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God Establishes His Kingdom: Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:25)
The first act in the drama of Scripture addresses the question of origins. In fact, the first book of the Bible, Genesis, draws its name from the first words of the
book: In the beginning…. Concerning this opening phrase, Bill Arnold writes:
The Bible opens with a book of beginnings, Genesis. The word “genesis” itself is the
Greek title of the book, meaning “origins.” The Jews called it by the first Hebrew
word, beresit, “In the beginning.” As a book of beginnings, Genesis deals with the
beginning of the world, the beginning of history, the beginning of sin, salvation, and
God’s people. (Encountering the Book of Genesis, Bill T. Arnold, pg. 22)
The first complete sentence of the Bible states the following proposition:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. !Genesis 1:1"
Notice that Bible starts with the tacit claim that God exists and the explicit claim that He is the one responsible for the creation of the universe. In fact, the entire first chapter of Genesis focuses on God as the main actor in this scene of creation. Derek Kidner comments on this observation.
It is no accident that God is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible, for this word
dominates the whole chapter and catches the eye at every point of the page: it is used
some thirty-five times in as many verses of the story. The passage, indeed the Book, is
about Him first of all; to read it with any other primary interest (which is all too
possible) is to misread it. (TOTC, Genesis, Derek Kidner, pg. 43)
Scott Hafemann adds these thoughts:
…Notice that this assertion is a concrete description of what God has done (God has
created) rather than an abstract statement concerning one of his attributes (God is the
all-powerful Creator). God has revealed himself primarily through his activities in time
and space, not through a philosophical discussion of his nature. The Bible is the record
and interpretation of God’s self-revelation. The Bible begins, therefore, by asserting
that God is the sole and sovereign Creator of the universe. … (The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, Scott J. Hafemann, pg. 23)
While it is true that God is the main actor in Genesis 1, the reader’s attention is also drawn to the product of God’s activity. Bruce Waltke explains what is
meant by the phrase that refers to that product: the heavens and the earth.
This merism represents the cosmos, meaning the organized universe in which
humankind lives. In all of its uses in the Old Testament (cf. Gen. 2:1, 4; Deut. 3:24;
Isa. 65:17; Jer. 23:24), this phrase functions as a compound referring to the organized
universe. (Genesis, A Commentary, Bruce K. Waltke with Cathi J. Fredricks, pg. 59)
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(Note: In rhetoric, a merism is a figure of speech by which a single thing is referred to by a conventional phrase that enumerates several of its parts, or which lists several synonyms for the same thing. (Wikipedia, merism))
As we launch into this account of the creation of the universe it is helpful to remember who the intended audience of this passage was and the situation they were encountering. Gordon Wenham helps set the stage for our study.
Finally, in reflecting on the contents of Genesis, it must never be forgotten that it is the
first of a five- (or six-) volume work, the Pentateuch (Hexateuch). It gives the
background to the history of the exodus from Egypt and the lawgiving at Sinai which
are dealt with in great detail in Exodus-Deuteronomy. Whereas according to Genesis’
own chronology the first book of the Pentateuch spans some two thousand years, the
next four cover a mere one hundred and twenty. This helps to put Genesis into
perspective. It does not stand on its own, but rather contains essential background for
understanding those events which constituted the nation of Israel as the Lord’s
covenant people. It would therefore not be surprising to find adumbrations of the later
national history in the story of the patriarchs. In turn, too, the primeval history (chaps.
1-11) must be seen in this perspective. It is also essentially preparatory in function and
puts the patriarchs into their cosmic context. The God who called Abraham was no
local divinity but the creator of the whole universe. The succession of catastrophes that
befell humanity prior to Abraham’s call show just why the election of Abraham, and in
him, Israel, was necessary. (WBC, Genesis 1-15, Gordon J. Wenham, pg. xxii)
Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen add these comments that make the claim that the creation story was written to reorient the Israelites so that the basis of their faith was aligned with the truth about God, people and the world rather than with the myths that were circulating in the ancient Near East
The first scene of any story is worth paying attention to, and the first scene of the
biblical story is no exception. The first chapters of Genesis, telling the story of
creation, were written for the Israelites long ago in a culture quite different from ours.
Though some aspects of the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 may seem strange to us,
we need to remember that they made perfect sense to the people of Israel when they
first heard them. This is so because the writer is using imagery and concepts familiar to
his own audience. Once we read the first chapters of Genesis against the backdrop of
the ancient world in which they were written, we begin to see the power of the message
this story is meant to convey.
Several scholars have pointed out a strong polemical or argumentative aspect to
Genesis 1 and 2. The ancient Near East had many competing accounts of how the
world came into existence. These stories were common in Egypt when Israel was
captive there and in Canaan when Israel began to take it over as its land. It would have
been only too easy for the Israelites to adopt the stories of those who lived in the land
before them or alongside them and who (after all) supposedly knew the land much
better than they did themselves. Many of the gods worshipped by the Canaanites were
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closely associated with the fertility of the land. The newcomers struggling to learn how
to farm there would be tempted to call out to these “gods” rather than to the Lord God.
We know quite a bit about the sort of creation stories circulating in the ancient world.
It is fascinating to see how the story told in Genesis 1 and 2 deliberately contradicts
certain important elements of them. For example, look at how Genesis 1:16 describes
the sun and the moon. The text does not refer to the sun by its normal Hebrew name,
but instead merely as “the greater light,” which God made for the day. Similarly, it
calls the moon “the lesser light.” Why? Probably because the sun and moon were so
often worshipped as gods by the people among whom the Israelites were now living. In
the Genesis story readers cannot mistake the sun as a divinity to be worshipped. The
Scripture clearly describes the sun as a created thing, an object placed in the heavens
for the simple, practical purpose of giving light. The attention is thus all on the One
who has created the marvelous light, the One whose power is so great that he can
merely say a word, and an entire universe springs into being. No mere “light” in the
heavens deserves to be bowed down to. God alone is divine; he alone is to be
worshipped. Though the whole of creation is “very good” (Genesis 1:31), it is so
because the One who created it is infinitely superior to anything he has made.
And this transcendent Creator is not like the capricious gods described in the
Babylonian creation story (the Enuma Elish), who make humankind merely to serve as
the gods’ servants, to wait on them and keep them happy. In Genesis, the God who
creates the world sets men and women within it as the crowning touch on what he has
brought into being. The creation itself is described as a marvelous home prepared for
humankind, a place in which they may live and thrive and enjoy the intimate presence
and companionship of the Creator himself.
The creation stories of Genesis thus are argumentative. They claim to tell the truth
about the world, flatly contradicting other such stories commonplace in the ancient
world. Israel was constantly tempted to adopt these other stories as the basis of its
worldview, in place of faith in the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth.
However, the Genesis creation narrative is more than a polemic. It also aims to teach
us positively what faith in God means for how we think about the world he has made
and how we live in it. It does this in a story form. And it is precisely this story form
that we need to be sensitive to if we are not to misinterpret it.
In order to understand the Genesis story of creation, we must understand something
about the kind of writing it is. Scholars themselves have difficulty in describing this.
Von Rad sees it as “priestly doctrine” so rich in meaning that “it cannot be easily over-
interpreted theologically.” Blocher sees the creation account as an example of carefully
crafted wisdom literature. But what scholars do agree on is that the story told in the
first chapters of Genesis has been very carefully put together: the evidence of
craftsmanship in the telling is clear. Hence, we need to focus as much on the way in
which the story is told as upon the details themselves and weigh whether or not these
details are meant to be read as a modern historian or scientist would read them. Indeed,
this is a difficult question: the story told here is of the mysterious inauguration of
history itself. But the broad outlines of the Genesis story are certainly as clear to us as
they were to those who first heard it. God is the divine source of all that is. He stands
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apart from all other things in the special relationship of Creator to creation. The
fashioning of humankind by God was intended to be the high point of all his work of
making and forming. And God had in mind a very special relationship between himself
and this last-formed of all his creatures.
In these chapters we are told the story of creation but not to satisfy our twenty-first-
century curiosity concerning the details of how God made the world. For example, we
wonder whether God created over a long period of time or caused all that he made to
spring into existence instantly. The Genesis story is, however, given so that we might
have a true understanding of the world in which we live, of its divine author, and of our
place in it. As John Stek rightly says of the creation accounts in Genesis:
Moses’ … intent was to proclaim the knowledge of the true God as he manifested
himself in his creative works, to proclaim a right understanding of humankind, the
world, and history that knowledge of the true God entails—and to proclaim the truth
concerning these matters in the face of the false religious notions dominant
throughout the world of his day. (The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, Craig G. Bartholomew & Michael W. Goheen, pp. 30-32)
Finally, John Walton helps us understand why we must not impose questions on this text that it was not designed to answer.
So what are the cultural ideas behind Genesis 1? Our first proposition is that Genesis 1
is ancient cosmology. That is, it does not attempt to describe cosmology in modern
terms or address modern questions. The Israelites received no revelation to update or
modify their “scientific” understanding of the cosmos. They did not know that stars
were suns; they did not know that the earth was spherical and moving through space;
they did not know that the sun was much farther away than the moon, or even further
than the birds flying in the air. They believed that the sky was material (not vaporous),
solid enough to support the residence of deity as well as to hold back waters. In these
ways, and many others, they thought about the cosmos in much the same way that
anyone in the ancient world thought, and not at all like anyone thinks today. And God
did not think it important to revise their thinking.
Some Christians approach the text of Genesis as if it has modern science embedded in it
or it dictates what modern science should look like. This approach to the text of
Genesis 1 is called “concordism,” as it seeks to give a modern scientific explanation for
the details in the text. This represents one attempt to “translate” the culture and text for
the modern reader. The problem is, we cannot translate their cosmology to our
cosmology, nor should we. If we accept Genesis 1 as ancient cosmology, then we need
to interpret it as ancient cosmology rather than translate it into modern cosmology. If
we try to turn it into modern cosmology, we are making the text say something it never
said. It is not just a case of adding meaning (as more information has become
available) it is a case of changing meaning. Since we view the text as authoritative, it is
a dangerous thing to change the meaning of the text into something it never intended to
say.
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Another problem with concordism is that it assumes that the text should be understood
in reference to current scientific consensus, which would mean that it would neither
correspond to last century’s scientific consensus nor to that which may develop in the
next century. If God were intent on making his revelation correspond to science, we
have to ask which science. We are well aware that science is dynamic rather than
static. By its very nature science is in a constant state of flux. If we were to say that
God’s revelation corresponds to “true science” we adopt an idea contrary to the very
nature of science. What is accepted as true today, may not be accepted as true
tomorrow, because what science provides is the best explanation of the data at the time.
This “best explanation” is accepted by consensus, and often with a few detractors.
Science moves forward as ideas are tested and new ones replace old ones. So if God
aligned revelation with one particular science, it would have been unintelligible to
people who lived prior to the time of that science, and it would be obsolete to those
who live after that time. We gain nothing by bringing God’s revelation into accordance
with today’s science. In contrast, it makes perfect sense that God communicated his
revelation to his immediate audience in terms they understood.
Since God did not deem it necessary to communicate a different way of imagining the
world to Israel but was content for them to retain the native ancient cosmic geography,
we can conclude that it was not God’s purpose to reveal the details of cosmic
geography (defined as the way one thinks about the shape of the cosmos). The shape of
the earth, the nature of the sky, the locations of sun, moon and stars are simply not of
significance, and God could communicate what he desired regardless of one’s cosmic
geography. Concordism tries to figure out how there could have been waters about the
sky (Gen 1:7), whereas the view proposed here maintains that this terminology is
simply describing cosmic geography in Israelite terms to make a totally different point.
If cosmic geography is culturally descriptive rather than revealed truth, it takes its place
among many other biblical examples of culturally relative notions. For example, in the
ancient world people believed that the seat of intelligence, emotion and personhood was
in the internal organs, particularly the heart, but also the liver, kidneys and intestines.
Many Bible translations use the English word “mind” when the Hebrew text refers to
the entrails, showing the ways in which language and culture are interrelated. In
modern language we still refer to the heart metaphorically as the seat of emotion. In the
ancient world this was not metaphor, but physiology. Yet we must notice that when
God wanted to talk to the Israelites about their intellect, emotions and will, he did not
revise their ideas of physiology and feel compelled to reveal the function of the brain.
Instead, he adopted the language of the culture to communicate in terms they
understood. The idea that people think with their hearts describes physiology in ancient
terms for the communication of other matters; it is not revelation concerning
physiology. Consequently we need not to try to come up with a physiology for our
times that would explain how people think with their entrails. But a serious concordist
would have to do so to save the reputation of the Bible. Concordists believe the Bible
must agree—be in concord with—all the findings of contemporary science.
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Through the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a
science beyond their own culture. No passage offers a scientific perspective that was
not common to the Old World science of antiquity.
Beyond the issue of cosmic geography, there are a number of other cultural and
potentially scientific issues to consider concerning how people thought in the ancient
world. Several questions might be considered:
• What is the level and nature of God’s involvement in the world?
• What is God’s relationship to the cosmos? Is he manifested within the cosmos?
Is he controlling it from outside?
• Is there such a thing as a “natural” world?
• What is the cosmos? A collection of material objects that operate on the basis of
laws? A machine? A kingdom? A company? A residence?
• Is the account of creation the description of a manufacturing process or the
communication of a concept?
These and many other questions will be addressed throughout this book. The answers
proposed will not be determined by what best supports what we would prefer to think
or by what will eliminate the most problems. Instead we strive to identify, truly and
accurately, the thinking in the ancient world, the thinking in the world of the Bible, and
to take that where it leads us, whether toward solutions or into more problems.
Before we begin moving through the remainder of the propositions that make up this
book, one of the issues raised in the list above should be addressed immediately. That
is, there is no concept of a “natural” world in ancient Near Eastern thinking. The
dichotomy between natural and supernatural is a relatively recent one.
Deity pervaded the ancient world. Nothing happened independently of deity. The gods
did not “intervene” because that would assume that there was a world of events outside
of them that they could step into and out of. The Israelites, along with everyone else in
the ancient world, believed instead that every event was the act of deity—that every
plant that grew, every baby born, every drop of rain and every climatic disaster was an
act of God. No “natural” laws governed the cosmos; deity ran the cosmos or was
inherent in it. There were no “miracles” (in the sense of events deviating from that
which was “natural”), there were only signs of the deity’s activity (sometimes
favorable, sometimes not). The idea that deity got things running then just stood back
or engaged himself elsewhere (deism) would have been laughable in the ancient world
because it was not even conceivable. As suggested by Richard Bube, if God were to
unplug himself in that way from the cosmos, we and everything else in the cosmos
would simply cease to exist. There is nothing “natural” about the world in biblical
theology, nor should there be in ours. This does not suggest that God micromanages
the world, only that he is thoroughly involved in the operations and functions of the
world.
As a result, we should not expect anything in the Bible or in the rest of the ancient Near
East to engage in the discussion of how God’s level of creative activity relates to the
“natural” world (i.e., what we call naturalistic process or the laws of nature). The
categories of “natural” and “supernatural” have no meaning to them, let alone any
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interest (despite the fact that in our modern world such questions take center stage in
the discussion.) The ancients would never dream of addressing how things might have
come into being without God or what “natural” processes he might have used. Notice
even the biblical text merges these perspectives when Genesis 1:24 says, “Let the earth
bring forth living creatures” but then follows up with the conclusion in the very next
verse, “So God made the animals.” All of these issues are modern issues imposed on
the text and not the issues of the culture of the ancient world. We cannot expect the
text to address them, nor can we configure the information of the text to force it to
comply with the questions we long to have answered. We must take the text on its own
terms—it is not written to us. Much to our dismay then, we will find that the text is
impervious to many of the questions that consume us in today’s dialogues. Though we
long for the Bible to weigh in on these issues and give us biblical perspectives or
answers, we dare not impose such an obligation on the text. God has chosen the agenda
of the text, and we must be content with the wisdom of these choices. If we attempt to
commandeer the text to address our issues, we distort it in the process.
As we begin our study of Genesis 1 then, we must be aware of the danger that lurks
when we impose our own cultural ideas on the text without thinking. The Bible’s
message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the
culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was
fully permeated by the ancient culture. This was God’s design and we ignore it at our
peril. Sound interpretation proceeds from the belief that the divine and human authors
were competent communicators and that we can therefore comprehend their
communication. But to do so, we must respect the integrity of the author by refraining
from replacing his message with our own. Though we cannot expect to be able to think
like they thought, or read their minds, or penetrate very deeply into so much that is
opaque to us in their culture, we can begin to see that there are other ways of thinking
besides our own and begin to identify some of the ways in which we have been
presumptuously ethnocentric. Though our understanding of ancient culture will always
be limited, ancient literature is the key to a proper interpretation of the text, and
sufficient amounts of it are available to allow us to make progress in our understanding. (The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, John H. Walton, pp. 16-22)
We now will consider the text of Genesis 1 and 2. The focus will be on a summary of what is said in the text and what theology and anthropology can be inferred from it. First consider the comments of Gordon Wenham.
In reading a book special attention needs to be devoted to the opening, for as Rimmon-
Kenan says: ‘information and attitudes presented at an early stage of the text tend to
encourage the reader to interpret everything in their light’.
Genesis 1 does this very effectively. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth’ introduces one God, not a pantheon, who takes the initiative and orders all that
happens in the whole universe. The implied monotheism of Genesis 1 is one example
of the persistent critique of Near Eastern theology that runs throughout Genesis 1-11
culminating in its trenchant attack on the religious pretensions of Babylon and its
tower.
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This picture of one God in total control is reaffirmed repeatedly in Genesis, most
obviously in the flood story and at turning points in history, when God ‘remembers’
people and intervenes on their behalf (cf. 8:1; 19:29; 30:22). Just before the end of
Genesis, another key point for interpretation, Joseph reminds his brothers of God’s
sovereign control of human affairs: ‘you meant evil against me; but God meant it for
good’ (50:20).
God’s sovereignty is further underlined by the acts of creation that follow. Each time
God speaks, his command is obeyed; there is light, the dry land appears, fish swarm in
the seas and so on. God is a speaking God, and what he says happens. This speaking
anticipates his promises to the patriarchs, the theme of Genesis, and serves to give the
reader confidence that they too will be fulfilled as assuredly as God’s creative words
have been (cf. Jer. 31:35-36; Ps 89:35-37).
The acts of creation on the first five days have a polemical thrust in denying the
divinity of the sun, moon, and sea monsters as much of the ancient Orient believed, but
their chief purpose is preparing a world suitable for human habitation, for the whole
story reaches a climax with the creation of mankind on the sixth day. However already
the creation of the environment hints at concerns that run through Genesis: the plants
and fruit trees bear ‘seed’ (a Genesis keyword), while the birds and fish are ‘blessed’
(another keyword) and commanded to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (1:11, 22).
Against the background of ancient Near Eastern mythology Genesis’ account of the
creation of mankind is strikingly original and distinctive. According to the Atrahasis
epic, the fullest and closest Babylonian parallel to Genesis 1-9, the gods created
mankind as an afterthought to provide them with food. The subsequent population
explosion led the gods to send famine, plague, and finally a flood to destroy the human
race. Only the dissent of one of the gods enabled Atrahasis (=Noah) to escape in an
ark. But Genesis portrays the one God as in favour of the human race.
Though this critique of ancient Near Eastern thinking emerges most clearly in the flood
story, it is already evident in 1:26-31. Here the creation of mankind is seen as the
culmination of the six days’ work, and God pronounces all that he has made very good.
Mankind is created in two sexes, male and female: he is blessed and commanded to be
fruitful and multiply. God gives the plants to man for food; it is not man’s duty to
supply the gods with food. Finally and most significantly, man is made in God’s
image. The nature of this image is elusive, but the function of the image is clear: it
enables mankind to rule over the earth and the other creatures. In ancient oriental myth
kings were made in the gods’ image, but Genesis democratizes the idea; every human
being is a king and responsible for managing the world on God’s behalf. (Benevolence
towards the governed, not exploitation, was the mark of the good ruler according to
oriental and biblical thought: see Psalm 72, which is rich in allusions to Genesis 1-3.)
The positive vision of humanity’s place in the divine economy echoes on through
Genesis. Whereas in 1:28 God commands mankind to be fruitful and multiply, the
genealogies in chapters 5 and 11 repeatedly observe that so-and-so ‘had other sons and
daughters’, and the patriarchs are repeatedly assured that they will have numerous
descendants. Conversely homicide is viewed as the gravest of crimes, itself warranting
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the death penalty at human hands, and Onan’s attempt to frustrate the procreation of
descendants leads to the Lord slaying him (4:1-16; 9:1-7; 38:9-10).
The image of God is not just invoked to underline the sanctity of human life, but it also
signifies man’s royal role as God’s vice-gerent on earth. Here is a foreshadowing of
the promise that among Abraham’s descendants there will be kings (17:6) and more
particularly that ‘the scepter will not depart from Judah’ (49:10). Kings were supposed
to act benevolently towards their subjects and seek their welfare, and Genesis 1:28
gives man dominion over the other creatures. In 2:19 Adam names the animals,
demonstrating his authority over them, but the fall introduces tension between man and
the animals (3:14-15; 9:5). However, Noah the perfect man is charged to bring pairs of
animals into the ark ‘to keep them alive’ (6:19-20). The patriarchs are portrayed as
shepherds whose flocks prosper under their care, most spectacularly in the case of Isaac
and Jacob (26:12-14; 30:25-31:42). And Joseph’s famine-relief measures save the lives
not just of the Egyptians but their flocks and cattle too (47:15-18). Joseph is surely
portrayed as very much the ruler in Genesis, the ideal king.
God’s provision of food for man is a distinctive feature of Genesis, when it is compared
with its oriental predecessors which speak of humans feeding the gods. This provision
is of course most evident in the Joseph story, where ‘God revealed to Pharaoh what he
is about to do’ (41:25) and gave Joseph the ability to advise the Pharaoh how to cope
with the famine. God’s blessing of Isaac ensured bumper crops (26:12), but also right
back in Eden Adam was provided with every kind of tree that was ‘good for food’
(2:9). Admittedly the fall complicated the food situation, and this is reflected in the
various famines which are mentioned in the book (3:17; 12:10; 26:1, etc.), but however
dire these famines were, the patriarchs survived.
The first account of creation concludes with God resting from all his work on the
seventh day and blessing and sanctifying it (2:1-3). This shows that while the creation
of man may be the climax of the creation, its goal is rest. Though the seventh day is not
called the Sabbath, the word used for ‘rest’ sounds almost the same (sabat), so that any
Hebrew reader would say that God was observing the Sabbath. Remarkably too the
seventh day is blessed, a keyword in Genesis, but elsewhere God blesses only animate
creatures, whether animal or human. And apart from the Sabbath only one festival day
is ever declared a holy day (Neh 8:9). This accumulation of unusual terms shows the
prominence given to the Sabbath here. Coming so soon after the comment that man is
made in the image of God, God’s rest on the seventh day is clearly being set out as
model for mankind to follow (cf. Ex. 20:11). This paragraph then has the clearest
ethical implications of the whole section. (Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically, Gordon J. Wenham, pp. 24-27)
David Naugle adds these insights as he discusses Genesis 1 & 2.
However you work out the details scientifically, Genesis 1-2 is clear that God created
the heavens and the earth. The chief characteristic of the cosmos is that it is created.
Specifically, God prepared the earth to be a delightful habitation or home for us where
we could live and flourish. The account opens with the majestic declaration in Genesis
1:1 that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” In verse 2, our
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attention is rifled immediately to our planet. At this early stage, our future home was
formless, empty, and dark. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters in
anticipation of shaping the chaos into a well-ordered cosmos. That is exactly what
happened in the six days of creation detailed in verses 3-31.
On the first three days of creation (vv. 3-13), God formed that which was formless by
creating light, the skies, the seas, the dry land, vegetation, plants and trees, declaring
each successive thing to be good. On God’s second three creative days (vv. 14-25), he
filled that which was empty by making the sun, moon and stars, fish and birds, cattle,
creeping things, and the beasts of the earth. First God made the realms, then he filled
them with their rulers and he affirmed the goodness of each individual thing that he
made along the way.
Then at the summit of God’s creative work, God made us — both male and female —
as the image and likeness of God (a notion that includes the body as well as the soul).
God blessed us as embodied human beings. That blessing consisted of three things: (1)
a loving relationship with God himself, (2) the institutions of marriage and family life,
and (3) the mandate to rule and subdue the earth and its creatures. These divinely
ordained purposes for our lives — spiritual, social, and cultural, respectively — are
delineated in the “creation decree” of Genesis 1:26-28.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let
them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God
created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female
He created them. And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over
the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Following this succinct statement of the human project, God provided abundant food in
the form of a vegetarian diet of green plants and fruit-bearing trees for people and
animals (vv. 29-30). At the conclusion of this sixth day, God observed his handiwork
and declared it all to be “very good” (v. 31). Each part of this world was “good”
independently. As a whole, however, it was truly excellent and utterly beautiful in its
sheer being. Everything God created was and is unspeakably good (see 1 Tim. 4:1-5).
This assertion of the original goodness of all things is important for understanding how
God designed the world with our well-being in mind. To be sure, it exists for God’s
glory first and foremost. According to Isaiah the prophet, the angels cry out before God
saying, “Holy, Holy Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the fullness of the whole earth is His
glory” (Isa. 6:3).
While the world exists for God’s glory, God also created it as the place of blessing for
us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us, “This blessing — be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth and subdue it — affirms man totally in the world of the living in which he
is placed. It is his total empirical existence that is blessed here, his creatureliness, his
worldliness, and his earthiness.”
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The first part of the creation account is wrapped up in Genesis 2:1-3 with a word about
the special character of the seventh day. By then, God had completed his creative work
and rested, not because he was tired, but because he had finished. God sanctified the
seventh day as a day of rest, because on it he ceased from his labors and began to enjoy
what he had made.
The rest of Genesis 2 focuses specifically on the origin of humans, the Garden of Eden,
and the institution of marriage. After a brief word of introduction about the early
condition of the earth (vv. 4-6), we learn how God created the first man from the
ground itself and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This first man became a
living being, a composite of body and soul, both physical and spiritual in nature (v. 7).
God also planted a beautiful garden eastward in Eden where there were beautiful and
fruitful trees and a bountiful river of water. He placed the man there whom he had
created to cultivate it and keep it (vv. 8-15). To sustain him in his life and work as a
gardener, the man was to eat freely from the trees of the garden. There was one
exception, however: he was not to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. This prohibition served as a test of the man’s obedience to God (vv. 16-
17).
Despite the abundance of the man’s surroundings, the only thing that wasn’t good was
the man’s solitude (v. 18). After creating the animals and disclosing their social
insufficiency, God made a woman from the man’s side for the sake of companionship.
Like the father of a bride, God presented the woman to the man that she might be his
wife and that he might be her husband (vv. 19-22). This initial encounter inspired the
man to wax poetic for the very first time:
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man. (Gen. 2:23)
This episode concludes with a declaration of God’s intent for marriage. It was to be a
total life union between man and woman in an exclusive and permanent covenantal
relationship of faithfulness and love (vv. 23-24). The first human couple enjoyed
unhindered communication and acceptance of one another in the absence of any
impediment. They both were naked and not ashamed (v. 25).
Eden overall, as the name in Hebrew literally suggests, was a garden of delight. It is
called paradise for a purpose. A trace of it in the most glorious of spring days reminded
the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins of the original creation:
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.
The universe and our world in particular, then, were no cosmic accidents. The creation
was the result of God’s purposeful design. God intended us to live in the fullness of
community with himself, others, and the world around us. This blessed estate
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established the setting for the truly happy [blessed] life, six components of which are
evident in the creation account:
1. Spiritually, we were made to enjoy intimate union with God the creator in
obedience to his will, rooted in our identity as God’s image and likeness.
2. Vocationally, we were made to undertake fulfilling work based on the
commandment to rule the earth and to cultivate and keep the creation.
3. Socially, we were made for human companionship especially as man and woman
in the context of marriage and family life.
4. Nutritionally, we were made to partake freely of food and drink, as seen in the
generous provision of plants, fruitful trees, and water in the garden of Eden.
5. Sabbatically, we were made to rest and play in the enjoyment of the world, based
upon the blessing and sanctification of the seventh day.
6. Habitationally, we were made to take pleasure in our surroundings, in the nature
of the locations and places where we live, since God set us in the delightfulness of
Eden and in the context of the creation’s astounding wonder and beauty.
These are the six ingredients in God’s recipe for the happy [blessed] life [shalom]. It is,
we might say, “a state made perfect by the aggregation [combination] of all good
things.” God intended us to live fully in the largess of indescribable blessing mediated
through multifaceted aspects of God’s marvelous world in a complete and satisfying
way. It’s not hedonistic but an edenistic happiness that roots the fullness of human life
in God and his creation. (Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness, David K. Naugle, pp. 14-17)
The collection of writers that contributed to the book entitled, The Story of Israel: A Biblical Theology, provide this overview of important themes in the story of Scripture as well three key blessings that they identify from Genesis 1 and 2.
The Pentateuch begins with the creation of the world and concludes with the creation of
a nation. Throughout the stories there is a struggle between divine will and human
responsibility. The struggle for humans to be responsible often leads to sin, exile and
restoration. This paradigm of sin-exile-restoration appears frequently in the Pentateuch
in various forms. The stories from the Primeval History suggest that such a pattern
stands outside of the story of Israel—it is the story of humanity. Yet the remainder of
the Pentateuch indicates that this paradigm, while part of the story of humanity, can be
traced in greater detail with the events surrounding the story of Israel.
The opening chapters of Genesis are fertile ground for theological reflection. They
have much to say about creation and the created order. But three blessings appear in
these chapters that prove critical to reading the remainder of the Pentateuch. In the
movement from sin to exile to restoration, these blessings are challenged, thus
threatening the creative design of God.
The first blessing relates to the orderliness of creation. The highly poetic design of
Genesis 1, with the repetition of numerous words and phrases, suggests that the author
intended to present creation as an act of ultimate order. The repetition of the phrase
“and God saw that it was good” suggests that from the beginning creation fulfilled its
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creative design—the world was as it was intended to be. The remainder of the story of
Israel and the story of the world in general, however, depicts a world gone awry—one
that has long since faltered in maintaining its creative design. As John Walton has
noted, Genesis 1 “is intended to show that the world was not always as it is now.” The
chaos and disorder experienced in the stories that follow in the history of Israel only
highlights the fact that the world is not as it was intended. Yet the function of Genesis
1 is to call people (and creation) back to its creative design—to fulfill those functions
for which they were designed by God.
The second blessing pertains to the blessing of dominion and fertility. While dominion
and fertility may be considered two distinct ideas, they can be subsumed under one
theme. Through their appropriate use, humanity can continue the creative activity of
God in the world. The two gifts of dominion and fertility were not given to be fanciful
privileges of the human race; rather, they were given so that the human race might
continue God’s designs for his creation. The story of Israel, however, is fraught with
stories where those creative designs are thwarted. The blessing to be fruitful and
multiply is often challenged, threatening the future course of humanity. The oscillation
between stories of barrenness and lists of genealogies suggests that the fulfillment of
these blessings will be tenuous at best.
The final blessing is that of the presence of God. Although not specifically stated as a
blessing, Genesis 2 alludes to God’s close presence to the created order. The
anthropomorphic language that pervades the chapter suggests a God who is near. He is
one who “forms man” (Gen 2:7), “plants a garden” (Gen 2:8), and puts man in the
garden (Gen 2:15). There is an apparent spatial relationship that the author intends for
the reader to discover. In the Garden, the humans are near to God—it is paradise. But
as Genesis 3 will demonstrate, outside the Garden indicates a certain separation from
God. Thus, the remainder of the Pentateuch is about how Israel gets back to the
Garden, not geographically but spatially. How do the people of God enjoy the blessing
of being in God’s presence? (The Story of Israel: A Biblical Theology, C. Marvin Pate, J. Scott Duvall, J. Daniel Hays, E. Randolph Richards, W. Dennis Tucker Jr. & Prebin Vang, pp. 29-30)
How does the story of creation relate to a person’s worldview? Consider these thoughts by J. Mark Bertrand.
But have you ever wondered why Scripture tells us about the creation of the world?
After all, what is the practical value of this knowledge? Does it change the way you
live your life? If you take two people, one who believes the world was created by God
and the other who believes it came into being through chance, and study their daily
activities, you will not notice any differences that can be directly traced to the book of
Genesis. You cannot tell by looking who believes in creation and who believes in
evolution, unless they are helpful enough to affix the appropriate fish—the standard
version, the fish with the word Darwin inside, or the big fish eating the fish with
Darwin inside, etc.—on the back of their cars. What you believe about the details of
the creation story seem irrelevant to everyday life, too. People who believe in twenty-
four-hour solar days do not get more (or less) sleep than those who believe that the
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“days” were metaphorical. So why is the creation story, which seems to cause so much
trouble for Christians in this scientific age, even included in the Bible?
We find the answer when the Psalmist sings, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness
thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and
established it upon the rivers.” (Ps. 24:1-2) Creation tells us something important
about ourselves: who we belong to. God is omnipotent, but his right to dictate what we
should and should not do comes, not from his strength, but from the fact that he made
us. It is not that he has taken us by force, but that, through giving birth to us, he owns
us.
Paul’s epistle to the Romans is the key theological text of the New Testament. Here,
we find the most detailed expression of some of Christianity’s most important
doctrines. To grasp the importance of the doctrine of creation, we must turn once more
to the first chapter of Romans, where Paul describes the fundamental fault of the
unbeliever:
So [sinful men] are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor
him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their
foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and
birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of
their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because
they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature
rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Rom. 1:20b-25)
The whole of man’s problem, it seems, can be summed up under the heading of false
worship. Man, who is made in God’s image, sins when he worships what is made by
man. This passage conjures up images of ancient idols—not unlike the fish-god
Dagon—but it is easy to see how the more sophisticated inventions of our own age
qualify. When we worship such things, we exchange something breathtaking and
glorious, God Almighty, for a mundane and disappointing evil. The true object of our
worship and our service is not man but God. Why? Because we are creatures and he is
the Creator.
So the logic is simple. If you know who made you, then you know whom you must
worship and serve. Genesis tells us: Go to the beginning, and you will find God. The
Old Testament adds: Fear God, and you will find the beginning of wisdom. In the New
Testament: Christ, by whom all things were made, is the wisdom of God. In revealing
creation, God points both to his Trinitarian nature and to the proper trajectory of a
creature’s life. The doctrine of creation serves not only as an answer to the
philosophical question, where did I come from? but also (more significantly) as the
basis for obedience in this life. There is nothing abstract, remote, or impractical about
it. It is a fundamental of the faith—perhaps the fundamental, since so many other
doctrines flow from it.
The cold logic of mid-twentieth-century atheism has now given way to an era of
renewed “spirituality,” but it is an awakening more therapeutic than pious, more
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attuned to self-expression than self-denial. It is now fashionable to talk about God,
though it is still deeply unfashionable to believe in him. Yes, Americans are a religious
people, but we embrace religious beliefs in the same way we adopt preferences for
certain brands of product. The commitments are deeply personal without necessarily
being deeply held. Our convictions are about identity, not reality. They suggest who
we want to be rather than what we believe is true.
In some ways, the new, accessible spirituality may be the result of disaffection. In the
same way that Europe’s wars of religion paved the way for the emergence of pietism,
the century and a half of struggle over the doctrine of creation has cleared a path for
subjective, paradoxical expressions of faith. People want to explore spiritual things
without getting bogged down in the culture wars, so they look for modes of spirituality
that do not step on the toes of science. As a result, they are receptive to the idea of
religion as a metaphor, a way of adapting to and understanding life, rather than a
coherent system of truth claims.
What this means is that the doctrine of creation, long under siege by scientists who
believed that the theory of evolution adequately accounts for the universe apart from
God, is also in danger of being classified as irrelevant by believers who adopt an
approach to faith that emphasizes personal experience over the traditional doctrines of
Christianity. In some ways, the second threat is greater than the first. When
unbelievers deny the fact of creation, they are behaving as Christians expect them to
act. But when believers begin to conceive of a Christianity without creation—arguing,
in essence, that we can have our cake and eat it, too—then the risk of others being led
astray multiplies significantly.
But what is exactly at risk? Let me spell it out. If the doctrine of creation is the basis
upon which God can rightly demand our worship and service, then the collapse of the
doctrine takes that claim to obedience with it. It robs God’s actions in the world of any
justification but power. What right does he have to condemn sin? What right to judge?
What right not to be judged by us according to our own standards? The Christian
system of truth requires the doctrine of creation for coherence. Remove that pillar, and
you lose much of the rationale for God’s actions in history. If we are to be Christians
who zealously embrace the whole of our inheritance, then we must guard the doctrine
of creation against enemies both within and without. ((Re)Thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World, J. Mark Bertrand, pp. 52-53, 57-58)
How does this story of creation relate to the with-God life that was claimed to be one of the most significant themes running through the story of Scripture? The authors of the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible provide us with these insights.
In the early chapters of Genesis, how God interacts with humanity—the with-God
life—is expressed in three characteristic ways: it is conversational, direct, and
intermittent.
Conversational. Perhaps the most striking feature of this stage is the conversational
tone of all that occurs: God speaks to human beings and they speak back to God. The
content of this two-way communication is specific, practical, and propositional (Gen
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2:15-16). Human beings correspond to God as to Someone with whom they are
working. They are constantly interacting with God: obeying, disobeying, questioning,
objecting, and rationalizing. The “garden” is not merely a human enterprise they are
running alone; rather, it is a cooperative enterprise human beings engage in with God.
Even at this early stage God gives the members of the human family substantial room
to work out for themselves what they are to do and to be. In fact, God limits them only
in the negative: they are not to eat of a certain tree. Everything else is for their
choosing. Clearly human freedom is of fundamental importance in God’s plan, though
Adam and Eve are not set free from the consequences of their choices. They are
responsible for their choices.
However, it soon becomes clear that responsibility requires character, and that such
character will come only through a process of formation. Formation, or more specific
to our topic, spiritual formation, occurs in the dynamic exercise of human choice in
response to divine purposes. We are formed by our reactions and choices as we will
see throughout the Bible and human history. God alerts human beings to the dangers
and tells them what they must do. “Sin is lurking at the door,” Cain is told, “but you
must master it” (Gen 4:7; cf. 3:3).
Direct. Being conversational, the interaction between God and human beings is direct
and not through intermediaries. In fact, in the early parts of the Genesis narrative there
are suggestions that God is somehow physically present to the very senses of Adam and
Eve: “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the
evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8). Scripture seems to imply they even see
God’s face (1:28-29; 2:15, 22), something that would later be forbidden to humanity on
pain of death (Exod 33:20-23; Deut 5: 24; Judg 13:22).
As the members of the human race choose to act independently and contrary to God’s
purposes, there is a gradual distancing of God from them; but God’s Spirit—that is, his
nonphysical presence—continues to strive with them (Gen 6:3; KJV). Now the people
begin to call upon the name of the Lord in a way that implies One who is absent (4:26).
Yet some, like Enoch and Noah, still “walked with” God, and God with them. Thus,
although the direct interaction of individuals with God is becoming less frequent in
general, it does continue with individuals of singularly developed character, whose
example becomes a beacon for the whole human family.
Intermittent. It is important to note that God is not constantly present with Adam and
Eve or their immediate descendants. He did not “stand over them,” but instead made
room for them to obey and disobey. And God even allowed them to hide from him in
their shame, though he still spoke to them as they hid (Gen 3:8-13). This space allowed
by God’s “absence” is necessary. In order to move beyond unknowing innocence, we
must develop a character and an identity that freely seek harmony with God. Of course,
God’s absence” allows for the opposite to happen. Whenever we turn away from God,
we take on an identity that focuses exclusively on ourselves, and we then try to master
our life and our world on our own. This is exactly what happens in the Garden of Eden,
and the dreadful decline catalogued in Paul’s letter to the Romans begins: “For though
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they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened” (1:21). The natural
outcome is an earth “filled with violence,” where “every inclination of the thoughts of
their hearts [is] only evil continuously” (Gen 6:11, 5).
In response to such an outcome, God judges. In the first general judgment of humanity
after the fall of Adam and Eve, one person, Noah, is found worthy of escape and
continued blessing. But after Noah, humankind continues on its path of independence
from God (Gen 11:4). Hence, in the second general judgment at Babel, no individual is
exempted. God sees that there is no limit to people’s arrogance and depravity (11:6).
To defeat their project of building “a tower with its top in the heavens,” God
permanently disrupts their communication with each other and scatters them over the
face of the entire earth (11:1-9).
So in the beginning God’s presence to humankind was conversational, direct, and
intermittent. And with the freedom granted human beings by God’s “absenting”
himself enough for humanity to make its choices, what did we do? Our responses were
characterized by disobeying in God’ absence (Adam and Eve) and pursuing human
objectives without regard for God’s gentle presence (Cain and Abel). Human beings go
astray “like sheep”—as sheep do, following momentary interests, and the gentleness of
God permits this to happen. Human self-will nurtures massive insensitivity and
resistance to God’s personal overtures and finally a hopeless immersion in evil (Gen
6:1-7, 11-13).
However, individuals of character, such as Enoch and Noah, still respond to God, are
“selected,” and in turn find “favor” with God (Gen 5:21-24; 6:8, 13-22). That is God’s
way, and it is always so. In this way God lays the foundation for the next form of God-
with-us, in Abraham and his family. But early humanity as a whole rejects God and, as
the population increases, asserts its power in unified activity against God at Babel.
The major formational advantage of this individual communion with God is the good
effect of God’s direct presence. Our lives find their direction when God is present with
us, and we are directionless without him. Intimate, individual communication with God
is something that cannot be done away with in spiritual formation. We must constantly
seek out this intimate, individual communion. We need the full assurance of God’s
greatness and goodness that comes only from his direct presence. This, frankly, cannot
be derived from any other source.
The eternal fact of our lives is that we are constantly being upheld by God’s direct
action upon us. This fact is not abolished by human withdrawal from God; rather, God
preserves it and develops other ways to support it, as we shall see in later sections of
the biblical record, starting with the stories of Abraham. But being aware of how God
is upholding us must run through the texture of our entire life like a golden thread. And
we can become aware of his constant work and presence only by experiencing
individual communion with God.
But God-with-us in direct, conversational relationship cannot be our whole life. It
gives us neither character nor identity. It promotes passivity instead of vigorous
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righteousness and self-identity with God, whether he is present or absent. When God is
not actively present with us, there is nothing to pull us or sustain us in a direction
toward God. We are left entirely on our own, facing bare choice. And our feelings,
desires, and wayward thoughts will triumph—or become tools of God’s great enemy,
Satan.
The gentleness of God’s presence can be resisted. We can even fail to recognize God’s
presence. Our heart can become hardened in self-will and thus incapable of
recognizing when God is moving upon it. Or we may simply reject God’s overtures
even when we know it is God, failing to appreciate his gentleness. It is sobering to
realize that we can grieve and resist the Spirit of God.
Within this conversational, direct, and intermittent form of God-with-us, humanity’s
progress and development under God is restricted to whatever occurs within individual
lives. Humanity as a whole has no identifiable God center or God context within it or
around it to draw it toward God. What is lacking in this early stage of human history is,
in a word, mediation.
From this point onward, God will use mediation to be present with us even when he is
“absent.” Examples of this mediation are social structures such as the family, the tribe,
the nation, and religious institutions such as the tabernacle, the Temple, and the Church.
Mediation will now be the ongoing story of God-with-us, developing through various
forms from Abraham, the friend of God, to the end of the Church age, reaching its
fulfillment and perfection in the mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus (1
Tim 2:5), and in his continuing incarnation in his body, the Church.
What can we learn from this stage of God-with-us? First, we learn that God desires and
intends cooperative efforts and direct, conversational relationship with us. Very
simply, we are made for this. To use Augustine’s famous words, “Thou has made us
for thyself, and we are not at rest until we find our rest in thee.”
God does not abandon this direct mode of his presence with us after the human failure
witnessed in the first chapters of the Bible. God will not be defeated (Rom 8:3-4). Out
of respect for the human condition, God establishes indirect means for working with us,
for our own sake. This fact of indirection is plainly spelled out in biblical and human
history. It is something we must understand and respect in our own day and in our own
spiritual life.
A second thing we learn is why there must be a human, or mediated, side to God’s
relationship to us. Earthly institutions are needed to enable God to be present among us
even when, from the merely human point of view, he appears to be absent. God’s
presence on earth in mediated, outward forms is necessary because of the human
condition. The human condition is such that earthly institutions serve as constant
necessary points of reference to God without his being directly present to us.
We also learn from the biblical record that our finitude and limitation cannot be
successfully overcome by the immediate presence of the infinite God. Adam and Eve
fell despite directly being in God’s presence. God has now shown us a different path.
We need gradual and humble steps toward God, as can be seen, for example, in God’s
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choice of an aged Bedouin and his barren wife. Or in a shaggy tabernacle built by
escaped slaves. Or in a ruddy-cheeked boy smelling of sheep. Such are the humble
steps God uses until the One comes who “humbled himself and became obedient to the
point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).
The biblical record of God using these “things on earth” to draw human beings closer to
him can instruct us endlessly. And what about us? In the course of our own spiritual
formation in Christlikeness, what physical things does God use as his instruments to
bring us to the point where we will be able to “reign forever and ever” in a world where
there will be no night and we will once again see his face (Rev 22:3-5)? (The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible, Editor: Richard J. Foster, General Editors: Gayle Beebe, Lynda L. Graybeal, Thomas C. Oden, Dallas Willard, Consulting Editors: Walter Brueggemann, Eugene H. Peterson, pp. 1-5)
Although we find no explicit references to Jesus in Genesis 1 and 2, the apostle John does tie Jesus to this passage in the prologue to the gospel he wrote (John 1:1-18). Consider the comments of Gary Burge on John 1:1-18.
One reason why the Gospel of John was symbolized by the eagle is the lofty heights
attained by its prologue. With skill and delicacy, John handles issues of profound
importance. It comes as no surprise that this prologue has been foundational to the
classic Christian formulation of the doctrine of Christ. Here divinity and humanity,
preexistence and incarnation, revelation and sacrifice are each discussed by John with
deceptive simplicity.
The first verses of John’s Gospel are a triumph of Christian theology. John begins by
establishing the preeminence of the Word existing before the creation of the world.
The initial allusion to Genesis 1 cannot be missed (John 1:1). This is a Gospel that will
record the re-creation of men and women, the giving of life in darkness where there is
no hope. This parallels the thought of Genesis 1 [and 2], in which God breathes life
into the nostrils of Adam and provides new possibilities for the world.
John begins by introducing Jesus as “the Word” (logos) and is building here on much
contemporary Jewish thought, where the word of God took on personal creative
attributes (Gen. 1; Ps. 33:6, 9). In the New Testament period it was personified (Wisd.
Sol. 7:24; 18:15-16) and known by some as the immanent power of God creatively at
work in the world (Philo). John identifies this Word as Jesus Christ. As such John can
attribute to him various divine functions, such as creation (John 1:3, 10) and giving of
life (1:4, 14, 16).
But John goes further. He is ready to infer some personal identity between the Logos
and God. “And the Word was God” (1:1). John often employs similar Greek verbs in
order to develop a contrast of themes. The Greek words ginomai (to become) and eimi
(to be) have similar nuances, but John frequently uses them together to make a point.
For instance, in 8:58 Jesus says (lit.), “Before Abraham was [ginomai], I am [eimi].”
The first verb suggests “coming into being,” such as Abraham’s birth; the second
implies ongoing existence. Thus in 1:6 John writes, “There came [ginomai] a man sent
from God.” In 1:1 John carefully writes, “In the beginning was the Word”—“the Word
was with God”—“the Word was God.” In each case he uses eimi. John is making an
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absolute affirmation about the eternal existence of the Word. It did not come into being
nor was there ever a time when “the Word was not.” Whatever we can say about God,
we can and must say about the Word.
But who is this Word? “The Word was God.” Attempts to detract from this literal
translation for grammatical reasons (e.g., “the word was a god [or divine]”) run
aground when we consider the number of other times when such a divine ascription is
made for Jesus. For example, Jesus employs the divine Old Testament title “I Am”
(8:24, 28, 58, etc.), he is “one with God” (10:30), and he is even addressed by Thomas
in the Gospel’s final scene as “my Lord and my God” (20:28).
Some have argued that because theos (God) does not have a definite article, the better
translation would be, “The word was divine,” thereby limiting any absolute claim for
the Logos. But this cannot be the case. Greek has another common word for divine
(theios), and in other passages, John omits the article but does not imply a change in
meaning. In Greek the word order is reversed (“and God was the Word”), emphasizing
not that the Word contains the entirety of the Godhead, but that the divinity possessed
by God is also possessed by this Word.
This is John’s overture to Christology and the beginnings of his Trinitarian thought.
Indeed, “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse.
The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.” This is the theme that
will be echoed throughout the Gospel. We will be introduced to Jesus time and time
again, and in each case we will be forced to picture Jesus with increasingly profound
images. He is the greatest of all people; he is the Messiah of Jewish expectation; but
more (this is John’s unique message), he is the Son of God the divine messenger from
the Father. Any reading of the Fourth Gospel that omits this supreme and ultimate
claim for Jesus misses its central affirmation.
Once John has identified the Logos with God, he continues to mark the relation of the
Logos to the world. As God’s creative agent, he was responsible for the creation of the
world. John’s language here is careful and specific: The Logos was not one preeminent
creation that went on to create others. In fact, the Logos was never created. Nothing
came into being without him (v. 3). This is another parallel with the thought world of
Genesis. In Genesis 1 we are introduced to the God of Israel, Creator of the universe.
Now we learn more. The creative capacity of God was Logos. Therefore John stresses
not merely that who God is, the Logos is (Strophe One), but that what God does, the
Logos does. Therefore in the Gospel, what Jesus does is divine activity. When he
heals or speaks—when he gives eternal life (v. 4)—this is God at work, just as God
worked at the foundation of the world.
The prologue is the most complete, indeed, the most explicit study of Christ’s
preexistence in the New Testament. The significance of Jesus is not merely in his
ability to be a powerful worker of mighty deeds. Nor is it in his wisdom as a great
teacher. Rather, Jesus is God-become-flesh. That is, the phenomenon of Jesus Christ is
a phenomenon unlike anything the world has witnessed before. He is God-in-descent,
God stepping into the context of humanity. In more technical terms, Jesus has an
ontological divinity. His being, his essence, his very nature is one with God. This is to
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be compared with an ethical divinity, in which Jesus is valued or aligned with God—as
evidenced in what he does. This may at first seem obvious to those who have been
nurtured in the Christian environment, but today it simply cannot be assumed that men
and women truly understand the Christological implications of John’s incarnational
theology.
Springing from this doctrine of the high divinity of Jesus—a divinity anchored to
preexistence—comes a host of theological themes that I must press home when I apply
this text. John’s understanding of revelation lifts Jesus’ words above those of a prophet
and any human being. The voice of Jesus becomes the voice of God. It is for this
reason that Jesus can tell Philip that seeing him is equivalent to seeing the Father
(14:9). This is also why Thomas, at the close of the Gospel, can give Jesus the high
acclaim, “My Lord and my God” (20:28). In a similar fashion, John’s understanding of
redemption now becomes a divine work that parallels Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians
5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” Redemption is thus no
divinely inspired human event that sets out to placate God. Redemption is God himself
at work in the world, achieving his own goals for repairing the consequences of sin and
bringing humanity back into relationship with himself. (TNAC, John, Gary M. Burge, pp. 51-52, 54-56, 62)
Craig Koester adds these additional insights that connect John 1:1-18 with Genesis 1 and 2.
Basic to John’s theology is that God has created all things through his Word. Referring
to God’s Word the prologue says, “all things came into being through him” (1:3a).
This too echoes the biblical creation story. The main verb is egeneto, which is used
repeatedly in the Greek translation of Genesis: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there
was (egeneto) light’; “God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters’ …and
it was so (egeneto)” (Gen. 1:3, 6-7). Throughout the biblical account of creation, God
speaks and things happen; his Word forms the world.
John uses this biblical language to establish a pattern of relationships between God and
others. God and his Word are simply present at the beginning. Their existence is taken
for granted. By way of contrast, the world comes into being. It is not self-generated or
ultimate. It owes its existence to the God who called it into being. The prologue does
not speculate about what God might have been doing before creation — though Jesus
will later disclose that God’s glory and love existed before the world was ever made
(John 17:5, 24). Instead, the prologue helps define God’s relationship to the world.
God is the Creator; the world is created. The world may claim independence, but this is
not the case. Its existence depends upon the Word of God.
Emphasizing the scope of creation, the prologue says that without God’s Word “not one
thing came into being” (1:3b). This is important given John’s sharp distinction between
what is above and below, between heaven and earth (3:12, 31). Readers can get the
impression that the earth is inherently evil, unlike the celestial sphere above. John
contrasts flesh and Spirit, what is of this world and what is not of this world (3:6; 8:23).
Readers may infer that the flesh and the world are intrinsically bad, while the Spirit and
the otherworldly realm are good. Yet this is not the view of the Gospel writer.
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God is the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth. The world and the flesh are
limited and perishable, yet they belong to God’s creation and are not essentially evil.
The Word can become flesh because the flesh itself is fashioned by God. The created
order does not, in itself, yield any sure knowledge of God. Yet upon entering the
world, Jesus calls upon things that can be seen and heard and tasted to bear witness to
the unseen God who sent him. Water jars filled with wine, bread made from barley,
shafts of light striking the eye of a blind man — all become vehicles for revelation.
When teaching, Jesus invokes images of flowing water, a shepherd and sheep, a vine
and a vinedresser, so that aspects of the creation are used in witness to the Creator and
his gifts.
Thus far the prologue has said that the Word of God has given things existence. Now it
says that in God’s Word was “life,” which is something more (1:4). Life is pictured as
a light for human beings, and it is central to John’s understanding of God’s identity and
purposes. God “has life in himself,” which means that his life is not derived from any
other source (5:26). God has life and God gives life. This gives readers a basic sense
of who God is. Human beings, in contrast, do not have life in themselves. If they are
to live they must receive life from God. This means that in John’s Gospel life is
understood relationally. To have life is to relate to the God who is the source of all life.
Life has multiple dimensions in John’s Gospel. One of these is physical. Those who
are alive physically have hearts that beat and lungs that breathe. Since God’s Word is
the source of physical life, this is an essential feature of the ministry of Jesus, the
incarnate Word. He restores the health of a boy dying of a fever, so that the child
“lives” (4:50-51). Giving bread to a hungry crowd, enabling a paralyzed man to walk,
giving a blind man his sight, and calling Lazarus out of the tomb — all of these reveal
the power of the life-giving God.
There is also a dimension to life that goes beyond the physical. To have true life is to
know and trust God and his Word. The prologue develops this idea by tracing the
coming of the Word into the world. Those who have life “know” God through his
Word (1:10). This is a positive form of relationship. Knowing can simply mean that
someone has correctly absorbed information, but knowing God is more like knowing a
person. It involves a recognition of identity, a discerning of the truth about someone.
Knowing has a cognitive dimension, yet it is not limited to this. To know God through
his Word is to “receive” him, as one welcomes a person into one’s home (1:11). It is to
“believe” in the Word, which means trusting God himself (1:12).
The Gospel recognizes that there may be disjunction between the different facets of
life. Physically, all people receive life from God, yet that does not mean that everyone
has the life that comes through faith. People who can breathe and move have the
capacity to turn away from their Maker. They can reject the Word of God that brought
them into being and refuse to believe in him (1:10-11). They can receive the gifts of
food and healing that sustain the body, while repudiating the giver (5:14-16; 6:26-36).
All people are related to God as his creatures, yet faith is life-giving in a way that
alienation from God is not. People can be alive physically and yet dying relationally.
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The Gospel also recognizes that true life begins while the heart beats and the lungs
breathe, yet it has a future that extends beyond physical death. Therefore, true life is
often identified as “eternal life” (e.g., 3:15; 4:14; 5:24). Eternal life begins now, in
faith, and it continues beyond death through the promise of resurrection. Life in the
present can be called “eternal,” as faith brings people into relationship with the eternal
God. People are not inherently immortal, and even those who believe will die. Yet the
relationship with God is not terminated by death. God does not abandon believers but
gives them a future through resurrection.
Human beings are created with a need for life, and they pursue what they think will
bring it. So if life comes from God, as the Gospel says it does, then questions about life
are ultimately questions about God. This inherent need for life makes the matter of
God inescapable. The issue is not whether people will seek life — that is a given —the
issue is where their pursuit of life will take them and how this relates to what God is
doing. … (The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel, Craig R. Koester, pp. 30-32)
Two of the earliest and most commonly embraced creeds of the early church are the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. These represent attempts by the early church to respond to the need for explicit statements of fundamental truths that every Christian would believe as well as statements to combat teachings that were seen as divisive and not consistent with what God had revealed through the Old Testament and through the teachings of the apostles. The historical background for each creed given below and the statement of the creeds comes from the Book of Confessions published by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Notice that a fundamental belief that was explicitly stated in each creed is that God is the creator of all that is, both seen and unseen.
Although not written by apostles, the Apostles’ Creed reflects the theological
formulations of the first century church. The creed’s structure may be based on Jesus’
command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. In a time when most Christians were illiterate, oral repetition
of the Apostles’ Creed, along with the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments,
helped preserve and transmit the faith of the western churches. The Apostles’ Creed
played no role in Eastern Orthodoxy.
In the early church, Christians confessed that “Jesus is Lord” but did not always understand the biblical context of lordship. The views of Marcion, a Christian living in Rome in the second century, further threatened the church’s understanding of Jesus as Lord. Marcion read the Old Testament as referring to a tyrannical God who had created a flawed world. Marcion believed that Jesus revealed, in contrast, a good God of love and mercy. For Marcion, then, Jesus was not the Messiah proclaimed by the prophets, and the Old Testament was not Scripture. Marcion proposed limiting Christian “Scripture” to Luke’s gospel (less the birth narrative and other parts that he felt expressed Jewish thinking) and to those letters of Paul that Marcion regarded as anti-Jewish. Marcion’s views developed into a movement that lasted several centuries.
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Around A.D. 180, Roman Christians developed an early form of the Apostles’ Creed to refute Marcion. They affirmed that the God of creation is the Father of Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was buried and raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where he rules with the Father. They also affirmed belief in the Holy Spirit, the church, and the resurrection of the body.
Candidates for membership in the church, having undergone a lengthy period of moral and doctrinal instruction, were asked at baptism to state what they believed. They responded in the words of this creed.
The Apostles’ Creed underwent further development. In response to the question of readmitting those who had denied the faith during the persecutions of the second and third centuries, the church added, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” In the fourth and fifth centuries, North African Christians debated the question of whether the church was an exclusive sect composed of the heroic few or an inclusive church of all who confessed Jesus Christ, leading to the addition of “holy” (belonging to God) and “catholic” (universal). In Gaul, in the fifth century, the phrase “he descended into hell” came into the creed. By the eighth century, the creed had attained its present form.
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
In the first three centuries, the church found itself in a hostile environment. On the one hand, it grappled with the challenge of relating the language of the gospel, developed in a Hebraic and Jewish-Christian context, to a Graeco-Roman world. On the other hand, it was threatened not only by persecution, but also by ideas that were in conflict with the biblical witness.
In A.D. 312, Constantine won control of the Roman Empire in the battle of Milvian Bridge. Attributing his victory to the intervention of Jesus Christ, he elevated Christianity to favored status in the empire. “One God, one Lord, one faith, one church, one empire, one emperor” became his motto.
The new emperor soon discovered that “one faith and one church” were fractured by theological disputes, especially conflicting understandings of the nature of Christ, long a point of controversy. Arius, a priest of the church in Alexandria, asserted that the divine Christ, the Word through whom all things have their existence, was created by God before the beginning of time. Therefore, the divinity of Christ was similar to the divinity of God, but not of the same essence. Arius was opposed by the bishop, Alexander, together with
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his associate and successor, Athanasius. They affirmed that the divinity of Christ, the Son, is of the same substance as the divinity of God, the Father. To hold otherwise, they said, was to open the possibility of polytheism, and to imply that knowledge of God in Christ was not final knowledge of God.
To counter a widening rift within the church, Constantine convened a council in Nicaea in A.D. 325. A creed reflecting the position of Alexander and Athanasius was written and and signed by a majority of the bishops. Nevertheless, the two parties continued to battle each other. In 381, a second council met in Constantinople. It adopted a revised and expanded form of the A.D. 325 creed, now known as the Nicene Creed.
The Nicene Creed is the most ecumenical of creeds. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) joins with Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestant churches in affirming it. Nevertheless, in contrast to Eastern Orthodox churches, the western churches state that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but from the Father and the Son (Latin, filioque). To the eastern churches, saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son threatens the distinctiveness of the person of the Holy Spirit; to the western churches, the filioque guards the unity of the triune God. This issue remains unresolved in the ecumenical dialogue.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.