In these first few episodes, in the first four specifically, we’re going to be looking at some of the conventions that scripture uses to convey a message.
Let me explain what I mean. The scripture itself is an image. It’s not the reality of what happened.
Now slow down. Hold the gamete. Let me take a second to explain that further.
There are a lot of possible views on how Genesis 1 is to be interpreted.
And unfortunately, most of those views come from a scientific standpoint.
We’ve got 13.7 billion years. That’s a possibility. Seven literal days. There’s gap theory. There’s more ways to interpret Genesis 1 than there are actual words in Genesis 1. It’s baffling.
The fact of the matter is, though, when we start to examine scripture through the lens of life, none of those things really matter.
How? The mechanics? It’s not important. The reason they don’t matter is because they don’t change action.
They don’t end up bringing life to those who hear them. They might in the beginning, I know why myself was brought through a specific view.
The view on Genesis 1 that made sense to me is one that’s not everybody agrees with, and it’s not one that I even really agree with anymore.
But it was something that God used to bring me to it, and we’ll talk about that more in a later episode.
Because the question comes down to it as we consider all of these possibilities of Genesis 1 and what it means is what is good, what is right interpretation.
That’s a scary thought when you think about it, considering that both good and evil, the whole question itself is on the tree of a tree that brings death. That’s right.
So when we look for life, when we look for truth, we have to go to a place of consensus on this. What is it that can bring us together in this chapter?
And it’s a very simple thing that brings us together, and I think that that’s where we need to draw the line.
Anything beyond this is causing division where there need not be any, and that place is that God created this earth.
That’s it. That’s the place of life when we view this chapter as a whole.
That’s the place where we can all agree and come together as a community and affirm God made this planet disk, whatever you want to call it. God made it. We live here.
Okay, so as we’re looking for life, we have to recognize simple head knowledge that really doesn’t change you is, it might be a beginning, but it’s not a place that we should stay.
It’s not a place where we need to remain. We need to move past that to the things that can actually bear fruit.
Because belief in biblical understanding, belief isn’t just simply putting an idea in your head and assenting that it is true.
Belief in biblical understanding is action. You don’t move unless you believe that moving in that direction is the right thing to do.
That’s where belief comes in. It informs everything you do. You don’t cook dinner unless you think that cooking dinner is the right thing unless you believe that you need food.
You don’t go to the store unless you believe that you need something. You don’t accept your shoe in your life unless you believe it.
but then you don’t act out the kingdom in the world.
You don’t obey unless you believe
that those things are important.
And so we’re trying to track down this thing called belief.
We’re trying to act in this way, called belief.
So I’m gonna put a picture up here on the screen.
I said I opened with scripture as an image.
So we’re gonna use this image as a experiment.
We’re gonna look at it to kind of get our minds rolling
and exactly what that means.
The picture you’re looking at right now is a painting
it’s called Central Park Bridge.
It was painted by Quad Buck in 1915.
And not a very well known painting.
You can actually buy it for $2,000 right now
on some website.
Anyway, but as we look at this picture,
we will see that there is a several conventions
used within the composition of this.
It’s a representative piece of art.
It’s not trying to exactly model a bridge.
We’re stuck with only one point of view
as we look at this image.
If we were to go to Central Park,
we could walk around the bridge.
We could see it from many different sides.
We could walk across the bridge.
Good luck doing that with this picture.
Try it, print it out, go try and walk across it,
see if it works.
One thing you’ll notice is that the bridge
is partially obscured.
The whole bridge isn’t in the picture.
We’re missing part of it.
And that missing is something that we fill in.
Again, we’ll talk about that in a little bit.
The image itself is limited in style
and talent to the artist.
It’s not perfect.
It has its own flaws based on the artist.
So no one expects this picture to actually go out
and use it to span some sort of expanse
and to walk across on the picture.
We realize that it’s just a picture.
So how many of us do that with the Bible?
Do we look to the Bible and look at what it tells us about creation?
And then it’s as if we look at this picture of this bridge and we begin to argue over
what materials were used to construct this bridge, what was the style that the architect
followed, the engineers, what order did they do it, how long did it take, so on and so forth.
And we begin to argue over many of those things, but how pointless is that with this bridge
to argue over these things, not to say that they aren’t present in the image, but to argue
over them.
But we approach Genesis 1, that’s what most people tend to focus on, is the timing, the
architecture and mechanics, how things came to be.
And a lot of it is reactionary, where we’re trying to respond to claims that have been
made against the Bible.
And when we do that, we end up allowing those who have an agenda against the Bible to set
the conversation.
And let’s stop doing that.
Let us start setting the conversation and make them respond.
And we can do that by shifting our question.
And that’s part of what this thing is all about, it’s about shifting that question from
good and evil to life and death.
And the fact of the matter is, we can’t live Genesis 1.
We can’t.
Nobody did.
Man doesn’t make an appearance until day six.
All of the stuff that came before, it’s what God wants us to know.
Was God concerned about timing?
And perhaps.
But then again, maybe he’s got something more going on in the picture, something more in
this image that he would rather us focus on than the timing.
The timing itself is important, but I don’t think it’s saying what most think it’s saying.
And the fact of the matter is, Scripture isn’t clear at times.
In fact, for the most part, a lot of it’s obscure things we wish it would say.
It doesn’t say.
And it leaves room for interpretation, it leaves some open-endedness.
We do know Scripture can be precise when it wants to be.
And so when it’s not, rather than trying to fill in the gaps and make it precise, which
isn’t necessarily all that bad, we’ll actually do that sometimes in the future.
But we have to look to what is being affirmed.
What is it that’s being said?
So that we have a guideline for what to fill those gaps with.
If we try to fill the gaps with our own agenda, well, we’re breaking up the wrong tree, we’re
going to miss it completely.
And so when Scripture’s affirming something, it will use one of several conventions.
And we’re going to look at one of those today, and that’s the repeat of a specific word
of phrase, having it appear multiple times.
We’re going to look at an example of that today and then try to figure out what that
tells us about Scripture and what it is that God is affirming to us in Scripture.
So let’s go ahead and read it, and then we’ll come back and we will explore.
So go ahead and open your Bible.
Genesis 1, we will read through chapter 2, verse 3, because that’s all one section.
So go ahead and open your Bibles, and let’s get to it.
In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth and the earth came to be formless
and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of Elohim was moving on the face
of the waters. And Elohim said let light come to be and light came to be. And Elohim saw the light
that it was good and Elohim separated the light from the darkness and Elohim called the light day
and the darkness he called night and there came to be evening and there came to be morning one day.
And Elohim said that an expanse come to be in the midst of the waters and let it separate the
waters from the waters and Elohim made the expanse and separated the waters which were under the
expanse from the waters which were above the expanse and it came to be so. And Elohim called the expanse
heavens and there came to be evening and there came to be morning the second day. And Elohim said let
the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and
it came to be so. And Elohim called the dry land earth and the collection of waters he called seas
and Elohim saw that it was good. And Elohim said let the earth bring forth grass the plant that
yields seed and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind after whose seed is in itself
on the earth and it came to be so. And the earth brought forth grass the plant that yields seeds
according to its kind and the fruit tree that yields fruit whose seed is in itself according to its
kind and Elohim saw that it was good and there came to be evening and there came to be morning the
third day. And Elohim said let lights come to be in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day
from the night and let them be for signs and appointed times and for days and years and let them be
for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light to the earth and it came to be so. And Elohim
made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and
the stars and Elohim set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule
over the day and over the night to separate the light from the darkness and Elohim saw that it was
good and there came to be evening and there came to be morning the fourth day. And Elohim said let
the waters team with shoals of living beings and let birds fly above the earth on the face of the
expanse of the heavens and Elohim created great sea creatures and every living being that moves
with which the waters teamed according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind
and Elohim saw that it was good and Elohim blessed them say be fruitful and increase and fill the
waters in the seas and let the birds increase on the earth and they came to be evening and they
came to be morning the fifth day and Elohim said that the earth bring forth the living being
according to its kind livestock and creeping creatures and beasts of the earth according to its kind
and it came to be so and Elohim made the beasts of the earth according to its kind livestock according
to its kind and all that creep on the earth according to its kind and Elohim saw that it was good and
Elohim said let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of
the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over all
the creeping creatures that creep on the ground and Elohim created the man in his image in the image
of Elohim he created him male and female he created them and Elohim blessed them and Elohim said to
them be fruitful and increase and fill the earth and some do it and rule over the fish of the sea
and over the birds of the heavens and over all creeping creatures on the earth and Elohim said see
I have given you every plant that yields seed which is on the face of the earth and every tree
whose fruit yields seed to you it is for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird
of the heavens and to every creeping creature on the earth in which there is a living being
every green plant is for food and it came to be so and Elohim saw all that he had made
and see it was very good and they came to be evening and they came to be morning the sixth
day thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their way and in the seventh day Elohim
completed his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from his work which he had made
and Elohim blessed the seventh day and set it apart because on it he rested from all his work
which Elohim in creating had made.
we have begun, especially. So as I opened with, when we look to this chapter of scripture, we usually try to science it.
We try to impose theories like Big Bang or various forms of cosmology. We try to go back to dating methods and accuracy of various dating methods and so on and so forth.
But let’s not do that. That’s not what this experiment is going to go through because I don’t see life in that.
So let’s not argue over the construction of this particular bridge. Let’s look to the bridge and figure out what it’s trying to convey.
So this chapter is packed full of words that are repeated over and over phrases that are repeated over and over and it’s actually a masterpiece when you consider when you put together all the things that are repeated and the number times are repeated.
It’s absolutely beautiful. There’s a structure to this chapter that reveals it as artistic.
But as I was considering and reading through this, trying to figure out how to think differently about it and where we can find life in it, we have to realize this is the opening chapter to the entire book, right? So it’s going to probably be somewhat foundational.
And as foundational, it might seem somewhat elementary, but perhaps it’s not as elementary as we might think it is. Sometimes we take thoughts for granted and we don’t fully realize just how our actions and our own theology can fly directly against what we also claim to be true in some other area of our life.
So that’s one of the things we’re going to look at this week, something very elementary, very foundational, but that I bet that most of us, I did it too, most of us, when we get to other areas of theology, when we get to other areas of acting out our life, we don’t really hold on to.
We don’t really believe it because belief informs action. So if we believe this, we will act as if this is the truth, right?
So as we considered it, that one straight phrase stuck out to me. So let’s shake the tree, let’s find out what pops out of here.
So that phrase, and it was good. As we read this chapter, we see that phrase repeated seven times, and each time it repeats, it’s talking about something in the physical, that is good.
So the physical itself is good. All right, is that something we can all agree on? Is that something that we can see in the text plainly stated and agree that that is something that is foundational to everything else that is written in Scripture?
All right, so let’s go forward. And I grew up in a Christian church. As I mentioned in the intro, I was raised in a denomination that was a split from a split from a split from a split.
And probably most of you are in the Christian church are in that same boat or work. So in the Christian church, I was raised to believe that when I die, I go to heaven and I’ll sit on the clouds and meet Jesus and we’ll hang out for a while until he comes back to earth.
Then I’ll come back to earth. I’ll put on a improved body.
I’ll live a thousand years with him and then everybody else is going back to heaven and we’re just gonna stay in heaven for the rest of eternity
Where does that put our focus when we think like that?
Does it put our focus here in the physical?
Or does it put our focus there in the immaterial,
in that eternal place that we will one day go to?
And as I’ve considered this and as I’ve talked to people, I find that this becomes the focus
of the Christian walk. Nothing else matters except for getting your wings when you die.
Nothing else matters. You can do whatever you want, but as long as you get those wings,
you’re good. You’re safe. And that is so wrong-minded because the physical is good. And if we actually
read Scripture from beginning to end, we’ll find that the opposite of earth is heaven,
and that heaven is God’s place, and earth is man’s place. There’s only one time in Scripture,
you will read of a person going to heaven. And that’s Daniel 7, and every time that an illusion
is made to Daniel 7, when the son of man rides on a cloud to the heavens to sit and throw him
next to God. Well, we know who that is. He’s the son of man, right? So why do we all think we get
There are a couple of ideas and we’ll get to those in just a few minutes.
So it’s not just Christianity either, that has this idea that when we are done, we move
on to some sort of spiritual existence.
In some traditions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, it’s that when we die, we become a spirit
that roams the earth until we find a place to be reborn, whether that be human or animal
of some sort.
New age thought is that we go to heaven, that everybody’s going to heaven, there is no
hell.
It’s just heaven.
There’s so many other traditions where this is the case.
And I’m not trying to say that something along those lines doesn’t happen.
What I am trying to say is that that’s not the focus of Scripture.
That’s not what Scripture is affirming.
Does it maybe perhaps mention something like that?
There are ways to read certain verses that do, yeah, that makes it seem that way.
But that’s not the focus of any of those places.
So because of this, because it’s not the focus of Scripture, we ourselves, we shouldn’t focus on it.
We shouldn’t make that our goal getting there rather than here.
And we’ve got to be really careful about forcing this idea into the pages of Scripture.
Let me give you an example of this occurring.
The outside idea being forced into the pages of Scripture in order to make Scripture say what the audience wants it to say.
Typical isegesis, reading into Scripture what you’ve already preconceived.
And I contend that that’s what most of us do when we think of heaven, or rather when we think of ourselves going to happen.
So an example of this, early Christianity was facing influx of philosophical thought that became merged with Christianity and it’s called Gnosticism.
So Gnosticism, if you look to the extra biblical works from the 1st and 2nd century, there’s a lot of works out there called the Gnostic Gospels which were books written by these Gnostic thinkers trying to meld the God of the Bible and Jesus Yeshua into someone that’s preaching their ideas.
And I don’t recommend reading those, there’s no benefit in reading those unless you’re a scholar who is reading them for the sake of understanding the outside arguments of the surrounding culture.
There is a place for reading them, but if you’re just a guy trying to live your life, I’ve read a few. They’re pointless.
So Gnosticism itself is directly attributable to Plato, we can go all the way back to Plato and there’s even a guy before him who began Plato on this line of thought.
Many religious traditions came from that and the Platonic philosophy was saturating the area.
And that is that the physical is bad, the spiritual is good.
And that’s the basic tenet of Gnosticism, that the physical is either immaterial or it’s not good in any way, as the spiritual is where we should seek to go.
Gnostic thought tells us that the God of creation is unknowable, something that we can’t even begin to comprehend.
It then tells us that this God of creation created the universe and placed within its spiritual beings called Aeon’s.
All of the Aeon’s themselves were good until one specific Aeon became evil and that Aeon then created the physical world and trapped spirits in physical form.
That we know as human.
And so now that divine spark of humanity is trapped in this physical prison and we should seek to escape this prison and return back to our spiritual state that we are naturally good in.
Physical bad, spiritual good, right?
The sole goal of all of life is to ascend from physical to spiritual.
To become that pure spiritual being that we were intended to be in the first place.
But the only way, the only way that you can ascend in that way is that proper knowledge.
That properly understanding things.
By accepting this mystery knowledge that was being taught in other places and other thoughts and other traditions and then walking it out in your life.
Well, actually in narcissism, they wouldn’t walk it out in their life.
It was just attaining it was enough.
There was no action required.
And unfortunately, most of the Christian Church treats their belief in Yeshua in the same way.
There’s no action required simply right thought.
Hey, you can return to your spiritual state.
And the God of narcissism doesn’t care about sin so much as he cares about ignorance.
how many of us act that way with our fellow believers
that God cares about their ignorance?
I mean, they can live perfectly, but if they don’t think the same way I do,
if they don’t interpret the same way I do, well, I’ve got no place for them, right?
Ah, so backwards.
So, to many of you, this probably sounds familiar.
That God only cares about what we believe.
Belief is completely disconnected from action, our flesh is evil,
and what we have to look forward to is escaping it and returning to our spiritual state,
leaving the flesh behind forever.
We look forward not to a physical kingdom of heaven descending to earth,
but on human earthlings ascending to heaven.
And that’s not what Scripture talks about.
The results of this line of thought end up usually in two ways.
The first way is that any depravity is okay.
Because the flesh is evil after all, it’s temporary, and the God doesn’t really care about the flesh, does he?
So, whatever you do in the flesh, it doesn’t matter.
The New Age God isn’t very much like that, where he’s just anything goes, “I accept you.”
And that’s not the doubt of the Bible, even in the New Testament.
Read Revelation if you have any questions about that.
But this line of thought is that whatever happens here on earth doesn’t truly matter.
If you have the right knowledge, you’re good.
The flip side of the Gnostic thought is that of denial, or asceticism, denying the flesh, denying pleasure,
denying any kind of sensual input, taste, touch, sound, things that are pleasing.
You deny yourself those things, and it’s through this denial that you are able to shuffle off the flesh
and attain a measure of spiritual enlightenment here in the flesh before you ascend to your next place.
This is a real problem in the first century.
This type of thought is addressed by Paul.
We usually miss it, and we don’t see it because we don’t understand Gnosticism.
When we don’t understand how it’s influenced our own thoughts, our own religion, in every area.
And it’s very unfortunate to see.
But in several places, Paul addresses Gnosticism, but probably the easiest place to see it is the entire book of Colossians.
So as we go through this, we’re going to look at some passages.
If you have ever been tops that those passages were speaking against the Torah, against Jews, reconsider,
because we’re going to go through some verses in the first two to three chapters, and we’re really going to trash that idea.
He’s not talking to Jews here.
He’s talking to people who are looking for secret knowledge, people who are denying the flesh,
people who are allowing all things in the flesh, even.
And so Paul addresses these Gnostic ideals as we go through.
So let’s go through and hit a few.
Chapter 1, verse 10, Paul speaks of increasing in the knowledge of God.
Okay, the gnosis is the Greek word there.
Chapter 1, verses 15 through 16 speaks of Yeshua as the first born of creation.
So this God, the God of creation, created Yeshua first as the first Aeon, if you will.
And through Him, all the physical things were created.
So it’s not an evil Aeon that created physical.
It was the first born of creation created the physical.
Chapter 1, verse 20, In Yeshua, the heavens and the earth have been reconciled back together.
They’re not separate.
We’re not trying to get from one to the other.
They’ve been reconciled together.
And through Him, they will be brought back together, which is what Revelation talks about.
Chapter 1, verses 26 through 27, the mystery has been made known.
The mysterious knowledge has been made known to his saints,
so that they might have the knowledge of the riches of God, the gnosis.
God has revealed this mystery knowledge to his saints.
Chapter 2, verse 2 through 3, understanding true knowledge of the secrets in Messiah,
hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
These key words are on, not pegging Gnostics.
Chapter 2 verse 8, “Do not be taken prey by empty philosophy.”
deceit and the traditions of men.” I’ve heard that verse used to say that the Torah doesn’t
belong because it’s a tradition of men. I’ve got rid of the vedicists and tell me how many times
it is that Moses says something, compared to how many times Hashem says something. You’ll find that
the Torah itself is not from men. It is from God himself. So on and on. The book continues on in
that main and you can read the entire thing and I bet if you pay really close attention to the
words that you will see thoughts and ideas from Gnosticism popped out but then shifted to speak
to that Gnostic audience and to draw them away from Gnosticism into a true and proper belief of
Yeshua. In the book though, Paul addresses both of those outcomes I described earlier, the asceticism
in chapter 2 verses 22 talks about those who teach and believe that the flesh should not be
gratified and enjoyed in any way. Those people who celebrate new moons and sabbaths and festivals,
those people who enjoy their time here on earth, who enjoy the physical. Oh man, that was a Gnostic
thought. Don’t go celebrating those things like the Jews. They’re deluding themselves. In fact,
we’re going to teach you, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle teachings of men. Gnostic
teachings. And then from the next chapter, chapter 3, Paul addresses the opposite side of the coin.
Not those who say do not touch, do not handle, but rather those who say anything goes.
Verses 5 through 10, Paul addresses that other side of the coin. Those who say you can do whatever
you want in the flesh because it doesn’t matter. But what is it that Paul says you have died with
Messiah? And so put to death these evil ways of living that you had before, your uncleanness,
your whoring, your passion, evil desires and greed. Put those away. Those are not of Messiah.
So those who take Colossians and root pieces of it out of context and say that it’s about not
keeping Sabbath or it’s about not obeying the dietary laws, you know, don’t taste. The dietary
laws are never about tasting, they’re about ingesting. They’re imposing their own ideology
into the text. So rather than looking to what it is that the author is trying to affirm in the text,
they look to their own understanding of what they think the world should be about, how it’s
operating. And they shove that into any place that they can make a bit. Usually by taking things
out of context and really only doing soundbite theology, as I like to call it, where you take
that soundbite and then you build your entire theology based off of these few words is rampant
in the world. We’re not, we’re not going to do that. So the common thought, the arguments back is,
but what about those places where the Bible does seem to talk about humans going to heaven?
And there are a few passages where that can, could be read into the text. One of the primary ones
that most people will point to is, you should use words on the cross to the thief who, who repents.
And it’s usually translated as, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. But in Greek,
there’s no punctuation at all. There’s no commas. So you should could have just as easily said,
But I tell you today, you will be in paradise.
It’s a slightly different connotation. It’s a different thing that it’s being said there, isn’t it?
Just moving the comma.
Comma’s important or super important.
And when we realized that the original text didn’t have them,
there’s some places where we can move the comma around and come up with completely different ideas.
Okay, so what about when Paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord?
First Corinthians 5, 1, sorry, second Corinthians 5, 1 through 8.
In response to this, I would ask that the reader also considered 1 Corinthians 15,
15, 1 through 54.
Freedom and conjunction.
Is it possible that what Paul’s really saying is that when this body passes away,
goes to sleep, it will then be clothed with an uncomfortable body
when it rises again to stand before the Master Yeshua?
When I die, the next moment I know, I’m going to be with him.
That’s preferable.
Is it possible that that’s what he’s saying?
Or are we going to insist that he’s talking about, hey, no, when I die, I’m constantly, I’m there.
So, okay, what about in Revelation?
When the saints, the martyrs, are under the altar in the heavens, calling out to God in his throne.
How literal do we want to take revelation this question one question there’s another question and that’s a that’s a
Revelation 6 10 for this one to look it up
Could this not simply be a reference to blood calling out from the ground?
I mean we read this as early as Genesis 4 your brother’s blood calls from the ground to me
Innocent blood spilled on the ground and it’s something that’s carried off your scripture
Innocent blood spilled on the ground calls to God
What is it calling? How long till you avenge us so father? You are our
Redeemer you are blood avenger something we’ll talk about later in in the Torah and it is one of the roles of the messiahs
There’s the blood avenger
Sounds kind of scary in the moment, but vengeance belongs to God and that’s something that we need to allow him to have as part of living life
Could it be possible?
That it’s simply making allusion to that and that what John saw wasn’t some sort of physical bunch of people and heaven under some sort of
In the altar, but the people under the altar here on the earth the altar being
some sort of
Symbol for I don’t know
Cross or something. I don’t really know
Anybody tells you they know what they’re talking about in Revelation is probably barking up the wrong tree
Or they have a very high opinion of themselves, but is it possible that that’s what they’re talking about?
I find it just as likely in fact
It’s probably more likely that that’s what it’s talking about because it’s something that we can see from
scripture from one end to the other
Then it is that
Suddenly in the New Testament people are talking about getting wings and going and sitting on clouds and playing harps
Which makes more sense biblically speaking if we consider the entire thing
so
Anyway, there’s a couple other verses that kind of seem to speak to this idea
But I I ask you when you run across one of those take a moment and stop and think about could this be understood in some other way I?
Guarantee you they all are I’ve looked into them. There’s an easy way to understand each one of those is something different so
We can either take what scripture has to say and allow it to be what it is or
we can say but I want heaven to be present in the pages and
force our view into these sound bites and not compare scriptures together not compare ideas together and
Come up with a holistic view of what scripture is
Anyway, that’s a challenge that some of you probably have to face is what is your thoughts and your beliefs on that regardless of what happens to us
Like I said, I don’t really know. I’ve never been dead
There’s a lot of accounts of people who do die who see stuff. Are they true? Are they are they perhaps seeing?
Through a time tunnel to the end of days. Who knows?
Who really knows? I don’t none of them do they’ve just got story of of occurrences
Anyway, so everything in creation is good
Genesis one tells us that it was created perfect. Oh
But unfortunately
Humans right humans came along. We screwed it all up
The whole message of the Bible is not that God is going to come and wipe out the earth
because we screwed it up.
If that was the message of the Bible, he would have done it already.
The message of the Bible is that God is working in the world to redeem it back to what it
was in the beginning.
He is recreating creation.
He’s recreating the earth into its Edenic state.
He’s redeeming and that process starts in people.
He has to redeem people first before he redeems anything else, and we’re all kind of just
living out this process of redemption that God is working through in history.
But I’m kind of getting ahead of myself.
So another thing that we run into in Scripture that’s connected to this is another word that
we see four times in this chapter, and that is the word in the fesh, usually interpreted
as a soul.
I’m going to put a link in the description to a Bible project video about the fesh.
They do a good job of introducing the idea.
You can follow it further.
Usually the word is translated as soul, and we usually tend to think of the soul as the
ghost in the machine idea, where it is our soul that kind of operates everything.
But that idea is a completely Greek idea.
It’s not biblical at all.
Just watch the video from the Bible projects on that, you can pause this video right now,
and go watch that.
It’ll provide a foundation for something else I’m about to say.
So pause now if you haven’t seen it, and go do that.
As you consider the usage of this word, they brought up some ideas of it meaning neck and there’s
some places in the Bible where this word is used to mean a whole slew of ideas. I’m going to put
some references out there. I recommend that you pick up a Bible and read each of these verses I’m
about to say because they each contain the word Nafesh in them. See if you can find it. Psalm 15
verse 18 numbers 11 5 through 6 Psalm 69 1 through 2 Isaiah 5 14 Genesis 46 15 Leviticus 17 14.
Each one of those takes a different twist on it. It starts with the neck, but then it becomes the whole life, the embodiment of a person.
Everything that they are. As Tim Mackielexists say, “We don’t have a soul. We are a soul.”
That’s the definition of the word “nafesh.”
And so the standard response to this idea is, “Okay, so what about the spirit? What is the spirit?”
I’m getting ahead of myself here, but the Hebrew word “for spirit” is “ruach,” and it simply means “wind.”
If you look out the window, you see the trees and the grass moving. What causes that?
I can’t see it, but we know something’s there. It’s “ruach.”
So what is it that moves a human? It’s a “ruach.”
It’s that breath from God that gives us motion, that gives us intelligence, that gives us the ability to make choices.
That’s all. It’s just “ruach.”
But there’s no place in Scripture that talks about a human being separated from the “ruach” and that human remaining alive.
It doesn’t happen.
So this idea that our “ruach” may somehow go live with God someday.
Again, I had a lot of trouble finding that in Scripture.
Maybe you could search it out and you can find something.
If you do, let me know. I would love to see if there is a place in Scripture where that is the case.
So I’m not going to get too much more into that. As I said, I’m getting ahead of myself at the moment.
“ruach,” it means “spirit,” but it simply just means that an invisible mover.
The thing that we can’t quite identify God as spirit, he is the invisible mover.
Esther’s a good example of that, where he doesn’t appear in the book at all, unless he does.
Anyway, so the physical is good, as it was created. We have corrupted it.
Now, God has called us into a position to work to help redeem it.
He has called us to bring life to this place of death.
And he’s given us the authority and the power to do so.
Paul puts it this way, Ephesians 5. I am going to read through this one rather than just telling you to go read it for yourself.
But follow along on the screen. If you have your own translation, go ahead and follow in that,
just so you can see the difference isn’t wording.
But there’s some ideas contained in this passage that really speak to Genesis 1.
And use Genesis 1 as a picture of the believing life and how we are to use that to work out in the world.
So Ephesians 5, 6 through 16 says, “Let no one deceive you with empty words.”
If he opposed to the words of creation, words that bring life, words that cause an effect.
For because of these, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
That would be the sons of those who continue to act in disobedience to God.
Therefore, do not become partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the master.
What do we read in Genesis 1? He commanded the darkness to become light. He commanded light to be in the midst of the darkness rather.
And then he split the light from the darkness. So if you are light, you are to be separated from the darkness.
When we get into holiness, we’ll talk about that a lot more.
So walk as children of light for the fruit of the Spirit. What’s the command in verse 28?
Be fruitful and multiply. So the fruit of the Spirit is all goodness and righteousness and truth.
Proving one as well, pleasing to the master.
But have no fellowship with the fruitless works of darkness.
Which tree is it that brings curse and fruitlessness?
We’ll talk about more of this in the next two weeks.
But it’s that tree of knowledge and good and evil. It brings the curse. It brings difficulty and bearing fruit.
but rather convict them. For it is a shame to speak of what is done by them in secret.
But all matters being convicted are manifested by the light. For whatever is manifested is light.
Whatever is physical is light, has been brought to light. The Gnostics kept their teachings and
practices secret. They didn’t want others to see it. You weren’t allowed to partake in Gnostic
knowledge unless you stumbled upon it. And your stumbling upon it was to the Gnostics, a sign
that you were now ready to be elevated in this whole Gnostic ideal. And Paul speaking to this,
whatever is light is manifested as light. Whatever you do, it’s out there. It’s seen.
God knows it. No matter how much you try to keep it secret. And again, we’ll see Adam and Eve and
Cain and Abel do the same thing. They’re trying to keep their own action secret from God. But it’s
been manifested. It’s been brought into the physical world. And so it is light. It is seen.
And that is why he says, wake up you who sleep and arise from the dead. Wake up those who sleep
and arise from the dead. That speaks to the creation of man in Genesis 2, but it also speaks to the
resurrection of man in Revelation 19, the dead, those who sleep rising to be with him one day.
And a few of those other verses we just spoke of talk of that same thing.
And Messiah shall shine on you. That’s the light of the Messiah himself. He is the source of light.
In Genesis 1, we read of a source of light. The sun, unfortunately, like it’s really close to
a sun worship. I’m not advocating worshiping the sun in any way. But it provides a picture of the
source of light given to the earth. Interestingly enough, the word sun and the word servant
in Hebrew both have the same consonants. Does that mean anything? Who knows? Shammosh,
Shemesh, servant, sun. Who knows? See them that you walk exactly, not as unwise, but as wise,
redeeming the time because the days are wicked. Okay, so our days are wicked. Our world is corrupted.
And so we are called to what? To redeem the time. Oh man, if I were to tell you how many times I
have heard that particular verse spoken of as making your schedule efficient. That’s what
redeeming the time is, right? Recheming every moment, sucking every moment out of the day. Be
efficient in everything that you do. You should be scheduled, everything. That’s not what is talking
about at all. What it’s talking about is this world is evil and it’s wicked. And the times that
we live in are wicked. And we as humans, we as believers have been called into this work of redeeming
this time. Of working in that redemption that God is bringing to this earth. It’s talking about
bringing life to this dead world, bringing light to the darkness that’s out there. I read this as
God is redeeming the world. He is redeeming this physical and he’s working on that even now.
And he is calling us to be workers in his field for this purpose. We are to work to bring the kingdom
of life to life. We’re the body of Messiah as Paul puts it. We have to turn our attention
to bringing life from death because we’re his hands, we’re his feet. He acts through us and we
We are invited to participate in this field that’s out there.
And that means “bringing healing,” means bringing life to those things that are dead.
We’ve all been invited to participate in that.
So what was the original charge given to mankind?
We read it here in chapter one verse 28.
God tells humans to do two things.
First of all, be fruitful and multiply.
Ah, see, we’re all to go have sex and make babies.
I’ve heard it taught that way.
Go have sex and make babies.
That’s what be fruitful and multiply means.
And in Genesis one, yeah, that’s kind of what it means.
But if we look at it as a picture of something the other,
if we consider what fruit is in Scripture,
it’s a picture of bearing fruit in our own lives
and multiplying that fruit out into the world.
Ephesians five, talk to a talk to fruit, right?
And the fruit and the spirit, patient’s kindness,
maintenance, self-control, that fruit is something
that we are to spread, plant the seeds of in others.
Go out into this field and sprinkle seed as the sower does.
That’s the fruitful multiply that matters to us today.
Now that multiplication does still mean, you know,
sex and babies, be fruitful and multiply, yeah?
It tends to be that those with the biggest population
tend to be the controllers of culture.
Makes you wonder where our culture’s heading.
Anyway, second one is, so do the earth and to rule over it.
Now this isn’t talking about being a petty dictator,
grasping for some sort of personal power over the elements.
Some have taken it that way.
Many of those being people who are trying
to point out the faults in Scripture, they misread this
and they don’t understand what it is that true power
is what kingship is according to the Bible.
And again, we’ll get into that later.
But for now, the earth itself is naturally a place
of darkness, it’s a place of chaos
and without some sort of outside interference,
without life coming into it,
it’s just a chaotic mess, right?
But when we have life, we have patterns.
Things get organized.
And so we are given the recipe for how to do this
in those days of creation.
How does God create order from the chaos?
He takes the constituent parts and splits them apart.
That’s order.
How do you clean a bedroom?
You can walk into your room and there’s stuff everywhere.
What’s the easiest way to clean that?
To gather things into like kinds
and then put them all the way at once.
Done.
That’s what God’s doing in Genesis 1.
He’s taking light and dark, separated.
He takes the waters above, waters below, separated.
He takes the land and the sea, separated.
The day and the night, separated.
The fish and the birds, separated.
Man and animal, separated.
That’s creation right there.
And that’s the model for us on how to bring order to this world.
There’s another word for that, though.
“Sanctification,” a big churchy word, means “setting apart for purpose,” taking something
and setting it apart for purpose, when we ourselves are to be sanctified, we are to
be holy, as God is holy.
So we are to be set apart, separated, different.
There’s a whole lot here in this chapter.
That is the way that we create order in this world.
We separate according to kinds, then we place borders between those.
And the place that we’re building has to be the place of life, the Kingdom of God.
And contrary to popular desire, especially today, the Kingdom of God has borders.
And it has an immigration policy.
You cannot get in through any other way.
The thief comes from some other way.
It’s the good man that comes through the door.
Not good.
I’m totally butchering that passage, but you get the idea.
Look it up.
Read it.
It’s very cool.
And so we have this place of borders.
And it is a place where we can separate life from death, good from evil, blessing from
curse.
It is where we enact holiness in our midst.
So that God can dwell here with us because He can’t dwell in a place that’s not holy.
All of this and so much more stuff we’re going to really dig into later, we’re going to
get really deep into holiness and separation and kinds and so on and so forth.
But that’s our job is to enact holiness in our midst because God cannot dwell in a place
of death.
And we’ll see that.
And so that leads us to this last day, the seventh day, the Sabbath.
Growing up, Sabbath was just this hunky, hunky idea, whatever.
We kind of take a nap on Sundays, but you know, we go out to eat, we might go shopping
if we need something, you know, for a part of my high school years, we lived an hour
away from church in a completely different town.
And so we would drive to the other town, spend the entire day there in the afternoon
where at church we couldn’t really sleep or anything unless you’d go to one of the classrooms
and sack out on a couch.
So we would go into, you know, go shopping, go do stuff, go over an errands.
And that wasn’t Sabbath.
We called Sunday our Sabbath, but it wasn’t Sabbath.
But we see here Sabbath is the seventh day.
It’s always been the seventh day.
So it’s the very beginning, it’s the seventh day, the week, seventh day, one out of seven.
And not just one out of seven, not just any.
It’s the seventh and as a topic, we’ll cover in a lot more detail later.
But for now, let’s just remember that keeping the Sabbath is our way of mimicking to the
world that we do believe that the God of the Bible is the God of creation.
What was it that we could connect over at the very beginning of this
episode? What was that connecting idea?
That connecting idea, that thing that we could all grasp whole of,
regardless of your view of mechanics, is that God created it.
If you believe God created it,
then let’s live his model of creation, that he’s asked us to live.
it’s not hard well actually keeping sat within the beginning it’s very hard because you feel
like you should be up and doing but let me tell you it is such a blessing once you get into the
cycle once you get into the swing of it it really really does bring life it’s a day that we can use
as a memorial of our creator but it’s a day that we can use as a witness of who we believe that
creator to be what God we serve nobody has to ask you keep the Sabbath oh well I know which God
you serve you serve the God of the Bible because true life it does include relationship the Sabbath
is a day of relationship for with other people but with God and true life requires relaxation
you can’t keep going forever no matter how hard you try you have to stop you have to relax
and so God is built into us and into his creation and that seventh day so those are my thoughts on
Genesis one trying to find life and like I said some of it’s kind of elementary but at the same
point some of it I think is something that most of us haven’t thought of in years I know that
when I stumbled across this and started to really consider it what it meant that this is good
that I realized I wasn’t living my life as though it was I was always seeking to be there
to escape this
I ended up missing large portions of my life and being completely ineffective
for anything other than my own benefit.
So anyway, those are my thoughts on this. If you have any comments or questions, anything you’d like to add, anything you’d like to point out, mistakes, whatever, there’s a comment box for that.
I will check in and we can start a conversation, start talking about these things.
Shalom