Creation of the World
Genesis Chapters 1 and 2:
The creation of the world is a wonder of wonders. Both science and theology are very limited and imperfect to understand it, but beautiful and practical lessons can be drawn from it.
It gives two apparently very different stories of the " Creation ":
In Chapters 1, is the creation of the Universe in 6 days... a hymn of the love of God.
Chapters 2, is, specially, the creation of man woman, and marriage, with the spiritual life that must take, in the tree of the life, from Jesus, abstaining from the tree of the science of the good and bad... God it is here like a " potter ", who creates man from clay; or like a " surgeon ", who removes the rib of Adam to create Eve; or like a " gardener " who planted a garden... a very human God, and very interested personally in man and woman...
In Chapter 1 the Earth is full of water, like Mesopotamia between the rivers Tigris and the Euphrates, and God separates Earth from the waters... in Chapter 2, the Earth is dry, like Palestine, and God brings forth a river, creating the earthly Paradise, the Eden...
Chapter 1 is like a "solemn hymn ", Chapter 2 like a "popular history "... both are wonders of God, the only one God says the Hymn.
The Creation in 6 days, in Chapters 1: It is a symmetrical scheme:
Day 1, creates Light and Astral region... Day 4: The Sun, Moon, day and night... and the Stars
Day 2: Waters and Air... Day 5: Fish and Birds
Day 3: Earth and Seas, and Plants... Day 6: Terrestrial Animals and Man and Woman.
The adversaries of the Bible immediately make the question: How come there was Light on day 1, if there was no Sun?... modern science has discovered the "cosmic light", every single atom gives light!, there is no need of the Sun to have light in the universe...
The main reason, is that it is not a "scientific history ", but a "didactic-theological history ", a history of salvation, that teaches us the following fundamental religious truths:
1 There is only one God, Almighty, a loving Person, wise, eternal... who created everything in the heavens and earth with His "word " (the Christ), by the power of the Spirit (Ge 1:1-2).
2 All other things are "creatures of God ": The sun and the fire and animals, are not God, as it was erroneously believed by some ancestors... the man is not God either, as erroneously believed nowadays in the New Era... nature and energy is not God either, as believed today by some pseudo-scientists... all of them are creatures of God!.
3 That God is very much interested in man and woman, whom He named "the king of the creation "... but a king "servant of God ", to Whom he has to adore each full seventh day... there is no nobler conception of man and woman, neither a greater idea of God! (Ge 1:28, 2:3).
The orders of God to man:"Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Ge 1:28)
The Food for men: "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food". (Ge 1:29)... and to the animals, "every green plant for food." (Ge 1:30)
4 The woman has the same dignity of man... both were made to "the image and likeness of God " (Ge 1:26-27):
Contents
"Image ", like a picture of God;
And "likeness"... if your picture could speak and love and hate like you, then it won't be only a picture it would be like you!... well, man and woman are not only a picture of God, but still more...like God!... made to the likeness of God!...free like God, immortals like God, eternal like God, made to love like God... the "breath of life" to the clay, is the "spiritual and immortal soul ", like God! (Ge 2:7).
5 "Marriage " in Ge 2:24, would be something as the Trinity: Two persons in a single flesh... it is the " plan of God " for marriage, like "a piece of heaven on earth"... like the Trinity... and to be more like the Trinity, the plan of God is that marriage must be three people in one flesh: The husband, the wife and Christ, a real piece of heaven on earth!... but the great problem today is that many marriages are like "a piece of hell on earth" because the three people are the husband, the wife and Satan, because they live in sin. (Mat.19).
6 The woman was made from a rib of the man, so that she may always be close to his heart, not of his feet... a cloning?... St. Paul will say: "the woman will be subject and obey the husband, like the Church obeys Christ", and repeats it 3 times ... and to the husband he repeats 6 times, not that he is the boss of the woman, but that he must "love his wife" as Christ loved his Church (Eph.5:22-33, 1Cor.11:3)
7 After every day, "God saw that their works were good "... the universe is not bad, as some pagans may say... we are the ones who entangled it, by sinning!
8 God is a Family... the Trinity:
Elohim is God in plural, as a family:
"And God (Elohim - plural of deities) said, Let US (plural) make man in OUR (plural) image, after OUR (plural) likeness: and let them (plural) have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Ge.1:26 NIV).
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (plural). (Ge.1:27).
The first factor in understanding the proper definition of God from the Hebrew perspective is that the word is the plural of deity. It is similar to the word family. A family is one entity comprised of more than one member. For example, my family was comprised of four members, we were the James family and my individual title was Dallas. The word "Elohim" is a specific class of beings whose individual members are further defined by the first names they carry. This class of beings is first set forth in the first chapter of Genesis."And God created great whales, and EVERY LIVING CREATURE that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, AFTER THEIR KIND, and every winged foul after HIS KIND: and God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:21 (KJV)
That "family", says later the Bible, is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons but only one God. The Father is God and fully God. The Son, the Word Jesus is God and fully God. The Holy Spirit is God and fully God.
And there are not three Gods but only one God, the family of God... the most glorious mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Since Creation, in Gen.1, the tree persons always do things together: The Father gives the order, the word... the Word Jesus makes it, and He does not need any laborers, He does everything with the power of the Spirit.
This is the way I understand it: If I ask my son to put on the light, he clicks the switch and the light is on. Here, I would be the Father, my son would be the Son, but the light does not go on if there is not electrical current there... that electrical current is the power of the Holy Spirit.
In this example, you and I are the bulb: If we are broken, not even God can put it on!... and we are broken, when we reject the work of God. We are "free" like God, and we can receive His delights or reject them, and when God created us free, He bound Himself to respect that freedom, even God will respect our decisions... even God Himself can do nothing against our decisions... and that's the reason of our "responsibility", and of Heave or Hell forever, because we were not only made "free" like God, but immortal, eternal, like God.
The Father is eternal and immutable, without beginning nor end... the Word, the Son is also eternal, and if just for a second the Word would have not existed, for that second the Father would have been no "Father" because for that second He would have had no "Son", which is an impossible, because He is immutable. And on top of it, the Father would not have had Word for that second, which is also an impossible.
The Word, the Son, was not created but eternally begotten of the Father, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son: The love of the Father to the Son and the love of the Son to the Father is the Holy Spirit, also eternal and immutable, as the Son and the Father... Yes, God is Love, a family of Love!.
We often try to paint the Father: Jesus tells us, he who sees me sees the Father (Jn.14:9), so the best picture of God the Father is Jesus at Bethlehem or at Calvary or as a Carpenter in Nazareth.
Some Quotations on the Trinity:
Only One God: Deut.6:4-5, Mk.12:29-30, Jn.10:30, 14:9, 17:11, 21,23, Ephe.4:4-6.
Three Different Persons: Mt.3:13-17, 28:19, 1Cor.12:3-6, 1Ped.1:2, Jud.20-21, 2Cor.13:13, Tit.3:5-7, Rom.1:1-4, Gal.4:6, Rev.1:4-5
Jesus and the Father:
John: 2:16, 3:35, 5:17,20,37, 6:65, 8:54, 10:30, 14:9,10, 14:23-24, 16:14-15, 16:25-33, 17:1-5, 17:11,21,23,
Matthew: 6:9,15, 7:11,21, 10:32, 11:27,12:50, 18:35, 24:36, 28:19,
Luke: 2:49, 6:36, 12:32, 22:42, 23:34, 23:46, 24:49.
Jesus and the Spirit: John: 14:15-17, 14:26, 16:5-15, 1Cor.12:1-11, 2Cor.13:13,
The Spirit in the OT: Gen.1:2, Num.11:16-26, 27:18, Judg.3:10,6:34, 14:6,19, 15:14, 23:24, 1Sam.16:13, 2Sam.23:2, 2K.2:9, Is.11:2, 28:6, 63:10, Zech.7:12, Neh.9:30, Sal.51:11
9 Jesus the Messiah, the Creator of All Things:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. Jon 1:1-3.
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Col.1:16-17.
"In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end."Heb.1:10-12.
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Jn.1:10
Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 1Cor.8:6.
10 Adam... Jesus:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1Cor.15:22.
So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 1Cor.15:45-49.
Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. Rom.5:14.