Genesis 2:4-7 - Second time around...

This second account of the creation of the world is not a contradiction to the account found in Genesis 1; it is a closer look at the details. If you're musical like me then the explanation in my Bible reading notes (Explore) will help:

Genesis 1 could be described as an overture, which Genesis 2 is like individual musical 'movements'.

In this account of creation the focus has shifted onto the man's world - that bit for which he will be responsible. Creation is waiting:

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground... (Genesis 2:5)

Waiting for man... Who is now created from the dust; but not just dust... God breathed life into him.

Heavenly Father, thank you that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by you.

Genesis 2:1-3 - Take a break!

After six days of creating God takes a break:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [ceased from action] from all his work.

We think 'a day of rest' is to help us recover from the week we've just had and preparing us for the week to come; people enjoy counting down to the weekend and are happy once they've got past Humpday (aka Wednesday)! But God rested, not to recover from his work, but to enjoy the results of his creation. God blesses the seventh day and makes it holy. 

But 'rest' is more than just ceasing from action; after the Fall (Genesis 3) 'rest' becomes an expression of the hope of salvation (entry into the promised land for Israel and entrance into the kingdom of heaven for Christians):

• Psalm 95:11 - "So I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest.”" Rest here means the promised land, a physical place.
• Hebrews 4:8-11 - "⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. ⁹ There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; ¹⁰ for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,^[a] just as God did from his. ¹¹ Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience." Rest here means to cease our efforts to gain salvation to through our own works and rest in Christ's finished work on the cross.

We should rest as it is important physically, but more importantly it's a foretaste of what we were created for - to be with and rejoice in our God and Saviour.

Genesis 1:28-31 - This is my Father's world

We stand not under God's world, as inferior to it, nor over God's world, as indifferent to it, but in God's world as representatives of Him.

Imagine a world with nobody in charge, such as in Lord of the Flies or even in a classroom after a teacher leaves the room... It's absolute chaos with some people trying to assume power; others being trampled over. There is no order.

God tells mankind - Adam, and then us, to rule over the beasts of the earth, the fish and the birds of the air. Because mankind is made in the image of God, the rule that we have been given is to reflect the way God rules. God rules with love and compassion, and care for all he has created (Job 38-39). I, therefore, need to reflect God in the world around me - with concern for people, animals and creation. God saw that everything was good, so I need to see the world with the same pride and love.

On one of Zoë's DVD there is a song entitled This is my Father's world which reminds me of the creator God and his creation.

The wonder of the cross

It's Good Friday today - good because of what Christ has done for us on this special day. But it's easy to forget what actually happened; my prayer today is that I 'may see it like the first time' again this Easter time.

O precious sight

O precious sight, my Saviour stands

Dying for me with outstretched hands

O precious sight, I love to gaze
Remembering salvation's day
Remembering salvation's day

Though my eyes linger on this scene
May passing time and years not steal
The power with which it impacts me
The freshness of it's mystery
The freshness of it's mystery

Chorus:
May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost
Undone by mercy and left speechless
Watching wide eyed at the cost
May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross

Behold the God - Man crucified
The perfect sinless sacrifice
As blood ran down those nails and wood
History was split in two
Yes, History was split in two

Behold the empty wooden tree
His body gone, alive and free
We sing with everlasting joy
For sin and death have been destroyed
Yes sin and death have been destroyed

Chorus 
(bridge)
Chorus

by Vicky Beeching

Genesis 1:27 - Unity and diversity

So God created man
in his own image,
in the image of God
he created him;
male and female
he created them.

First occurrence of poetry in the Bible! And what a lovely poem it is too... The truth that humans are made in God's image is so important that it's repeated three times in two verses! 'We are made in God's image' - have you got that?? Take hold of that truth and apply it to your own life: you are hugely valuable and special to God.

Now we move on to the trickier aspects of this passage: the singular and the plural references in this verse (remember I do enjoy a bit of grammar!)

Unity: 'Man' in the first line of the poem is singular  this is because the first man represents all of us.Sin entered the world 'through one man' (Romans 5:12) and we're all implicated in that sin because we all belong to one man. But the sin that came into the world through one man's disobedience is overcome by salvation through one man's faithfulness (Romans 5:19). The human race is a single 'mankind'.

Diversity: God made them male and female, so plural. Mankind is made male and female for three reasons:

1. to fulfil 1:28 - 'be fruitful and increase'
2. to image what God is like - unity and diversity
3. to demonstrate the relationship between God and His people (Ephesians 5:22-27)

Both our gender and our relationships with the opposite sex are significant because they're part of imaging God. So behave carefully and prayerfully!

Genesis 1:26 - In God's image

This is the final stage of creation, the big finale, and one of the most extraordinary verses in the whole Bible...

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

God is consulting Himself, but Himself in the plural (red words). Bear with me through the grammar as it's important... The word for God used here ('Elohim') is itself plural, but the Bible later insists that the plural 'Elohim' refers to one God. For example, in Genesis 6:13 God ('Elohim') says to Noah, 'I am going to destroy the earth'. So this plurality (us, our) shows that God's oneness involves diversity: the Creator God (Father) is at the same time present in creation through His Spirit (Holy Spirit) and active in creation through His Word (Son). They are in relationship with each other.

The second amazing thing in this verse is that man is made in God's image, in his likeness! My image of God is marred because of my sin, but as Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20) I can still be a good 'likeness' of God to others.

Genesis 1:14-25 - God fills what he's formed

We've seen how God formed the world (days 1, 2 and 3) and now we see God will the world (days 4, 5 and 6). Like the first three days 'God said' and it happened, and God said that it was good. The order of the filling mirrors the order of the forming: (I tried to do arrows but they didn't want to work!)

CHAOS
GOD FORMED
Day 1: Light & dark	Day 2: Water & sky	Day 3: Land & sea
GOD FILLED
Day 4: Sun, moon & stars	Day 5: Fish & birds	Day 6: Living creatures

As I said yesterday the sun, moon and stars have no special powers - they merely mark time and give light. This is why we could have 'evening and morning' without them. It also explains why we shouldn't worship them and follow a horoscope. We could even use this as a gospel opportunity and say 'I don't follow the stars; I follow the creator of the stars!' (How cheesy is that?!)

The Magician's Nephew goes on in describing the creation of Narnia:

You could imagine that it [the sun] laughed for joy as it came up. And as its beams shot across the land the travellers could see for the first time what sort of place they were in. It was a valley through which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward toward the sun. Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colours: they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was open in song and it was about three hundred yards away...
The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains, making that young world every moment softer. The light wind could now be heard ruffling the grass. Soon there were other things beside grass. The higher slopes grew dark with heather. Patches of rougher and more bristling green appeared in the valley... It was a little, spiky thing that threw out dozens of arms and covered these arms with green and grew larger at the rate of about an inch every two seconds. There was dozens of these things all round him [Digory] now. When they were nearly as tall as himself he saw what they were. 'Trees!' he exclaimed.
There was certainly plenty to watch and listen to. The tree which Digory had noticed first was now a full-grown beech whose branches swayed gently above his head. They stood on cool, green grass, sprinkled with daisies and buttercups. A little way off, along the river bank, willows were growing. On the other side tangles of flowering currant, lilac, wild rose, and rhododendron closed them in.
All this time the Lion's song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on... Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connexion between the music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) 'out of the Lion's head'.

I'll leave the creation of the animals for another day!