as well. When the Law was given at Sinai, the Ten
Commandments (lit. Ten Words)
would have been understood in light of the creation account because Genesis
1 was probably written by Moses after
Law had been given at Sinai! God had
condescended to covenant with, and redeem Israel from all the peoples of
the earth and therefore this is how they were to live in light of this
grace he showed to them. It made
“Thou shall have not gods before me,” and “Do not make an
image or idol of the LORD your God,” and particularly “Keep the
Sabbath, because it is holy to the LORD,” more understandable and
meaningful to the Israelites. God
begins the Ten Commandments with the prologue: “I am the God Who has
brought you out of Egypt…”
Genesis 1 serves as a greater, more lengthy prologue to the Kingdom
of God and to the previous covenantal promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob [Kingdom Prologue, Kline]
This was
the Sovereign Creator God who had redeemed them and now wants to give them
order in his Kingdom amidst all the chaos in the world. Listen for instance to the words of
Moses, on the Plains of Moab, as he is reminding the Israelites of the
mindset they must have as God’s people, as they pass over into Canaan
(or the Promised Land). This is the
second generation, because the first generation (even though they saw all
the LORD their God had done for them, forgot and broke covenant with him,
and many were destroyed). Keep in
mind that this is one of the most important chapters in Biblical history
for understanding the historical books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and
Kings. Look at Deuteronomy chapter
4:1-40 (these are some of the last words of Moses—extremely
important!):
NKJ
Deuteronomy 4:1 "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the
judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and
possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.
2 "You shall not add to the word
which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments
of the LORD your God which I command you.
3 "Your eyes have seen what the LORD
did at Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has
destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor.
4 "But you who held fast to the LORD
your God are alive today, every one of you.
5 "Surely I have taught you statutes
and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act
according to them in the land which you go to possess.
6 "Therefore be careful to observe
them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the
peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great
nation is a wise and understanding people.'
7 "For what great nation is there that
has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we
may call upon Him?
8 "And what great nation is there
that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which
I set before you this day?
9 " Only take heed to yourself, and
diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen,
and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach
them to your children and your grandchildren,
10 "especially concerning the day you
stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the
LORD said to me, 'Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My
words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth,
and that they may teach their children.'
11 "Then you came near and stood at
the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of
heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
12 "And the LORD spoke to you out of
the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form;
you only heard a voice.
13 "So He declared to you His
covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He
wrote them on two tablets of stone.
14 "And the LORD commanded me at that
time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in
the land which you cross over to possess.
15 " Take careful heed to yourselves,
for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb
out of the midst of the fire,
16 "lest you act corruptly and make
for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of
male or female,
17 "the likeness of any animal that
is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air,
18 "the likeness of anything that
creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water
beneath the earth.
19 "And take heed, lest you lift your
eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the
host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the
LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a
heritage.
20 "But the LORD has taken you and
brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an
inheritance, as you are this day.
21 "Furthermore
the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I would not cross
over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the LORD
your God is giving you as an inheritance.
22 "But I must die in this land, I
must not cross over the Jordan; but you shall cross over and possess that
good land.
23 "Take heed to yourselves, lest you
forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make
for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your
God has forbidden you.
24 "For the LORD your God is a
consuming fire, a jealous God.
25 " When you beget children and
grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a
carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD
your God to provoke Him to anger,
26 "I call heaven and earth to
witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the
land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your
days in it, but will be utterly destroyed.
27 "And the LORD will scatter you
among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations
where the LORD will drive you.
28 "And there you will serve gods,
the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat
nor smell.
29 "But from there you will seek the
LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart
and with all your soul.
30 "When you are in distress, and all
these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD
your God and obey His voice
31 '(for the LORD your God is a merciful
God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of
your fathers which He swore to them.
32 " For ask now concerning the days
that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on
the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great
thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard.
33 "Did any people ever hear the
voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and
live?
34 "Or did God ever try to go and
take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by
signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by
great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt
before your eyes?
35 "To you it was shown, that you
might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.
36 "Out of heaven He let you hear His
voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire,
and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.
37 "And because He loved your
fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought
you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power,
38 "driving out from before you
nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their
land as an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 "Therefore know this day, and
consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and
on the earth beneath; there is no other.
40 "You shall therefore keep His
statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go
well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong
your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all
time."
As we continue
with our study of Genesis 1, keep in mind how important creation was to the
Israelite’s understanding of their world, particularly the way God
revealed to them the way they should walk before the world as a witness! We should also remember how important the
creation account is for the people of God today, but we shall turn to
discuss this further in future studies.
Creation revealed to the People of God that God created out of
nothing and gave form to all things (order to the chaos), and was sustaining
the whole creation. He had also
called a people out of slavery and bondage and was giving them order from
sinful chaos through the Law and he could sustain them as his Kingdom
people! This should have taught the
People of God how blessed and how gracious God was and in light of this,
they should have desired to devote their entire being to the Living
God!
However,
history records things differently for us and it pains us who have
“Redemptive-Historical-Twenty/Twenty vision”, to look back upon
the Israelites and see their failure to remember not only the Law, but the
God who redeemed them and created all things. They show how they forgot what Moses had
taught them as Mediator in Deuteronomy 4, when they went off to worship foreign
Gods even while God was near to them: Exodus 32- Golden Calf; Numbers 25:1-3- Baal of Peor; Joshua 24:14-15- Joshua’s Last words are warnings
against idolatry in the promised land; Judges 2:10-15- Israel is serving Baal and Asherah; 2 Kings 17:7-23- Idolatry in God’s Kingdom leads to Exile (cf. 2 Kings
23:26).
Genesis 1
taught that there is only one God and therefore Israel then and we now must
remember: Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God is one; Love the LORD your God
with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength!
Just because many in Israel became idolaters, both in a subtle
manner, as well as obvious, God was still preserving his people in spite of
them. We today struggle with idolatry
in subtle and obvious ways. We do
not carve dumb wooden idols and set them up on our homes, but anything that
we place in importance before the LORD our God and his glory alone, we are
idolaters, no matter how subtle.
When we regard our family as more important than the congregation of
our church, for instance; or when we are tempted to worship God’s
word, the Bible, rather than the God who speaks and reveals himself in the
Bible (Remember the Ark that the Israelites tried to worship- - the Ark was
symbolic of God’s presence, it pointed to God, it was not to be made
an idol—in the same way, the Bible is God’s Word, but it is not
God). Another temptation toward
idolatry which is extremely subtle is any love of self, for other people or
possessions, where we give more of our time, talents, and thoughts than to
God. It is important to remember,
idolatry permeated the ancient culture and it permeates ours today! As long as men have fallen and sinful
hearts, there is going to be idolatry in subtle and obvious ways. That is why we are to guard our hearts,
give our hearts to the LORD for cleansing and transformation, watch the
love and affections of our hearts.
II. Sky, Seas, and Land- the
Preparation for God’s Creatures (Gen. 1:6-10)
6 Then God said, "Let there
be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters."
7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided
the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above
the firmament; and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So
the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 Then God said, "Let the waters
under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land
appear"; and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land
Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw
that it was good.
Here we
have God dividing -badal
the waters, making separations between the waters under the firmament - raquia, and
the waters above the firmament. The
firmament he called heaven. Then
notice, God even has the power to gather together to seas, and separate the
sea from the land. As God spoke to
Job in a whirlwind in 38:2-11:
2 "Who is this who darkens
counsel By words without knowledge?
3 Now prepare yourself like a man; I will
question you, and you shall answer Me.
4 " Where were you when I laid the
foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements? Surely
you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors,
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9 When I made the clouds its garment, And
thick darkness its swaddling band;
10 When I fixed My limit for it, And set
bars and doors;
11 When I said [to the seas]:, 'This far
you may come, but no farther, And here your proud waves must stop!'
We should
understand the sea, or the cosmic waters from the perspective of the people
of the ancient Near East, gathering an understanding of the sea from the
theology found in Scripture. God
created the cosmic sea (Ps. 95:5; Jon. 1:9) and gathered the waters
covering the entire face of the earth into seas and established their
boundaries, as we read in Job 38 above (cf. Ps. 104:5-9). In the ancient Near East, the cosmic sea
symbolized the continued threat the forces of chaos posed against God and
creation [Dictionary of Biblical
Imagery, Ryken and Longman].
According
to Scripture, the sea pushes against the boundaries God has established for
it (Job 38:8-11; Jer. 5:22). In the pagan religions that surrounded
Israel, there were creation myths (perversions of the truth) that described
a primeval battle between a creator god and a sea monster of chaos called Leviathan, Rahab, or the dragon or
serpent (Job 41). Unlike the myths
of neighboring nations, God Almighty reveals himself as the Creator of the
so-called chaos monsters and places them in the sea (Gen. 1:20-21, which we
will discuss further; Ps. 104:24-26).
That means that what gave pagans and the ancient Near East their
greatest fear, were really created and controlled by Israel’s
Almighty and Sovereign God! What grace
is revealed here as we see the God who covenants with his people and keeps
his promises, is the Great God of the Sea!
The
Israelites were terribly frightened of the sea. In the ancient Near East, the belief was
that the sea-chaos-monster stirred up the cosmic sea, but we see in other
Scripture that not only is God the Creator of this great sea creature, but
he is wounded and subdued by God- - God controls one of the sources of the
greatest fear to other pagan peoples in Israel’s time (cf. Job.
26:12; Ps. 74:12-14; 89:9-10; Is. 51:9).
The Great Sea Creature will ultimately be vanquished in the end
times (Is. 27:1). As the home of the
chaos monster that can be roused, the sea symbolizes the threat of the
reemergence of chaos (Job 3:8). In
fact, this is why the evil world powers and the antichrist of the last days
which oppose God and his people are apocalyptically symbolized as beasts
arising from the sea (Dan. 7:3; Rev. 13:1).
We will study more concerning this interesting subject when we get
to Gen. 1:20-23.
Remember
Israel’s perspective on what they saw around them in this world, their
phenomenon that they experienced with their five senses (don’t forget
phenomenology that spoke of in
the first class: the phenomenon is how we describe what we perceive with
our senses: the sun rising and setting, etc.). From the warmth of the sun in the
heavens, to the stars on a clear night in the dark heavens, Israel would
know that from least to greatest, YHWH had made all things.
Do you
recall as a child laying on your back and staring up into the sky in the
day or at night? Perhaps you had no
belief in God at the time, or perhaps you had the privilege to be a
covenant child. Regardless, do you
remember thinking how magnificent this “place”, or this
“world” is, the place where you live? Do you remember knowing nothing more
about the skies, the heavens, the seas, and the land around except what you
perceived with your five senses. I
mean, you had no real scientific knowledge yet and what you saw, was what
was really there to your perception.
I recall
one time looking up in the middle of the afternoon on a clear spring day,
and saying “There looks like there is a dome up there.” A dome
like a top on the earth. I knew
enough to know the earth was round or a sphere, but I did not know that
much more about space and the heavens, etc. as a young child. From my perspective, laying on my back as
a child there was a dome up
there. Imagine how Israel would have
perceived the skies, seas and land.
Imagine before we could fly in airplanes, ride on ships and boats,
and travel fast in cars upon the land, imagine the inability of man to
control these environments, especially the sky and the sea. They didn’t have the scientific
knowledge and understanding that we do.
God knew all of this scientific knowledge, but God allowed his
created people to understand science gradually and progressively throughout
history. Israel would not have
understood all that they saw in the skies and in the seas except two
realms, or domains that they did not seem to truly have dominion over
(although Adam and the human race were given these realms as well as the
land in Genesis 1).
You see why
it was important for pagans to propitiate their sky gods and their moon
gods and their sun gods and
their sea gods and their river gods, etc…on and
on. It gives you a pre-modern perspective
to try and understand this culture and the context in which Genesis 1 was
written. It was a much different
culture and time from ours where we
have learned with electronics to
“burn” a digital CD disc, watch stock reports flash
across computer screens moment by moment, get weather reports days in
advance, ride in airplanes and ships and travel on beltways and highways
around the land. No, there was no Route 66 for the ancient Near
Eastern peoples, no meteorologists, no stock reports, no planes trains and
automobiles!
Remember
also concerning the skies, seas, and land, how Israel is told in the Law
not to worship any image, nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath
(as we learned from Deut. 4:1-40).
They were to know these were created gifts given to them to live in
God’s world, but it was not the Creator who should be forever praised
and worshipped as he revealed himself.
In other words, there was to be a Creator-creature distinction, a distinction
between God himself and what God had made.
The skies and the seas and the land, with all its dangers and all
the idols men had made out of these created environments, these were made
by their loving Redeemer and God who brought them out of the Exodus and his
faithfulness and steadfast love endured from generation to generation
(Psalm 100:1-5)!
Despite the
pagans who feared the sky, seas and the land, and thus made idols or gods
who ruled these regions in order to protect them from these dangerous
elements, Israel was to know that their Kind and Heavenly Father had not
only created all things, but created them for their good, not harm! Again, Israel was a nomadic people, who
traveled in the elements like many other peoples of the ancient Near East. They would be “out” as it
were in the elements, constantly surrounded by creation. They were much more “of the
outdoors” than we can imagine.
For
example, think of when you have knowledge of a huge storm that is coming, how
we will go and batten down the hatches, make sure the animals are safe and
have plenty of food and water. If we
live on a farm, we check our cattle and horses in the stables to make sure
they will be safe in order to pass through the storm? Well, Israel would be more like the
cattle and the horses in the stables than us sitting safe inside our modern
homes away from the elements, because they lived among, or “in”
these elements. Like in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s family
went into a storm shelter when the cyclone was coming, Israel had no storm
shelters, they were always threatened by storms that they would take them
like Dorothy to Oz. Maybe even
better, do you know, or have you ever seen homeless people who live in
cardboard boxes- -a very threatening kind of existence! Israel needed to know they were not a
threat, they were not only created by, but controlled by their Sovereign
God and Heavenly Father! God was
their Great Protector Who would commit himself to them and keep them safe
and sound. This is why Israel spoke
of God being a “Rock” or a “Tower” because both of
these images in the ancient Near East were images of God’s protection
from the outside elements and real and frightful storms.
III. Seed- the Continuance of
God’s Creation (1:11-13)
10 And God called the dry land
Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw
that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that
yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the
earth"; and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, the
herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields
fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it
was good.
13 So the evening and the morning were the
third day.
I separated
this from the other action on the third day (we are still on the third
day), in order to speak briefly about the seed. This is
God’s continuance of his own creation, starting with the environment
he created for the highest of his creatures, man. In v. 11, God said: “Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed
-zerah],
and the fruit tree that yields fruit…” Then notice, very important: “According to its kind, whose seed
is in itself, on the earth”.
Although God has created different things, he has also created the
continuance of his creation through seed.
This
teaches us of God being Creator of all things and the Sustainer, but this
teaches us about “ordinary providence”—or how God orders
things by secondary causes. This way
the creation can be fruitful and multiply and be abundant for the good of
his glory and for his creatures.
This seed is very
important as well to Israel. Israel
was the Seed of Abraham at this point in redemptive-history, and through
Abraham’s seed, the whole world would share in the promises to
Abraham. Also, the seed would have
reminded them of God’s covenant faithfulness to sovereignly
rule over as Father and Provider of all their needs. The seed would have reminded the
Israelites of the ultimate cosmic and earthly battle between the Seed of
the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15; cf. Rev. 12). More will be said concerning this when we
look at Genesis 3.
Additionally,
fertility cults surrounded the Israelites in the pagan nations. The pagan nations sought the gods, the
idols of their making, to ask them to produce crops and for the animals to
multiply each year. This seed that God created, notice in v. 12
it is to bring forth grass, it yields seed, and fruit which has seed in it
as well. This is for his
creature’s nourishment and eating.
Here we have God providing the need for his creatures even before he
creates the creatures themselves!
God provides for man, even before he is created! What a gracious and Sovereign God and
Father! The reason the hospitality
is so important in Scripture is because God was the first Great Host of the
creation feast! He will be the Host
of a Great Feast when he restores all things in the New Heavens and the New
Earth at the Feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matt. 8:11-12). In other words, God was the first One to
show hospitality, and we reflect his character when we show hospitality to
others (cf. Rom. 12:13; 1 Tim. 5:10; Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet. 4:9). In fact, in showing hospitality, we may
have entertained angels without being aware of it because they are
ministering servants to us!
In contrast
to the pagans who had fertility cults that sought good crops and provision from
idols, Israel was to seek God for all their food and provisions. Notice briefly in Gen. 1:28: the food is
made for man. During Israel’s
wilderness wanderings, when they needed food and water, God provided in
spite of their grumblings.
Let me talk briefly here about
Israel’s festivals to the LORD recorded for us in Exodus 23. Exodus 23:14-25
14 "Three times in the year
you shall keep a feast to me.
15 You shall keep the feast of
unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread
for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib,
for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed.
16 You shall keep the feast of harvest,
of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You
shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, when you
gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.
17 Three times in the year shall all your
males appear before the Lord GOD.
18 "You shall not offer the blood of
my sacrifice with leavened bread, or let the fat of my feast remain until
the morning.
19 "The first of the first fruits
of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God.
"You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
20 "Behold, I send an angel before
you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have
prepared.
21 Give heed to him and hearken to his
voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression;
for my name is in him.
22 "But if you hearken attentively to
his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies
and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 "When my angel goes before you,
and brings you in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites, and I blot them out,
24 you shall not bow down to their gods,
nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly
overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.
25 You shall serve the LORD your God,
and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away
from the midst of you.
We want to
appreciate how the Creation in Genesis 1 would have instructed the
Israelites further on the three feasts of the year, particularly this
section, Gen. 1:11-13 on seed. Israel was a community where God made
divisions among clean and unclean things, pure or impure, etc. But Israel did not have a separation
between what we might call the sacred
and the secular. Work was intimately related to their God
and his rest on the seventh day.
Work was a gift of God and therefore his people would know that all
of the provision of the land and the cattle came from God. The feasts of Israel were Feasts that
graciously illustrated God’s provision and the people’s
constant dependence, as well as gratefulness for God’s goodness in
allowing the Israelites to be blessed with work and to cause the earth/land
to bring forth fruit from the seed.
Three times
a year Israel held religious festivals that were revealed to Moses at
Sinai: (1) The Feast of Unleavened
Bread; (2) The Feast of Pentecost;
and (3) The Feast of Ingathering.
To put it
simply, the 1st feast of unleavened bread, sometime in our late
March or April, was to remind the Israelites yearly of their redemption
from Egypt, how God with a strong and outstretched arm delivered them from
the power of Pharaoh, so their salvation comes from God alone, it is monergistic in nature, it is God alone who
initiates and provides.
The 2nd
feast of Pentecost, was to remind the Israelites of the God who has
provided the seed and the provision for all their daily needs, for their
very lives. Therefore, they were to
offer the first portions, whether produce, grain, or cattle, in our month
of June, to the LORD God who provided all of their needs! This offering of first portions was a tithing where God provides for them
the first portions of the harvest and they are tithed, or given back to
him, and this encourages God’s people that God will also provide the
final harvest during the 3rd feast, or the Ingathering!
This
enlightens us as to what Paul meant when he calls Christ our first-fruits
of the resurrection, or first born from the dead; Paul is using
festival-language. Christ is the
first portion, the tithe of the harvest of those he represents, so that
their hope is that they shall be raised to be with him. So, Christians live between Pentecost and
the Feast of Ingathering! The point:
the feasts were to remind Israel in the midst of paganism and polytheism,
that although the pagans had temple prostitutes and fertility cults to
promote the increase of cattle, grain and produce, the Israelites knew that
their very existence derived from, and was sustained by, God the Creator
Alone! We also must seek first the
Kingdom and all its righteousness and not worry, or be anxious about our
provisions as the pagans do, our Heavenly Father knows we have need of
them, even before we ask him! (Matt. 6:9-34).
Now back to
Genesis 1. In Genesis1:11-13, we
notice that God sets an example he will later command of Adam and his seed: God Himself is creating and
“being fruitful and multiplying” the rest of creation through seed. Later, we will see that is what he
commands man to do: “Be fruitful and multiply.” (Gen.
1:28). He also gives man and his
creatures the ability to propagate after their own seed, but notice in
verses 11-13, he provides for their sustenance first so that they will survive in this world God has created
in order that they might have life and produce seed. It is God acting
first here, as in everything to give man the ability to do what he
does. Remember that seed is very important in
redemptive-history, as we will be able to see this more clearly in Genesis
3:15.
IV. Guidance- the Time for
God’s Creation (1:14-19)
14 Then God said, "Let there
be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
15 "and let them be for lights in the
firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16 Then God made two great lights: the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He
made the stars also.
17 God set them in the firmament of the
heavens to give light on the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was
good.
19 So the evening and the morning were the
fourth day.
On the
fourth day, the LORD gives lights in the heavens for the day and for the
night. Implicitly God is showing as
he teaches in the Law, that things in his creation are to be divided. If not explicit by now, it has been
extremely implicit. Remember, Israel’s
food laws for instance, “clean” and “unclean”, laws
for the Temple, “holy” or “sacred” and
“unholy”, etc. Well, God
has already made divisions between light and darkness, different kinds of
plants and vegetation and the seeds and the fruit according to its kind, now he makes a division between day and
night. Israel was also divided or
set apart from the other nations.
They were to be a light in the midst of the pagan nations, they were
to be different thus one of the reasons for the ceremonial and food laws
concerning them. Theses ceremonial
and food laws God reveals to them would have been gracious illustrations of
what it means to be a “separate” or “holy”
people. People and things God
separates from other people and things are holy unto the LORD.
Notice how
God created the sun, the lesser light or the moon, one was to rule the day
and the other to rule the night. He
also made the stars. This was to
divide the light from the darkness; God’s people would know when
their work should be performed and when it should not be done. In a sense, God was turning
“down” the lights at night in order for his creation to enjoy
the stars, but he was not going to give enough light for them to work after
the day was completed because at night they needed to sleep. Thank God for our rest!
And so we
see that with the sun, the moon, and the stars, even these God has created
for his people! Contrary to the
pagans that surrounded them who worshiped sun gods and moon gods and gods
of the heavens, these were given for signs and seasons, days and years. These were not to be worshipped like
idols. God’s people were not
to worship these created things, but they were to remind the people of
God’s eternality and their own time-bound existence. Time in signs and seasons, days and
years, taught Israel that they were temporal people, that they grew old and
time passed from one day to the next, from one season to the next, from one
year to the next, but these times were created and controlled by God their
Redeemer (cf. Ecclesiastes 3)!
Although the people of God age and change, God does not. In the present time, God is their origin,
their provider, Sustainer, and ultimately the fulfillment of all their
future hopes as well!
These gifts
of creation were for guidance in temporal life, not idolatry. But the pagans read their horoscopes,
came up with elaborate displays of the heavens in the stars and tried to
map their life out by them. The
pagan peoples sought answers to their deepest questions, to answer the
deepest longings of their hearts; they sought answers from created things
that were unable to give such answers.
Ultimately, in their sin, the exchanged the created things for the
Creator, Who is forever praised, as the Apostle Paul teaches in Romans 1.
The pagans
personalized the “rulers of the heavens”, the sun, moon,
planets, and stars. They called them
by name, the name of their gods.
Whether Akkadian, Babylonian, Northern
Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, or Canaanite, these
sought the heavens for answers. Much
like modern man does today. With all
his reason and rationalism, man often seeks the heavens for answers to the
problems here on earth. Today we
have our own magicians and sorcerers—they don’t wear elaborate
ANCIENT NEAR EAST priestly garbs with serpents on the turban – in
fact they look more like businessmen like Anthony Robbins, or L. Ron Hubbard,
and singers like Dionne Warwick.
However, they still seek the stars, the Tarot, the horoscopes. Our daily papers carry these things. In fact, we are probably the only culture
in the history of man where you can be entertained by Peanuts and Garfield
on one page, and seek idolatrously the stars on the same page! We also have “900” numbers
for readings on our future and “Psychic Hotlines” etc.
Now you may
say to me, “Charles, we are not surrounded by paganism like those way
back in Israel!” Let me ask
you a question. Allow me to suggest
to you that even in your day-to-day
affairs, you yourself use pagan symbols and language. Now this does not mean you are not a
Christian, nor that you intentionally partake in pagan practices, but it is
to point out to you just how much pagan culture surrounds us today. For instance, if I ask you what day we
meet for Bible Study during the week, how would you answer? If I asked you what day ends our work
week, how would you respond? Please,
be honest. Tell me.
Well our
days, the things that mark our day-to-day
affairs even as Christians, are preservations of pagan language and
worldviews. We mark our daily
calendar by a seven-day work week, as we should! However, notice how subtly we have
paganism mixed in with a Christian work week! Remember, paganism and idolatry does not
ask you to choose between two things, it is syncretistic, it is like velcro, it sticks to anything. Consider this, for example: Monday: comes
from Moon’s Day (the day
the lunar god was worshipped by the Ancients); Tuesday: comes from Tiu’s- Day (Tiu
was a Germanic God, remember the Germanic peoples invaded and took over
Rome, so some of the Roman deities names were changed to Germanic names);
Wednesday: comes from Woden’s Day
(another Germanic god); Thursday: Well, this is Thor’s Day (and I am not talking about the Thor of Marvel
Comics, this is the Germanic God Thor, even is wife Frigg
is celebrated); Friday: comes from Frigg’s Day
(the wife of Thor); Saturday: is Saturn’s
Day (in old Roman times); and finally, Sunday: comes from Sun day (the day that the ancient
peoples worshipped the sun for its energy and great power of providing all
that the people need by making Mother
Earth fertile).
These facts
are interesting and perhaps a bit disconcerting, it doesn’t mean that
as a Christian from now on you must say: “Worship is on ญญญญญญญ________;
“Bible Study is on ญญ________ night” etc. What it does mean is that we as
Christians cannot truly separate from the secular paganism of our culture- - no matter how hard we
try! We are to be lights in the
world, not separating from the
world, neither becoming like the
world! It also means, that we as
Christians, like the Israelites before us, can depend not on our own wisdom
and shrewdness to conquer or to even “Christianize” culture,
but that in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, we can be
confident that God is faithful to us and we should worship him and him
alone and love our neighbor (pagan or not) as ourselves!
As Christians
we are to remain in the world as Israel did, but as 1 Cor.
10 teaches us, we should learn from Israel’s example. Israel did not separate into a pious
monastery away from the world, and the remnant did not become like the
world, but some did fall into the trap of being taken by idolatry and
forgetting the only True God! So we
are surrounded by paganism as the ancient cultures, and we must use
discernment and wisdom as we navigate the course and run the race with
perseverance that is marked out for us- - keeping our eyes always on the
Author and the Pioneer or Perfecter of our faith!
V. Sea Creatures- the Chaos
Monsters (1:20-23)
20 Then God said, "Let the
waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly
above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens."
21 So God created great sea creatures and
every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to
their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that
it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be
fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds
multiply on the earth."
23 So the evening and the morning were the
fifth day.
Let me say
a few things here about the chaos
monsters of the ancient Near East.
They are a fascinating subject!
The sea creatures represented chaos symbols in the ancient
Near. This showed that even the
dreaded sea monsters were created by God and he was sovereign over even
these dreaded, uncontrollable beasts.
As in other ancient Near East creation myths, there was no contest
between YHWH and the seas. He
created them, controlled them and filled them. All of creation was under his
control…from Leviathan and Tiamat, to Rahab!
The cosmic
sea symbolizes for the ancient Near Eastern peoples the continued threat
the forces of chaos pose against God and creation. As we saw earlier in Job 38, the sea
“pushes” against the boundaries God established for it (Job
38:8-11; Jer. 5:22). The pagan neighbors of the Israelites
taught that in the creation of their gods (polytheism, a pantheon of gods)
there was a primeval battle between the creator god and a sea monster of
chaos called Leviathan, Rahab, or the
dragon or serpent (Job 41). Unlike
these pagan myths, God shows the Israelites in Genesis 1 that he himself is
the origin of these so-called chaos monsters; he placed all the sea
creatures in the sea (Gen. 1:20-21; Ps. 104:24-26).
In contrast
to paganism, God did not have to go to battle with the sea god or chaos monster
in order to create. Rather, he
created all things out of nothing, by the word of his power! In fact, although the sea creatures (and
other mighty creatures God had made) stirred up the cosmic sea in the
Israelite’s estimation, God wounds and subdues these great creatures
(Job 26:12; Ps. 74:12-14; 89:9-10; Is. 51:9) and they will ultimately be
vanquished in the end times (Is. 27:1).
This was extremely good news for the Israelites. Because God is the Creator, Sustainer and
Protector of his people, there was nothing upon this earth that they were
to fear! Perfect love surely casts
out all fear (1 John 4:18).
For the
ancient Near Eastern peoples, the home of the chaos monster can be roused
and the sea “stirred up”, and the sea symbolizes for them the
threat of the reemergence of chaos (Job 3:8). However, God is in control of even that
which symbolizes the greatest threat and danger to Israel! What are you most fearful of? You have your own fears today? Know this: God is the Almighty and
Powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things! Of whom, or of what shall you be
afraid? Whenever you get the chance,
skem through the Scriptures sometime and notice
how often the sea and Leviathan, Rahab and Tiamat are mentioned as things of which to be
afraid!
In fact, if
you re-read the Book of Revelation, I think you will be amazed at how many
times the sea and the monsters of the sea are mentioned! Remember that the evil world powers and
the anti-christ of the last days which oppose God
and his people are symbolized as beasts arising from the sea in Daniel 7:3 and Revelation 13:1. Also, one of the great hopes of the New
Heavens and New Earth is that there
is no sea- -no more chaos!
Notice the description of the throne room of God in Revelation:
there is something like a sea of
glass, an order or calmness (Rev. 4:6; 15:2). The calmness of the sea symbolizes the
absence of evil and chaos in heaven, for there is not “monster”
of chaos to disturb it. At the
consummation of all things, the cosmic sea is mingled with fire,
symbolizing judgment in Rev. 15:2.
After the consummation there is no longer a sea, as recorded in Rev.
21:1- - that is, there is no more actual or possible threat to the New
Creation and to the Sovereignty of God!
Part Three
VI. The Kingdom- Beasts and Man
(1:24-31)
24 Then God said, "Let the
earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and
creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind";
and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth
according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that
creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in
Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the
earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in His own image; in
the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 Then God blessed them, and God said to
them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have
dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over
every living thing that moves on the earth."
29 And God said, "See, I have given
you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and
every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.
30 "Also, to every beast of the
earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the
earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for
food"; and it was so.
31 Then God saw everything that He had
made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the
sixth day.
Man is
“God-like”- - imago dei- -or made in God’s image. God made man to be the vice-gerent, or
King over his creation. Man was to
rule over the three realms, or kingdoms: the sky, the land, and the sea
which God had created on days 1-3.
All of the creatures of the earth were to be his kingly
subjects. He was to rule over the
earth on behalf of God as one made in the image of the invisible God. Out of gratitude and obedience to
God’s commands, he was to live in submission to God, creating a place
where righteousness dwells throughout the earth. He was to serve God, loving both God his
Father and his family who would come from his own loins. He was also to make God and his
commandments, the truth God had revealed to him, known to his posterity
after him.
In contrast
to the true creation story of Adam made in God’s image, the gods of
the pagans were often half-creatures, half-men (you know the half-serpent,
half-crocodile, etc). This was not
true for God’s people; they were made in God’s image, not the
image of the creatures God had made!
The creatures were placed under man’s dominion and authority
(he even names them). They were not
made God-like, or in his image, but they were ruled by man. Notice how the beasts are made in verses
24-25, again each according to its
kind from the smallest, creeping things, to the great cattle or
behemoth upon the land, God was their Creator.
The way our
pets come to us when we come home after a hard day is a small glimpse of
what it must have been for Adam in the Garden of Eden. Such loyalty and submission to man their master
and king. Yet, after the fall, these
same animals would threaten the life of man their king, and would
eventually be used for the food of man.
These animals were to be the uniquely beautiful subjects of man,
each of the animals displaying certain personality traits which the man
had. In some ways, as man was made
in God’s image, reflecting his personality, there is a small bit of
man’s personality reflected in the animals. There is shrewdness in the serpents;
courage in the lions; wisdom in the owls; diligence in the ants; order in
the locusts; faithfulness and loyalty in dogs (cf. Proverbs 30:24-31).
Then verses
26-28 show God’s making of man in his own image, he makes his prince
over creation, a prince to rule his Kingdom. God made man in his own image or likeness he created him; male and
female, he created them. So God
blessed them and said to them:
“Be fruitful
and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of
the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on
the earth.”
This is the
epitome of grace. God has not only
created man to be in his image, but also given him all things, to rule or
have dominion over the earth. In v.
28 notice three important verbs concerning God’s purpose for man, his
great climatic conclusion to his creation activity. After God blesses them and says
(commands) to them to be fruitful and multiply, he expands this to explain
his purpose:
1) Fill the earth.
2) Subdue it.
3) Have Dominion over all creation.
That is in
Hebrew, man was to: malah, cabash, and radah, fill, subdue and have dominion. Very important to keep these verbs in
mind as you read the remainder of Scripture. Without going into too much detail, read Scripture
with some of these themes and ideas of what we have studied in Genesis 1
and you will be profoundly amazed at how many times they appear. Sometimes it is profitable to ask
yourself, is this a “creation motif” or an “echo of the
creation account”? Many times
when there is water, seed, land, descendants and blessings involved, it
usually has something to do with creation.
Think on that.
In verse
29, God has already provided the foods for his people, but now he makes it
explicit to Adam. God says to him:
“See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the
face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it
shall be as food. Wow, wouldn’t Israel have been
thankful to know that all things had been provided by their heavenly
father? When they were wandering in
the wilderness or going into a strange land, perhaps they would remember
that God supplies according to his unfathomable riches! In verse 31, God says everything
“is very good” or you could say “Mission Accomplished.” All that God has set forth to create
for his glory and man’s good has been accomplished!
VII. The Divine Rest (2:1-3)
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and
the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
2 And on the seventh day God ended His
work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and
sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had
created and made.
God rested from his creation activity. This is where God’s creation ends
and his providential overruling and sustaining of all his creation
begins. God sets a pattern for man
as Creator as he reveals in Exodus 20:8-10 and Deuteronomy 5:11-14. He commands man to set aside one day in his
work week to worship and remember him.
The Divine rest of God teaches us that work is good, but
rest is good as well. God commands
us to set aside a day to worship and to remember him. God wants us to remember that our week
revolves around God’s providence and faithfulness to us. Israel’s week was to be founded
upon God’s creating and upholding of all things. Our week is to be remembered in the same
way. We ought to have an
understanding of the Lord’s Day, or the Lord’s Divine Sabbath
Rest in light of the first day of the week, which was the first day of the
resurrection and thus not the last day of creation as here in Genesis 1,
but the first day of the New Creation.
Redemptive-Historical
Conclusions to Part One
Let us make
a few connections between Genesis 1 and the rest of
redemptive-history. I will make a
few observations, thematic or theological connections, and perhaps you can
go from this study and think on the rest.
Remember, the Scriptures teach us to meditate upon the Scriptures.
That means to think about Scripture; think about connections to
other Scripture; think about the God who has revealed these Scriptures, and
ask the Scripture the right questions.
Here are a few observations:
1) We must have a creation
worldview- -not merely a redemptive worldview. The fall of man
caused blessing and order to turn into sin and chaos, but this was not
God’s original reason for creation.
God was setting up a Kingdom, and his prince Adam failed the
covenant probation in eating from the forbidden tree. Remember to think on this: redemption is
God’s graciousness in the midst of creation and history. His redemption is historical in his
creation. We are not like the
Platonists and the Greek philosophers who avoid all material things, such
as what God has created, including our bodies, thinking these are somehow
inherently evil. For example, in the
ancient church, there were Gnostics, people who were anti-materialistic,
and even came to the point of denying Christ’s humanity (cf. 1 John
4:1-5). Ancient Christians sought
refuge in caves and monasteries with hopes of fleeing the creation into a
world surround simply by God’s redemption. The sphere of creation was full of sin
and temptation, therefore the fled from the world, not fully realizing the
problem was not outside of them in creation, but in their own hearts. Even in our time period, well-meaning
American fundamentalists flee from many things that are good in creation
and in our culture, implicitly denying the goodness of these things (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31). All
of these groups desire to separate from the creation to escape to a place
of redemption- - to get out of the evil world, etc. We must remember that God made all things
well, and he is not just merely saving individuals, but the he is renewing
the entire creation. Listen to Rom.
8:18ff:
18 For I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creation
eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to
futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;
21 because the creation itself also will
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of
the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation
groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
23 Not only that, but we also who have the
firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption
of our body.
24 For we were saved in this hope, but
hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he
sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see,
we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
The Apostle Paul teaches us in Romans 8:18-25 that we awaith the restoration of all of the creation. Our hope is in our full adoption, the
redemption of our bodies. Again, we
must have a creation worldview- - this world “is very good,”
says God. We should think so too,
regardless of sin’s influence, God is still King of his
Creation! We do not want to separate
creation from redemption; call creation “evil” while we openly
receive redemption as “good”.
We are making an unbiblical and Greek separation between the
two!
2) Kingdom- God was
establishing a visible kingdom, allowing his creature, man to be prince, to
fill, subdue and have dominion. Man
was to serve as God’s vice gerent or “second in command”
under God. We should keep this in
mind throughout redemptive-history.
For example, God calls Noah, Abraham, and ultimately Israel in the
OT to be those over his Kingdom.
What do you think the Promised Land of Canaan not only pointed
toward, but back to: Eden, Paradise, a new creation, a new Kingdom.
3) Noah’s Flood- Genesis,
chapter 3 records the fall. Then
Genesis chapters 4-6, describes the devastating consequences of man’s
sin. In fact, Gen. 6:5-8 says:
5 Then the LORD saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made
man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
7 So the LORD said, "I will destroy
man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast,
creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made
them."
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the
LORD.
The flood was a creation reversal- - from order which
sin disordered to chaos, when God unleashed the fury of his wrath by
allowing the waters to devastate without borders or boundaries. Remember, the waters, the sea was the
great fear of all the ancient peoples, including Israel. What a judgment of YHWH, they would have
thought! But God in his grace,
reestablished his Kingdom with Noah.
4) The call of Abraham and the covenantal promise to him
and his seed- After the Kingdom
prologue (as it has been called by Dr. Kline) of Genesis chapters
1-11. The LORD calls Abraham to
leave his pagan country and homeland and to “go” where YHWH
will show him. God chooses Abraham
and makes a covenant with him, and chapters 12-50 are concerned about
tracing Abraham’s heritage and lineage to Joseph, until they are
slaves in Egypt. This is where the
Book of Exodus picks up on the story!
The call of Abraham is a visible manifestation of God’s
Kingdom in Israel. This gave Israel
identity as the people of God and showed that they were a Holy Nation or
Kingdom, a new creation to witness to the nations also made in God’s
image who surrounded them.
5) Exodus- God rules over
Pharaoh, the gods of Egypt with “creation reversals” in the
plagues. Rather than the creation
being “user-friendly” God made it “user-deadly” to
the Egyptians. God brought a chaos
of judgment upon them. He rescues
his people when he made the waters separate with the congealing of the seas, and he destroys the Egyptian power in
the waters as he had done in the flood before. God is powerful as King over all things-
- all of creation.
6) Jesus/Last Adam- He is
head of a new creation of people.
Remember this: Protology (or beginnings), enlighten or inform our eschatology. The end in Revelation is always in the
beginning in Creation as well. God
is renewing all things in redemptive-history to have Jesus reign over an
eternal, visible Kingdom. Jesus came
into this world to overthrow the Kingdom of darkness by the power of the
Spirit of God. Jesus walked on
water, the chaotic sea he stilled; he had the power of creation and the NT
writers tell us that God created through him in John 1, Colossians 2, and
Hebrews 11 (among many other places).
On the Day of Pentecost, God’s Spirit hovers again over God’s people, making a new creation
like he did in the beginning, in Genesis 1:2. The Christian life is the reality of
being a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17ff). God fills us with his life-giving,
creation Spirit (ruach Elohim)
in order to renew us into his image.
7) No matter how modern our world seems, not much as
changed. God is still sovereign
ruler and Lord over all creation, we still are surrounded by idolaters, but
they are more subtle perhaps about it here in America. As Rom. 1 teaches us, fallen man although
he lives, moves, and has his being in God’s worlds, resists the truth
and submits and worships the created things
rather than the God who created all things.
All of Israel was surrounded by blatant idolatry, and
they fell into temptation and oftentimes became idolaters themselves (a
cursory reading of the Book of Judges and 2 Kings will inform you on
this). We are tempted to be
idolaters, but in more subtle ways that we have to be even more
careful. Our temptations for
idolatry are more private, subtle-
-let us be aware of this!
Remember, the Apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Cor.
10:1-11 that Israel’s history and experiences is for our instruction
and teaching. They were surrounded
by Ugaritic, Akkadian,
and Babylonian Creation Myths as
well (these were perversions of the truth of creation revealed by God in
Genesis 1). They were to hold on to
the teaching God had revealed about himself and all that he had made for
his people!
We also are surrounded by creation myths such as
evolution, “big bang” theories, etc. For instance, just watch the X-Files, (and without sounding like
a big geek-man) watch Star Trek,
particularly Star Trek: the Next
Generation and some of the more recent spin-offs. Read Carl Sagan’s
Cosmos; Watch the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind
or the movie adapted from the book: Contact-
- we have our own creation myths!
Think about it: We may not see idols around our land
here in America as the Israelites, but we have our own “religious
myths” and idols. Since the
Enlightenment of the 18th century, our idols look much more like
ourselves- -men, because man and his
reason has become the measure of all truth (homo mensura). Man’s reason is the judge of all
things including supernatural revelation found in God’s word. We don’t bow the knee to Baal or Marduk, but we do often “bow to our
reason”. We are a proud and
independent people who like to make idols out of ourselves at the end of
the 20th century.
Narcissism or “love of one’s self” (better
translated selfishness), these
are the idols of our making rather than worshipping the true God of all
creation, we are still worshipping the created things- - ourselves!
We are far away- - disconnected in time by the ancient
Near Eastern peoples and culture, but there is absolutely nothing new under the sun. Genesis 1 is not a scientific textbook
but a glorious theological-historical, inspired account and testimony to
our Great God and Savior, who is (in spite of sinful men), sustaining all
things by the Word of his power! He
is renewing all those who are “in Christ” to be with him in the
New Creation (no more chaos, no more sin, only order and perfect beauty and
symmetry in the presence of God- - see Rev. 21-22)! The temptations to idolatry, creation
myths, etc. may come in different packages to us today, but they are very real and powerful!
However, our God the Creator of all things (who is
redeeming us and the creation in Christ), is much more powerful as he was
to Israel in the midst of paganism, so he is to us today! He is ruling and redeeming his
people. Regardless of whether sinful
man has corrupted himself and all of God’s world, it is still
God’s world- -his Kingdom, and
the Almighty LORD YHWH is on the throne!
Creation is good- - Let us say tonight: “And we saw it and it
was very good,” because that was our Great God’s estimation of
things, may we think so as well!
CRB
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