Genesis: A Conceptual Beginning -- Rene Milner
Since our last pondering in the beginning of March, we have been immersed in Genesis 1-3. What a delight! Despite spending hours together each week pondering the depths of the beginning we feel like we have barely scratched the surface. Together for the first time we saw the profundity of what God did in that short (at least on paper) time. Yes, the genesis of the physical world as we had seen before but, looking at it from each other’s perspectives and sharing our understanding a whole new world is beginning (pun intended).
Genesis One. We had always known that God made the heavens and the earth and all that fills the earth, but as we looked at it we began to realize that this also was the “genesis” of many other things so much more real and vital than the physical world. This is the beginning of all the concepts. All the rules and mechanisms that guide the universe. The things we cannot see. All the concepts that interact with our daily lives and give us meaning and purpose. Those things that we cannot see but that are so much more vital to our entire existence than the mere physical structure around us.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void…
Confused, empty unreal and a waste. Into this God originates the concept of meaning, reality and organization. God speaks light into existence and in so doing gives birth to “good”. The writer records God as “seeing” that it was good, when in fact God already knew it was good. Why is that? For whatever reason, light and good will forever be inextricably linked. Perhaps dark then by extrapolation will be “bad”? At the same time light gives order to the physical creation. Days, seasons, years. Time itself created with that very first “speech”. In this act, the concept of seeing and knowing is born as well. Later we see that Eve sees some things but has no ability to truly know the good and evil. In the end all of our eternal existence hangs on that very “seeing and knowing”. To start, we are ever seeing but never knowing. We need something other than our eyes to truly see, but that is ahead of where we are.
God goes on and speaks land, water, vegetation and animals into existence. The meaning was first, then physical creation, and then mankind. The reason was there before mankind. What you ask was the reason? Fill the land and subdue the land and the animals. The concept of dominion began. The concept of true rule (rada) as God had intended. Not the kind of “rule over” (masal) later made into existence by Adam and Eve’s transgression. The kind that will forever create a struggle in the life of couples.
Interestingly God spoke everything into existence. Then God speaks to those with Him about man and actually forms mankind out of the dust. Hence the concept that man is different and separate from the rest of creation. As He creates all of this, God blesses it causing the concept of blessing (and consequently cursing) to come into existence. From blessing He moves on to creating the concept of multiplication and fruitfulness.
Order and all the structure of our understanding in the sciences is made in the time that He ordains each plant and animal after its own kind. Then work comes into being when God creates the garden for man to (awbad/shamar) serve and guard it. Not work as we made it to be while standing at the foot of the only tree with a command. Not the pain, labor, hardship, sorrow and toil (Issabon) of Eve in childbirth and Adam in scratching out a living from the land, but the work of living in the garden with “the voice of Yehovah Elohim going about in the garden (of delight) in the (ruah) breath/wind/spirit”. (see Gen. 3:8,literally) That was work as God created and intended. Following this God initiates the concept of rest. Our idea of rest is all messed up because our idea of work is all messed up. Oh Lord, “take us back to the garden of delight where we can learn to work as intended and rest as you desire.”
Yet at the end, before the rest, Mankind. God makes mankind. Male and female together he makes them. In the beginning they are created as one. They are mankind. So often we separate them and don’t realize that in the beginning man and women were one. It is God who separates them. Some would say because male should not be “alone”. In this moment God creates the realization that mankind needs a Helper. Often,
we read this and think of Eve but if this is true only of Eve, then Eve was already with Adam long before she was made into woman. She was intimately a part of him. Why then would the one God take them apart? We touched on this before. Mal_2:15 “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
He took them apart so that He could put them back together with The Spirit joining them. And there you have it; the concept of Faithfulness and Fidelity is born. The very purpose of marriage is to put two together with something stronger than the flesh that holds ribs to muscle and organs. The Spirit.
Although Adam and Eve continue to help each other for better or worse to this very day, in this moment God creates what we would call His greatest concept of all. After making the heavens and the earth, with all the rules and concepts that govern creation, then all the creatures and mankind, God reveals to eternity the concept of the Helper. After Adam has named all the animals, with the recognition that there is no helper for him, Eve is made, and Adam declares that she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He seems delighted in her but there is no indication from God that this is truly the helper. She definitely helps him get into trouble but there is at least a hint here that there is a True and Lasting Helper that is to come. And God rests.
Genesis One. We had always known that God made the heavens and the earth and all that fills the earth, but as we looked at it we began to realize that this also was the “genesis” of many other things so much more real and vital than the physical world. This is the beginning of all the concepts. All the rules and mechanisms that guide the universe. The things we cannot see. All the concepts that interact with our daily lives and give us meaning and purpose. Those things that we cannot see but that are so much more vital to our entire existence than the mere physical structure around us.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void…
Confused, empty unreal and a waste. Into this God originates the concept of meaning, reality and organization. God speaks light into existence and in so doing gives birth to “good”. The writer records God as “seeing” that it was good, when in fact God already knew it was good. Why is that? For whatever reason, light and good will forever be inextricably linked. Perhaps dark then by extrapolation will be “bad”? At the same time light gives order to the physical creation. Days, seasons, years. Time itself created with that very first “speech”. In this act, the concept of seeing and knowing is born as well. Later we see that Eve sees some things but has no ability to truly know the good and evil. In the end all of our eternal existence hangs on that very “seeing and knowing”. To start, we are ever seeing but never knowing. We need something other than our eyes to truly see, but that is ahead of where we are.
God goes on and speaks land, water, vegetation and animals into existence. The meaning was first, then physical creation, and then mankind. The reason was there before mankind. What you ask was the reason? Fill the land and subdue the land and the animals. The concept of dominion began. The concept of true rule (rada) as God had intended. Not the kind of “rule over” (masal) later made into existence by Adam and Eve’s transgression. The kind that will forever create a struggle in the life of couples.
Interestingly God spoke everything into existence. Then God speaks to those with Him about man and actually forms mankind out of the dust. Hence the concept that man is different and separate from the rest of creation. As He creates all of this, God blesses it causing the concept of blessing (and consequently cursing) to come into existence. From blessing He moves on to creating the concept of multiplication and fruitfulness.
Order and all the structure of our understanding in the sciences is made in the time that He ordains each plant and animal after its own kind. Then work comes into being when God creates the garden for man to (awbad/shamar) serve and guard it. Not work as we made it to be while standing at the foot of the only tree with a command. Not the pain, labor, hardship, sorrow and toil (Issabon) of Eve in childbirth and Adam in scratching out a living from the land, but the work of living in the garden with “the voice of Yehovah Elohim going about in the garden (of delight) in the (ruah) breath/wind/spirit”. (see Gen. 3:8,literally) That was work as God created and intended. Following this God initiates the concept of rest. Our idea of rest is all messed up because our idea of work is all messed up. Oh Lord, “take us back to the garden of delight where we can learn to work as intended and rest as you desire.”
Yet at the end, before the rest, Mankind. God makes mankind. Male and female together he makes them. In the beginning they are created as one. They are mankind. So often we separate them and don’t realize that in the beginning man and women were one. It is God who separates them. Some would say because male should not be “alone”. In this moment God creates the realization that mankind needs a Helper. Often,
we read this and think of Eve but if this is true only of Eve, then Eve was already with Adam long before she was made into woman. She was intimately a part of him. Why then would the one God take them apart? We touched on this before. Mal_2:15 “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
He took them apart so that He could put them back together with The Spirit joining them. And there you have it; the concept of Faithfulness and Fidelity is born. The very purpose of marriage is to put two together with something stronger than the flesh that holds ribs to muscle and organs. The Spirit.
Although Adam and Eve continue to help each other for better or worse to this very day, in this moment God creates what we would call His greatest concept of all. After making the heavens and the earth, with all the rules and concepts that govern creation, then all the creatures and mankind, God reveals to eternity the concept of the Helper. After Adam has named all the animals, with the recognition that there is no helper for him, Eve is made, and Adam declares that she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He seems delighted in her but there is no indication from God that this is truly the helper. She definitely helps him get into trouble but there is at least a hint here that there is a True and Lasting Helper that is to come. And God rests.
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