Difference between revisions of "Part 7''"
(Created page with "====The How, Why, and When of Creation, Part 2==== This word “hovering” is a beautiful word. If you want to compare its use to give you an analogy, you can go to Deutero...") |
(No difference)
|
Latest revision as of 19:45, 21 March 2020
The How, Why, and When of Creation, Part 2
This word “hovering” is a beautiful word. If you want to compare its use to give you an analogy, you can go to Deuteronomy 32:11 , just write it down for the moment, and you will find there that it's used to describe young eaglets in a nest, and young eaglets not capable of feeding themselves, not capable of defending themselves or fending for themselves. Unable to survive, unable to live, unable to develop and grow. utterly dependent on the care of parents who hover over them, providing food and protection and warmth, so they can survive, and live and grow and develop. And that's precisely the imagery here, because the same Hebrew word is used of the Holy Spirit hovering over this undeveloped, unformed, lifeless mass of matter in space, covered by water, engulfed in darkness. And the Spirit of God is hovering over the surface of this earth, the brooding of the Spirit of God over the waters.
Listen – that is a major detail in the creation account and not a minor one. It demonstrates, for one thing, that the biblical worldview of God is that He is directly involved in His creation. His hand is never lifted from the elements and the working of the material order. His presence is there superintending, hovering over that. This is the antithesis of this philosophical deism that says God is like the originator of the creation, He wound it up and then walked away from it, or theological dualism, which sees a gap between a good God and spirit and a bad world and matter. But rather you have the living God superintending, brooding over, hovering over the waters, being directly in charge of the entire process of creation. You go through the Bible, you will find that the Spirit of God is the source of all life. “By His Spirit He ordered the heavens,” it says in Job 26. Psalm 33, as we noted a week ago, “the breath of God is in me,” and many other Scriptures. “By the word of the heavens, by the word of the Lord,” rather, Psalm 33:6 , “the heavens were made and all their hosts, and by the ruach of His mouth,” the Spirit of His mouth – and many other Scriptures. So the Spirit of God provides the energy to shape, and organize, and bring life; this is the work of God.
The first thing that happens creatively after the original material is in verse 3, day one. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,' and there was light.” Now, scientists can fuss, and fume, and fuddle, and muddle around for decades and centuries trying to figure out where light came from, and all you need is one verse. There was no light, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The one who is uncreated light brought into existence created light, the one according to 1 Timothy 6:16 who dwells in unapproachable light commanded created light to exist in the place where there was only darkness, and light came into existence.
Again, Douglas Kelly says, “The speaking into existence of the created light is the first of a series of three separations accomplished by the creator which were essential to making the chaos into a cosmos. On day one, light separates day and night. On day two, the firmament separates the upper waters from the earth, constituting an atmosphere or breathing space. On day three, the waters below the heavens are collected into seas, and thus separated from the dry land. These three separations show the mighty hand of God shaping and organizing the dark, watery mass in the direction of a beautiful garden, a fit and lovely dwelling place for plants, animals and mankind.”
And with the creation of light, there was established a cyclical succession of days and nights, periods of light and periods of darkness. As we shall see looking here in verse 5, He called the light day and He called the darkness night, and you have the cycle of night and day. That means the earth immediately began rotating on its axis, and there was a source of light on one side of the earth corresponding to the sun, which wasn't created until later, and there was darkness on the other side of the earth as well. God created light and there was light, simply because God told it to exist. Or God, I guess like a man who came to arrange various things that were scattered in confusion in some dark room, before he does anything else, turns on the light.
In verse 4, “God saw that the light was good.” God saw that the light was good. Now, that statement gets repeated in verse 10, verse 12, verse 18, verse 21, verse 25 and verse 31. Everything that God created was good, right? Everything that God created was good. And the end of it, verse 31, He sums it up, “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Now, the works of the creator could only be good, so that doesn't surprise us at all. Everything He made was good.
Now God – when God says it was good, that's a pretty high standard. God Himself is the original standard of what is good, and He said it is good; it is good. The standard of goodness is not outside of Himself.
Long ago a man named Novatian captures this point in a third century statement on God. Listen to what he wrote in the third century, obviously translated into English: “What could you possibly say, then, that would be worthy of Him? He is more sublime than all sublimity, higher than all heights, deeper than all depth, clearer than all light, brighter than all brilliance, more splendid than all splendor, stronger than all strength, mightier than all might, more beautiful than all beauty, truer than all truth, more enduring than all endurance, greater than all majesty, more powerful than all power, richer than all riches, wiser than all wisdom, kinder than all kindness, better than all goodness, juster than all justice, more merciful than all mercy. Every kind of virtue must of necessity be less than He, who is the God and source of everything.” What a great statement.
The incomparable goodness of God demands that all light, dry land, seas, various kinds of animal life, everything there was, was good; was good. The reason it's bad is not because of God, but because of the Fall, and the rebellion of man, the corruption of His totally good creation. But it started out good. And verse 4 says, “And God separated the light from the darkness.” That's why Isaiah 45:7 says, “God is the one forming light and creating darkness.” This starts the cycle of days. He separates the light from the darkness. He created the light, but didn't destroy the darkness. It was never His desire as the creator that there be perpetual light, not at all; but that both darkness and light would operate consecutively, and that was good. And that they would operate consecutively for given periods in an unchanging cyclical order. He made it so because it suited His creative plan. It suited His plan to have the earth revolving, to have light and to have dark.