It’s really interesting to me how close heaven and earth were in the beginning. God was near and communed in His creating. The chasm was created by sin. It continues to widen. Only Christ’s return can restore the peace that was. Let’s think about days three through five and most of day six.
I find it really fascinating to think about God speaking and things just happening. Yet the Word also tells us he formed things. Genesis 1 tells us he separated the waters from the waters, but elsewhere we are told how He stretched out the sky:
Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror? [Job 37:18]
You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. [Psalm 104:1b-2]
And we are also told how John saw this same sky rolled back like a scroll in the future:
The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. [Revelation 6:14]
As majestic as this creation seems to us, the mere spoken word of the Creator can change it all in an instant.
As the earth and its contents begin to take shape and form, and it begins to be filled with vegetation and life, it is clear that there is a design. Just as all things were created with a view to Christ, the earth was created with a view toward God’s ultimate creation of man, his image bearer. Just as God is intricate in every detail, he so designed the earth in perfect order, preparing it for its inhabitants.
Each stage of life that was created was created higher than the previous stage. Plants cannot move about and have no instincts. The fish of the sea and the birds of the air certainly do. The four-legged beasts have even stronger wills. Yet they do not have souls and were not created in the image of God as was man. Yet even in His creating, He planned for many of these animals to serve symbolic purposes in His kingdom to point the way to Christ.
It is almost painful to think about how perfect it was all created to be. No death—probably not even between animals. The lion was likely lying down with the lamb then. No survival of the fittest. As Homer Hoeksema puts it, “Originally there was perfect harmony: harmony between God and man, between man and animal, and between animal and animal. The creation was marked by peace, rooted in peace with God.”[1]
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [Romans 8:19-22]
Enjoy this short video: Perfect Harmony
[1] Hoeksema, Homer. Unfolding Covenant History: An Exposition of the Old Testament, Vol. I, From Creation to the Flood. Reformed Free Publishing Assoc., 2000, p. 72.
Yes... there was perfect harmony between all of creation and between creation and G-d. We still have a piece of that harmony and it propels us forward through the dark days of the past and the present and steers us as a light into the darkness of the future.
ReplyDeleteAll of creation was birthed from a song G-d sang. The Hebrew language itself is a song and it is so powerful that it can bring life to that which is dead.
After the world, garden, and people were created, G-d rested on the seventh day. By resting, He still created. Creation is his personality...bringing life to that which is dead. When He rested that seventh day, Shabbat (Sabbath) was created in itself. What is so important about Shabbat?
In Christian circles, it is traditional for Sunday to be the day of worship. However, this is not Biblically correct. According to the ancient Hebrew calendars that have existed through the ages, Shabbat became Shabbat at sunset on Friday evening and lasted until sunset on Saturday evening. And so it has been from its creation. However, about 1700 yrs. ago Shabbat was changed from Saturday to Sunday in order for pagans to intertwine their pagan beliefs into this "new" Christianity they decided to embrace. After almost 300 yrs. of Christian persecustion, it was decided "if we can't kill them off, we might as well join them, but only on our terms". This was a ruler named Constantine...
At this point in time, it was decreed that all traces of Judaism were to be eradicated from Christianity participation and belief. Shabbat was one of the first things to go. Greek and Roman pagan beliefs were to worship the Sun god and Sunday was his day of worship. No harm done, they said... no problem. We will worship on Sunday and call it Christianity. So it was with Shabbat, the Feasts and Festivals, even the authenticity of the Tanach in translation was jeapordized. Even down to the name of Jesus... and this will be a real shock... His Name is Yehoshua (shortened to Yeshua) and His Name in it's correct Hebrew meaning is "Joshua". When Judaism was being eradicated from Christianity, the translation of Yehoshua / Yeshua became "Iseus" and prounounced "Zeus". When later translations were done in English, the translators knew that the Greek word pronounced the "Is" as "Zs" or "Js", they translated to be "Jesus".
Back to the Covenant of Shabbat... Shabbat was to be a day of rest for all men so that they could rest their bodies and take time to commune with Hashem. After the expulsion from Gan Eden, Shabbat continued to exist and to be observed. However, it was at Har Sinai that Hashem gave the command to His people to "remember Shabbat" and to "keep Shabbat"; it was to be a holy day of no work. And so it was, even for the first Christians until it was taken away by the pagan influence of Constantine.
Over the centuries, however, the Jews have developed a saying... "The miracle of Shabbat is not that the Jews keep Shabbat, but that Shabbat keeps the Jews!"
ReplyDeleteIt was this Covenant that has been so holy to the Jewish people for almost 3500 years that has kept them as a nation, intact, even though they have been disbursed all over the world many times over. When threatened with genocide in WW2 under Hitler (may his name be erased forever), even in the death camps the inmates knew when it was Shabbat. They had nothing materially or physically, but they had Shabbat. Every week, the grueling toil of their labor...in the back of their minds, memories of pleasant Shabbatim spent with family and friends filled their minds and knowing that Shabbat would come again at sunset on Friday. Unable to fully observe in the camps, they still did what they could... a prayer here, a lighted wick there, a small page of Torah that had been hidden and saved from the eyes of the Nazis being read in observance.
Yeshua kept Shabbat in the traditional way of the Jews. When things got hard for him, he remembered Shabbat and the appointed times of the Feasts for his people.
Shabbat is a day of worship, yes, but it is also a day of refreshing and renewal of the neshama (spirit and soul) within us. I find that many churches today have reduced their day of observance into a day of induced slavery... meetings, play practices, ball games, choir practices, parties and the like. It is no longer a day of rest, worship and reflection... it is a day of running to and fro and being exhausted on Monday from the whole ordeal.
Shabbat observed in the traditional Jewish way brings so much more to our lives. It is all about Hashem, family, friends and genuine rest for the soul. What a wonderful Covenant for G-d's people, whether Jew or Gentile!