This is the last of a three-part series.
1:14-19 – The Lights in the Firmament
The fourth day is the first day where God sets out His mediators and rulers. In the celestial bodies, God sets out His mediators and rulers in the same single class of created beings. We see in this passage that the lights in the firmament – presumably stars, planets, asteroids, comets, and any other light-generating or light-reflecting bodies in space – are for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years. Furthermore, the sun and moon rule over the day and night respectively. These celestial bodies’ mediatory rule is over not only the heavens (firmament and celestial), but also over time.[1]
It is truly remarkable when we come to understand the link between the position of the celestial bodies and the realm over which they govern. Considering that our Solar System is but an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the Universe, it is safe to say that nearly every celestial body we see in the night sky is unreachable. The celestial heavens are inaccessible and ungraspable. We cannot grab hold of them and manipulate them. In the same way, time is effectively unchanging, undeterred, beyond our manipulation. Truly in Christ we have been elevated to the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), and in Him exercise lordship over time. This gift though was not granted immediately at the time of creation, but instead was given after the maturation of our covenant relationship with God through the work of Christ, and our lordship will only become complete when the celestial light-bearers are wiped away (Revelation 21:23-24). Thus we can still say that the celestial rulers were initially beyond our grasp, and still exercise some dominion over time.
This reveals two (of many innumerable more) things about God: that He appoints rulers fit for the task He assigns them; and that He assigns rulers who reflect aspects of His own supreme rule, in this case His unassailable holiness. We could perhaps even go so far as to say that the stars reflect God’s transcendence, and if so, we could perhaps say that the celestial mediatory rulers most closely reflect the Father’s rule. Finally, we see at the end of day four that God gives His mediatory rulers a favorable assessment.
1:20-23 – The Swarms
Continuing with our examination of the mediators and rulers God creates and appoints during Creation, we now turn our attention from celestial bodies to the swarming creatures. If we could say that the stars and celestial bodies are God’s “Father-like” mediators and rulers, it would be most appropriate to call the swarming (moving) creatures God’s “Spirit-like” mediators and rulers. This swarming mimics, “the Spirit who gathers the host of God around Him, forming the glory cloud,”[2] and so it is this very act of swarming in the sea and air that makes them Spirit-like. The locomotion of swarming creatures – birds, flying insects, fish, other swimming aquatic life – is itself Spirit-like. These swarming creatures can move back-and-forth, from side-to-side, and up-and-down. As Jordan so aptly puts it, “Boundaries are not a consideration for them.”[3] It’s reminiscent of Jesus’s comment on those born of the Spirit: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one born of the spirit,” (John 3:8).
There may be a distinction though in the role of the aeronautic swarmers and the aquatic swarmers. I’d tentatively posit that although both are mediators, only the latter are rulers. We saw on day four that the stars rule the Firmament-Heaven, so the aeronautic swarmers are not rulers but instead, in their back-and-forth conveyance between the earth and heaven, are Spirit-like mediators. The aquatic swarmers though are the Spirit-like mediators and rulers, as the stars’ rule does not extend to the waters. I hold the assertions of this last paragraph only tenuously, and upon further study and persuasion could just as easily recognize the aeronautic swarmers as rulers, or conversely “revoke” the aquatic swarmers’ rule as well.
1:24-31 – Land Animals and Mankind
Finally, we come to the last day of God’s creative activity. It is this sixth day that seems to most capture the attention of readers. It does so because it provides the answer, or at least the preliminary contents of the answer, to the question, “Why did God create mankind?” The answer we find should bring us great joy as we read the gifts God has bestowed to us, as well as a sense of great responsibility regarding the solemn charge He has given us.
We read that God first creates the land animals, specifically the beast of the earth, the cattle, and the creeping things. These correspond to wild animals, domesticated animals, and crawling creature (i.e. bugs, reptiles, rodents).[4]
Then God creates man in His own image and after His own likeness. Jordan provides a very simple explanation of the difference between image and likeness: “Human beings simply are the images of God, whether in heaven, earth or hell. . . Human beings grow in the likeness of God, or else depart from it. . . .”[5] God is imaged in both male and female. Here we have a dyadic analogy of the Trinity. Within the Trinity, each person is God and fully reveals the wholeness of God. Yet, in some way a hyper-reality or super-abundance of God is exceedingly present and superlatively revealed in the perfectly loving communion of the three persons of the Godhead. Similarly, every person regardless of gender fully images God. But it is in the fully-consummated love between husband and wife (exemplified in sexual union) that there is a hyper-reality or superlative demonstration of the image of God.
We also read that God makes mankind for the purpose of having dominion over the fish, fowl, cattle, creeping things and all the earth. Depending upon the mediation and/or rule exercised by each of these groups, we could say a number of different things about the dominion of mankind. If the fish, fowl, cattle, and beasts are rulers, then their rule is of a vice-regal status with mankind as their suzerain. If they are not rulers, then they are man’s subjects. In either case, the creepers have no rule and are serfs, or worse they are representative of enemies, as they are portrayed as being trodden underfoot (Genesis 3:15, Psalms 110:1). This presents some interesting literary implications later on in Scripture. Adam can be seen in Genesis 2:19 as either holding court with His courtiers or as judging His subjects who approach their proto-Solomonic discerner. Whether or not animals serve as man’s viceroys also would color our interpretation of the small boy’s leadership in Isaiah 11:6.
Regardless of the dynamics of this rule though, mankind and animals feast together. Although the fruit is reserved for the kingly race, just as wine is emblematic of kingship, both share the green herbs. God’s giving the herbs and fruit to man and the animals can also be seen as a modification and renaming, as the vegetation takes on changed function (sustenance) and name (food/meat) afterwards. The table fellowship between mankind and His subjects (and/or courtiers) is upheld until after the Fall, when the fellowship is ruptured when animals must die for mankind to live (Genesis 3:21).
At the end of God’s creative work, He looks at all He has made and saw that it was very good. This includes not only the creative output of day six, but everything that proceeded it as well, not excluding the previously unappraised products. I would posit that this positive assessment now comes because the whole creation has a fitting mediatory ruler: mankind. Although God is still separated from His creation, it is His own image-bearer, His “Son-like” ruler, who will act with and on behalf of God to tend and keep it and mature it to full glory.
2:1-3 – The First Sabbath
Finally, after six days of creation God’s creative work is at an end. We read that, “the heavens and the earth were finished, and the host of them.” Of the three, only the identity of the earth is immediately clear, and thus we are left to dig further to discern what all was created in these six days. Tackling the most straightforward first, we can quite confidently state that “the earth” refers to the orb of the earth, as land or specific location would fail to connote the degree of totality implied by the passage. The heavens referred to here are more ambiguous as it could refer to one, some, or all of the three heavens. I would posit that it would refer to the Firmament-Heaven and celestial heaven. I would omit the Highest Heavens as a referent here, as I believe this is referred to in “the host of them” which refers to both the heavenly host (angels) and heavenly realm. Therefore, we are told that God finished creating the planet earth, the atmospheric and celestial heavens that surround it, and the Highest Heaven that stands apart from it.
After creating, illuminating, ordering and filling the earth, God rests and in so doing blesses that seventh day. His rest sets a pattern for His image-bearers that is symphonically repeated throughout all of Scripture. We can see that God isn’t merely a God who blesses by creating, but one who blesses by resting from creating. Similarly we bless and are blessed by following the pattern that He laid out.
In God’s Sabbath rest we find the culmination of God’s firstfruits offering to us and God’s Self. Reflecting upon the creative acts God performed in this offering, let us hold fast to every detail and nuance of Scripture’s revelation of what He created, how He created it, and for what purpose He created it, so that at no point and in no way do we discount, malign or take for granted the magnitude of God’s gift.
Andrew J. Bittner is a Certified Lay Minister in the United Methodist Church, Minnesota Annual Conference, and a student of the Trinity House Institute.
[1] Jordan, Through New Eyes, 55.
[2] Jordan, Creation in Six Days, 195.
[3] Jordan, “Fish and Fowl Studies.” Geneva Review. Rpt. in Studies in Genesis One. 1986-1988.
[4] Jordan, “Cattle and Beasts.” Geneva Review. Rpt. in Studies in Genesis One. 1986-1988.
[5] Jordan, “Twelve Fundamental Avenues of Revelation”, 8.