Days four and five, God fills this heavens and earth, God delegates and shares that responsibility with the lights above. The lights become images or symbols of God’s own light, they are the rulers above who govern day and night, because once these domains have been ordered, then each of these are named and appointed the inhabitants of those domains, the sun and moon and stars are the things that we can see, that help us know and track the pattern that God has made, the fish and the birds live in the waters above and in the waters below as the inhabitants of those weather realms, this is the order that the author’s trying to communicate, but we get hung up on numbers and days, we give a chronology of the processes by which the world came into physical existence.
Who Created God?
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In dealing with such subjects we must importantly conclude.... That we can be wrong... Religious people can be stuck in mentalities where they do not consider the righteousness of the whole ordeal for fear of being wrong. It is more of an ego thing than anything else...
On the seventh day God rests from his work, so what are these seven days about? God’s making his cosmic temple and he’s inaugurating it on the seventh day. The Israelites, they rested after Joshua brings them into the land, so they can get to the business of human flourishing. So God is creating his cosmic temple in a sequence of seven sabbath’s cycle and then he rests. Why? So he can begin the operation of this wonderfully ordered world that he just set up. The seven days are not given as the period of time over which the material cosmos came into existence, but the period of time God devotes to the inauguration of his cosmic temple. The seven-day cycle, understood in its intended context, has nothing to contribute to the discussion of the age of the earth, this is not a conclusion designed to accommodate science, drawing from an analysis and interpretation of Genesis in its ancient environment. We’re looking at the ancient Hebrew words, the way they use the words, the thoughts about the world of the ancient Hebrews and their neighbors that shaped how they would write a story like this. The biblical text supports the view of an old earth, there is no biblical position on the age of the earth, Genesis one, isn’t that story.
The origins of the universe, but when it comes to the origins of humans, the pinnacle moment of the story, God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Who’s him? Not him male singular, him as a singular reference generic to the whole of the human species, male and female. Humans have this unique capacity, it’s not about two individual humans being made on the sixth day, it’s about humanity, that one humanity consists of the binary gendered pair, male and female. Humanity is being made here, as a entity, as a whole, but what is their calling and identity? They are made in the image of God, and God blesses his image bearing creatures, and what does he tell them to do, make more of yourselves, oversee this place. The image is about the humans in their very existence in this one humanity, but this binary pair, they generate life out of their own existence.
If you were crafting a terrarium and you wanted to explore it "first hand," you could build a little camera on wheels to cruise it in VR.
If God created a universe and He wanted to play in it, He could construct the most marvelous machine fit to fill the fullness of all time with a completeness of His expression in the face of all disobedience against Him.
You could but He has and does and will do forever.
I enjoy the words you are drawing in to the conversation. I hope to get a better understanding of how you mean some of them.
If God created a universe and He wanted to play in it, He could construct the most marvelous machine fit to fill the fullness of all time with a completeness of His expression in the face of all disobedience against Him.
You could but He has and does and will do forever.
I enjoy the words you are drawing in to the conversation. I hope to get a better understanding of how you mean some of them.
Genesis chapter two, what’s that pairing? It’s about this covenant of marriage, when humans covenant to love each other, they choose not to multiply like rabbits with everybody else, just with each other. When they do that out of that covenant of love, new life comes into existence and is the image of God. God’s character, what is God’s essence in nature? Love that generates life. They are to rule, to oversee, because there’s all this world with food falling off the trees, and there’s these creatures, harness all of these resources, bring them together and steward them and manage them in a way that creates even more life. The human calling and vocation is the image of God. Humanity in Genesis chapter one begins, no sequence and humanity’s made on the sixth day, humanity in chapter two, way back when there was no farming, when no shrubs had appeared on the earth and no plants had sprung up. The Lord God hadn’t set rain on the earth, because there’s no humans there. This story, it’s not a wild and waist, look at this land, there’s all this potential for growth, but who’s gonna produce food here? Humans. Why are humans even brought into the story, in Genesis chapter two, it’s so they can be the ones who begin to cultivate order and flourishing out of the world.
Genesis chapter two, so streams come up from the earth, watered the whole surface of the ground, raw materials are there, then the Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Adam, he’s lonely, and so God makes animals and brings them to Adam. What was the sequence of things in Genesis one, which came first, animals or the humans, it was animals then humans in a sequence of days, here it’s human than animals on the same day. Stop assuming these accounts are trying to present to you, a sequential order, there’s something different happening here, this is a totally different depiction. Genesis chapter one was a statement about God’s cosmic temple. Now we’re focusing in on identity and calling of these image bearing humans, we’re restarting the story again from nothing and now focusing on these humans. What’s the nature of Adam, where does Adam come from, dust, humans are dirt and divine breath. This is Genesis two’s way of talking about the image of God, we’re earthlings, our origins and nature is bound to the earth, but at the same time we’re aware of a calling and an identity of who we are that separates us from the earth. We’re dirt and we’re divine breath, and the dust is not trying to tell us about the physical composition of what we’re made out of, this is a statement about our nature, our mortality and how we’re weak and are frail and our origins about the identity and function of who humans are.
The first sentence of the Bible is actually saying something deeply profound, everything up there and everything down here, it did not cause itself, universes don’t just happen to exist. What’s down here was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, does it sound like a place where you can plant a garden, we came from a whole set of causes and effects, in the beginning God. God is the only one in all of heaven and earth who does not have a cause or a maker, God’s name in the Bible is the one who is, everything that is, depends on God. When we go outside and we look up and we look down, what we see is two realms, the earth realm and then there’s the sky realm, all of the life and the goodness and the flourishing that we experience here on the land doesn’t come from itself, but it comes from two main things, it comes from the light that comes from above and it comes from the water that comes down from above, when you put light and water on the ground, stuff grows, this is a tale of two realms of heavens and earth.
Everything that’s going to happen on earth, happens because of the life-giving source of the heavens that comes down upon the land, earth depends for its very existence on heaven. If God created the heavens and the earth, where is God in the heavens and the earth? One way to talk about God’s location, the author of all that is, is not in the heavens and earth, God being in heaven, it’s a metaphor for talking about God as above and beyond as the author of all, the heavens cannot contain God, shattering our concepts of reality, shattering the boxes that we put God within. God doesn’t exist within heavens and earth, God is not a being in the universe, God is the author of all that is and everything that happens here on earth is sourced by the infinite life of heaven, that’s what Genesis 1:1 is trying to communicate to us, behold the image of the creator who is behind and within and beyond all of it. Heaven and earth are made for each other and everything that you and I experience on earth is itself a reflection in a gift, an outpouring of God’s generous heavenly life and love. Although these realms are distinct, they are not separate and they are made to become closer and closer eventually till they become one together, that’s the seventh day.
To see the face of God, is shorthand for to gain re-entry back into Eden or in Revelation chapter 22, when the heaven and earth are reunited, John was shown the river of the water of life coming from the Throne of God and the lamb. The Throne of the New Jerusalem is now where the tree of life is, at the center of Eden, the tree of life is the Throne of God. In other words, in this New Jerusalem, Eden, at the center of it is the tree of life, from which flows the river of life. In the garden, the tree of life here, it’s the Throne of God and the lamb and that’s because, it’s the Holy of Holies.
There would be no need for the universe? God and Jesus and us are the lights of the world.
Okay, now I think I see the issue.
You have a lot of the right ideas and you're touching on deep truth, but your expressions are incongruous, inexperienced, and insufficiently masticated for proper digestion.
You are seeking The Name and you are very close, but He said it quite plainly in Exodus 3:14 but you look past it.
His name is "I Am."
He is the one called The LORD, who said in Jeremiah 29:12-13
"Then you shall call Me, and I will answer you;
you shall pray to me, and I will listen to you;
you shall seek me, and you shall find me;
for when you seek me with all your heart, I will let Myself be found by you."
of Whom it is said in Deuteronomy 32:4
"He is a rock;
what He does is right;
for all His ways are just;
a trustworthy and never deceiving God;
true and upright is He."
Just seek the best, the highest, the most, the greatest, the deepest, the richest, and otherwise completely opposite of anything bad, wrong, or in any way undesirable, and you shouldn't miss Him, or at least whatever word He would have used for what you are trying to say.
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Matthew chapter 24, I heard a teaching about the heavens being shaken, heavens were dimensions. The verses you are using, they could be metaphors, like using a curtain as a metaphor. The point is that at the moment it is as though there is a great curtain hanging down through the middle of ordinary reality. So that at any point in any place, God is not far away, Jesus is not far away, it’s just that they’re currently invisible, but one day the curtain will be pulled back, and it won’t be like coming, it’ll be appearing. Imagine the gasp as if somebody were to yank a great curtain back there and we suddenly realized all sorts of things going on behind that curtain, that were actually integrated with our reality and we didn’t realize it.
Look at the language use to describe the Name in Isaiah 30:27. Behold, the Name of the Lord comes from afar. Looks like we’re getting language that makes the Name sound like a person. In blazing wrath with a heavy burden, his lips. The Name has lips? This language is speaking about the Name as though the Name is a person, because God is a person. How else could we talk about him. Lips full of fear, tongue like a devouring fire. Look at how the Name is used in Psalm 20:1,7. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, may the Name of the God of Jacob protect you. Some trust in chariots, some in horses, we trust in the Name of the Lord our God. Who’s name is that, it’s the same person. It’s a reference to him, to his presence, his person.
ScottA
Well-Known Member
Yes, and while that does indeed describe God working His creation and justice, there is a reality that it would seem many do not quite understand: That is, that what now is our experience living in the times of these old heavens and earth, that these things were before the world began and are only now revealed and made manifest before and according to the Judgement. Which things did occur in that "silence in heaven for half an hour"--which is to say: time divided--i.e. "the light from the darkness." Which things were not to be fully known, but sealed, until our being guided by the Holy Spirit and the finish of the mystery of God "as he declared to his servants the prophets", just before the sounding of the seventh angel.
Meaning, that the events of this worldly experience were before, but now revealed in the fullness of time, as the events of a book written and only now read--"on earth as it is in heaven." Making us last to know, but first following Christ the firstfruits of those former events--as it is written, "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." But I say "following Christ", meaning: as He "was slain before the foundation of the world," but made manifest when the times were fulfilled (mid-week as Daniel wrote) we are the many who were and are first to follow being born from above--that is, of the spirit of God. Yet not preceding those who first died with Christ the Last of Israel, i.e. the last of the old Covenant.
We therefore now live doing what we were until our own times are fulfilled. As Paul called us: "we who are alive but remain"--alive in God, but remaining in the world after our salvation. After which he specifically clarified, saying "but, each one in his own order."
Jesus’ Kingdom work, which reached its climax on the cross and because the power of death was defeated on the cross, that opened the way for creation to be set free from its slavery to decay, from its corruption and death, starting with Jesus’ own physical body resurrection is the beginning, that’s why the bodily resurrection of Jesus matters so much. If God is the good creator and if at the last he will put everything right, resurrection is going to be the result. This is the launching of the New Creation, in which the divine intention for the whole creation from the beginning is at last fulfilled. Jesus is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead Paul says, so that in everything he might be preeminent, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in him and through him and for him all things were created. Unless we see the gospel as a great narrative which finds its way through the dark night of the long years of Israel’s desolation and then bursts out with new life with Jesus’ resurrection.
If having been launched, the New Creation is then put to work in the world, that is the primary task of the Holy Spirit in the great commission, there’s new life and if the Holy Spirit is given new life so that we can not only have life ourselves, but be life bringers into the world. Creation and justice, a good world spoiled by hostile and destructive forces, but now to be remade, a world to be brought through death and out the other side into a new kind of life, which death can no longer touch and though the Holy Spirit can and does work in a thousand different ways of which we only hear the rustle of the passing wind, one of the primary ways the Spirit works is of course through the humble, prayerful servants of Jesus, whose hearts have been renewed, whose minds have been enlightened by the powerful gospel, so that they not only believe in Jesus’ resurrection and hence in his victory over the dark powers on the cross, but that they become resurrection people, both signs and agents of the new life which will one day flood the whole creation and the key areas for their work will be creation and justice, beauty and justice imitating and drawing from God, the lavish Creator, anticipating God’s final putting right of all things.
The tradition of the Jews used to teach that there were two Yahweh figures. There was the invisible transcendent one and then there was this second one who was the same in terms of being Yahweh, but was also distinct in some ways and one of the ways that gets expressed is the angel. Where did we lose this, it used to be part of our theology, in between the testaments, even before Jesus ever showed up as a man. They had this theology.
The two main players in the Bible, God and humans on the stage of our world, but there’s actually a way bigger cast of characters, than just God and humans. Like who? The figures called the “Elohim,” they inhabit the heavenly realm, which is parallel to our earthy reality and actually overlaps with it. All of these spiritual beings have their own unique characteristics. The biblical authors have one word that can refer to all the inhabitants of the spiritual realm. In Old Testament Hebrew, the word is “Elohim.” In New Testament Greek, it is “Theos.” This word gets translated in lots of different ways, depending on which being is referred to. So, one word can refer to any of these beings? It’s because, Elohim is a category title, it can designate any spiritual being that belongs to the heavenly realm a title, not a name. Like the word mom. The word mom can refer to lots of really different kinds of people, but they all share in common, the same role in a family. Say a group of brothers and sisters are talking and one says, it’s mom’s birthday today, they’re using the title, like it’s a name.
ScottA
Well-Known Member
I might stop you here, to point out that your above statement, although true, is of the context of this world--this world which is passing away.
In my own comments I have straddled the divide, purposely to show that what we have become accustom to is thinking of things according to the ways of this world, because the events that we have experienced, have read about, and witnessed, have been dominated by that context. In which case there is indeed a need for the renewing of our minds--that is if we would like to enter God's eternity as gently as He has delivered us in birth into it--in spite of our still mostly being out of context with all that is to come.
Separating the two--the ways, terms, and times, of this world from the eternal ways of God which we have just barely been born again into--begins with "rightly dividing the word of truth." In other word, both have been given to us by God in his word, and yet they are seemingly mixed together, and we have just barely if at all, begun to look at many passages revealing the things of God as separate as heaven and earth--that is--as separate as these old heavens and earth have been from God. We are on the precipice defined as rapturous--the interface between time and eternity, and we have barely put our toe in the water. What is upon us is not walking in the spirit in this world, nor even dreams and visions, but rather what "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Paul spoke of "leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God" 2,000 years ago. This is the time and the reason that such words were given.
I will go back and finish reading the rest of your post--tomorrow.
ScottA
Well-Known Member
...Continuing:
I realize the finish of your post is not really to be separate from your first sentence...but this is where I left off.
My response to your first sentence last night, and my response to this today (the rest), is much the same. Your post is all good, and certainly it is good to cover those things that we ought now to be doing and what and why they are important to the greater plan of God. Even so, what is greater is not what we do in this world in this life--though we indeed lay up treasures and our good works fulfill the words of God, which is service--but that which is greater is what and why this world was created (which you touched on) and what shall come after. In other words, during most of the Church age much of the New Testament has been for our good, and has been the right thing for us to do and how we should live--that is--to see us through to the end over these past millennia, while doing our part to share the gospel with each new and coming generation. However, it should be understood that we are still aliens in an unholy world, just passing through; and that we should in fact be looking forward to a close and a finish--as it is written--with longing and expectation. And...this is that time.
Which is to say, it is time to shift gears--even "leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection", as this is "the third day"--the day of Christ's perfection.
So then, just as it was good and right for these many past generations to linger in the midst of what has become "Church life", it would now be wrong and a disservice not to "press on", as if to join in the chorus of those who live as if this foretold day would never come, like those who scoff.
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Hiddenthings
Well-Known Member
That conclusion isn’t anti-science. It’s what science keeps running into at the edges.
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If E = mc2 then we can divide and conclude that...
Mass (m) = Plasma (E/c2) --- Making this eternal stuff along with an eternal God
I don't believe God creates something out of nothing. I believe he re-creates what has always been there. He is getting tired of this current universe. Pretty soon he will say the words... And then... Bang! Back to plasma energy! In which he has plans on doing something else with it.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. - 2 Peter 3:10
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. - 2 Corinthians 2:9
Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. - Isaiah 57:15
Mass (m) = Plasma (E/c2) --- Making this eternal stuff along with an eternal God
I don't believe God creates something out of nothing. I believe he re-creates what has always been there. He is getting tired of this current universe. Pretty soon he will say the words... And then... Bang! Back to plasma energy! In which he has plans on doing something else with it.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. - 2 Peter 3:10
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. - 2 Corinthians 2:9
Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. - Isaiah 57:15
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