01/26/2024
An Introduction to the Creation Narrative of Genesis 1 & 2
"Up to this point in time in the history of the formulation of Biblical theology, the unity of God and of Scripture as God’s revelation has not always been seriously considered as evidenced by the growing body of work that treats Scripture as merely the history of redemption, narrowly understood as the salvation of man from the effects of sin. Other than to anticipate redemption in Christ, the Old Testament, in the minds of many Christians, has very little to say about origins or living the life of faith. The Mosaic law is thrown overboard and what we have left is the “law of love”. This assessment of the state of Biblical theology as practiced by many pastors and congregations becomes acutely evident, for example, when many passages in Scripture are contextualized to the point of being considered irrelevant today, such as the passages relating to the place of women in the church, the function of the Sabbath institution, natural law regarding the genders, the role of faith in public life, etc. Scripture is relegated to the background unless it supports the narratives concerning “social justice” and other favored contemporary issues.
"This understanding of redemption history, when viewed from the perspective of eternity is a very narrow band of time. Those who major in the chapter from Gn. 3 to Revelation 19, especially those who major in the New Testament only, will always find themselves wanting in the answers to their “why” and “how” questions. Why was Adam created and why was he created with the ability to sin? Does this mean Adam was not “perfect” when he was created? In this light, what does the pronouncement of God mean when he called his creation “very good”? What is the relevance of Adam other than to set the stage for redemption? Why did Jesus perform signs? What do the signs mean? Why did the gospel have to be shrouded in mystery before the heavenly beings? When Job, in his quest for an explanation of his sufferings, is answered out of the whirlwind, God hearkens back to Creation and to the time before the beginning of time. (Job 38 and following) Yet, even God’s answer, from today’s human perspective, does not “really” answer Job’s ‘why’ questions. But, in fact, God’s answer is the true answer, except that it does not satisfy the human spirit.
"In reading through all of Scripture, one realizes that, upon reaching the book of Revelation, history returns to where it began. But instead of a return to the original Creation, there is now a New Creation. Isaiah says that God “knows the end from the beginning,” determined the purpose of all Creation and the destination toward which all Creation will end, the New Creation. One can view the account in Genesis as the seed upon which the consummation of all things blossom. In Genesis, we see an out-of-focus picture of the end that is to come. One can say that the Fall and Redemption are “detours”, from a Biblical perspective, to the inevitable predestined end – the accomplishment of all the purposes of God for Creation. Even the Fall and Redemption are part of the plan, albeit a surprise for us humans, but especially a surprise for the spirit beings in the heavenly places. So, even the Fall and Redemption are foreordained detours, the explanation for which, man, in his finiteness, will never fully grasp in his lifetime except in some small measure because of the revelation in Scripture.
Redemption is a rather long interlude in the pages of Scripture. Redemption, as currently understood, is important but not overarching in terms of understanding God’s overall plan. However, it is most significant in this regard – to fathom in some measure the love of God the Father for his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ. The character of God is written all over it and not without explanation. Redemption must be kept in perspective, as that which is sandwiched between the end and the beginning. Redemption, while not the most important from the perspective of understanding purpose, is most needful for man, because it addresses the human condition and the way out of that condition. That condition is of being in rebellion against the God, who himself created man. Redemption is as important as Creation and Re-Creation because it is that without which, according to God’s plan, the end (Gk. τελος) will not be reached. Redemption looms large in Scripture and, consequently, in man’s thinking because it is that which extricates him from an otherwise irretrievable condition – that of being outside the pale of God’s presence. And it is in God’s presence that there is life and blessing.
"In Creation and in Re-Creation, the purposes of God for his creatures are stated, sometimes explicitly as a proposition, as in Romans 9:17 with regard to Pharaoh, or at other times implicitly, by way of command as in Gn. 3:28. Redemption is a waypoint, albeit a very extended detour from a human perspective, in the journey toward fulfilling God’s purposes for that which he has created. Indeed, one could view all of history as four major distinct clusters of events: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Re-Creation. In a parallel fashion, Biblical history is a record of the formation of the first Adam, the fall of the first Adam, the promise of a Seed (the last Adam), the incarnation of the Seed, the redemption by Christ (the Seed), and the exaltation of Christ (the crucified Son of Man). By saying that redemption is a waypoint, it is not thereby contended that redemption is unimportant, nor does it detract from redemption being a central element of God’s eternal decrees. Indeed, redemption, if understood as a decree from God, underlies all the events of history between creation and consummation, because at the center of all of God’s activities, including creation and consummation, but especially redemption, is Christ.
In God’s sovereignty, he has chosen to glorify himself with that which he has created, in spite of man’s rebellion. It could be surmised that God could have done it some other way, but he did not. Instead, God decreed to “bring back” the people he has created for himself into his kingdom by means of redemption in Christ. When the Jews were taking pride in their being children of Abraham, John the baptizer remarked, “8Bear fruit that befits repentance, 9 and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” God could have brought about a new humanity that would be thankful to him and give him proper worship. But God did not have it another way other than to be glorified through the repentance of his chosen people instead of their damnation and replacement.
"What is obviously implied in the quote from John the baptizer above is that the creation happened exactly as it is described in Genesis – that God created man out of the dust of the ground. Jesus’ use of the word “stone” (Gk. lithos) can be the subject of an extended speculation or study. But one thing is clear, the words used refer to some material out of which the earth is made. The LXX uses the word “earth” (Gk. gē) in Genesis, a term comprehensive enough to put to rest any unnecessary quibbling over what John the baptizer meant. But the other implication, which is not so obvious, is that, while God could create a new humanity to replace the physical children of Abraham, that was not the course of action that God had chosen. Instead, God chose to redeem his people and all of Creation.
"Most rationalistic objections by unbelievers to the gospel and to the Biblical God pertain to issues related to this interlude, the time period between Creation and Consummation. And these issues relate to the violence of man against man, of sin, of suffering, of tragedy, and of death. It is man’s inability to accept that God, who alone is good, not only allows the presence of evil in the world but also actively judges the world in his wrath. But this interlude is also the time in which redemption takes place. Even believers have “occasional” doubt as to God’s goodness because of a lack of understanding of the substance of Gn. 3, which marked the entry of sin into the world, and also because of a misunderstanding of the word “good.” Other believers have an optimistic view of the world because of a soft-pedalling of the curses found in Gn. 3, wherein all of man’s faculties and members have been infected and therefore affected by sin.
"All the suffering and death occur between the creation of the heavens, the earth (and all that is in them) and the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth. Many misinterpretations of Scripture and false and inadequate theologies are the result of the failure to consider the fact that all the chapters of Scripture between and including Gn. 3 and Revelation 19 belong to the time slot between the Creation and the Re-Creation. It is the time between the entry of sin into the world and the time when sin is finally banished at the inception of the new heavens and the new earth. The time before Gn. 3 and the time after Revelation 19 describe the setting and the denouement, respectively, of the live “drama” called history.
"In sum, God achieved what he set out to do in Creation and in all stages in-between Creation and Consummation. Obviously, the Consummation is still awaited. But we await, not with bated breath, but with eager expectation. The Consummation is the summing up of all things, the end of all history as we know it. The end is not when time runs out. The end is not merely a termination. It is the goal toward which all that happens are moving toward; it is the “telos”, the perfection of which the Bible speaks. There are intermediate perfections, which explains why all things that God makes and accomplishes are perfect. All the intermediate perfections move toward their appointed destination. The intermediate perfections are perfections because, in God’s providence, things are where they should be at any particular intermediate point in time as God had intended them. God does not start over, if, for some reason, something is found to be “imperfect” (at least from a human estimation). Every time slice of history is therefore perfect in God’s eyes.
"It is a common practice to emphasize redemption, not only because it occupies a very large portion of Scripture and human history but also because it speaks to the human condition directly. Redemption is popularly seen as getting people out of hell and into heaven, which is true only in part. Redemption, when proclaimed apart from man’s rebellion, God’s wrath on sin, and the necessity of repentance is a watered-down message that will gain nothing. To preach salvation without God’s righteous demands on the law-breaker is to misunderstand the death of Christ upon which the gospel is centered. It is of first importance to preach that Christ died for [our] sins according to the Scripture. It is the “sin” part of the statement that must not be neglected. The seriousness with which God sees human sinfulness is what brought about the death of Jesus. Seen from a different perspective, the amount of narration concerning human sin is way more than the direct narration concerning the death of Christ and helps in the understanding of such summary statements in Scripture such as “sin, when full-grown, brings forth death.” Additionally, in the providence of God, maturity and growth is a slow process and so is decay. This accounts for the length of the Biblical narratives concerning sin, judgment, and death. The natural multiplication of humanity also accounts for the thousands of years of history. Yes, it is in the same historical contiguous space and time in which Scripture narrates and explains what God has done in Christ in saving men from sin and allowing them back into his kingdom. This space-time history is the long interlude during which God redeems and his longsuffering shines brightly. The end of history waits for the coming in of the full number of the Gentiles. In this manner, all of God’s Israel, that is, all of God’s people will be saved.
One of the failures of the currently held views concerning the redemptive-historical approach is in its inability to include and be bound by themes of Creation and Re-Creation and in its inadequacy to grasp the unavoidable and humanly irreparable implications of the curse of God upon man and the created order. While this earth remains, the curse upon it remains until the consummation. There is no indication in Scripture that there is anything that human effort can do to stem the tide of the curse of God.
"Redemption is not just about salvation from sin. Redemption is not just about man but about all of Creation. God did not just subject man to the inevitable punishment of death but the whole creation was subject to futility. The beneficiary of redemption is all of Creation. Redemption is built on a proper understanding of the covenant of the Kingdom of God, the Dominion Covenant (which includes the so-called “covenant of works”), the substance of which permeates, transcends, and comprehends all the commands and declarations of God in Scripture.
"The redemptive-historical view of the law of God has resulted in the cheapening of the Biblical teaching concerning grace, having the very opposite of what redemptive-historical theology wants to convey. The very notion of grace requires belief in the relief from bo***ge, which the recipients of grace do not deserve. It is law s the death of the sinner. It is grace that extricates man from the bo***ge to that death requirement that resulted from disobedience. To not believe in the function of law as a pointer to Christ is to sever grace from that which makes it necessary – disobedience to the God who promulgated the law. Some who believe in the historical-redemptive approach argue that “Christ is the end (Gk. telos) of the law for righteousness,” interpreting that phrase to mean that the coming of Christ meant not simply that the law has become useless as a means of gaining acceptance with God but that the law has become useless as a means by which faithfulness in the Christian life is to be measured. But nothing can be farther from the truth because it has never been the case that anyone could enter the kingdom by any performance.
"First, the law, even if narrowly understood as Ten Words that were given through Moses, came after the deliverance from Egypt on Israel’s way to the land promised to Abraham. It was law that was to govern the covenant community and whoever else that may live under that theocracy. It is in this context that both the sojourner, the alien within the gates, and the neighbor is to be narrowly conceived. The application of the words “sojourner”, “alien”, and “neighbor” must carefully take into account the covenantal context of the Old Testament. In other words, the Mosaic laws were covenantal rules within the Israelite community. The Mosaic Ten Words were prefaced by “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you from Egypt, from the house of bo***ge.” Therefore, the primary application of the law is to those within the covenant community, which in today’s terms, is God’s church, his people. Of course, God’s moral standards are for everyone, and it is that by which God’s judgment is made.
"But it is obviously not expected that those who have not owned God as Lord and recognized Jesus as God’s Son will ever really obey the law of God because these pagans are fundamentally opposed to God and for no other reason. By the same token, the applicability of the law to the converted is made clearer by the foregoing arguments. If the law was primarily applied to God’s covenant people after their rescue from Egypt, then the law’s primary applicability after the coming of Jesus the Messiah is to those who have been saved by Jesus, the covenant community of believers. This negates the redemptive-historical argument that the law does not apply anymore.
"Second, Paul argues that, when the law came, sin abounded even more. Indeed, all have been consigned to disobedience in order that the only way by which God’s favor can be obtained is through his mercy alone. The mirror of the law daily shows God’s covenant people their need for God’s gracious forgiveness in Christ. The possession of the law is, of itself, not the direct evidence of God’s grace, contrary to what Jews believe, but a pointer to God’s grace in Christ, through whom alone there is forgiveness. The law shows the gravity and the extent of the believer’s sinfulness and thus points him to Christ, the Savior.
"Third, the law continues to apply to the believer because God himself will write that law into their hearts. If the law has become useless after Christ, then there would be no need to write it in men’s hearts. But Jer. 31:33 says exactly the opposite. The new covenant is actually the old covenant, but it is new because it is written, not in tablets of stone but in the hearts of men. That inscripturation in the heart is the newness of the covenant.
"Fourth, the law is a signpost to God’s sovereign choice. The law was not given to any other nation but Israel. So, in the text from Jeremiah, the law, as a new covenant, will be written in the hearts of men. The new covenant marks the transition from the old physical covenant to the new spiritual covenant, a covenant not marked by rituals, observances, feasts, and ceremonies but by the reality of Christ and the presence of the Spirit.
"It is argued that, homiletically, it is the law of love that must be pre-eminent, because listeners in the church are post-conversion. But if, as Jesus said, that wheat and tares must be allowed to grow together (Mt 13:24-30), then, to not preach law is to deprive the unbelievers in the congregation (and remind the believers) of the opportunity to repent of their smug attitude toward God. In the law are the covenantal demands of God and is a reminder to all of their need for a savior. In the law is also prefigured the Christ who was to come, who, in fact, has come to fulfill the righteous demands of the law. Without law there can be no grace. Without law, there is no covenant, which is the fabric of God’s relationship with man.
