The Importance Of Knowing Origins
For
life to make sense, and for us to have meaningful
lives, and lives that will endure beyond this
life, we must know origins. In order to get to
where we need to go, we need to know where we
came from. The wonderful book of Genesis, written
by Moses, one of the very greatest prophets who
ever lived, tells us about our origins.
It tells
us about the origin of the universe. It explains
why this planet, with its amazing abundance of
life, is the way it is. It tells us about the
origin of mankind, and why there is human life
that is full of pleasures and joys, but also full
of suffering, pain and death. It tells us why
life in this world is beautiful and ugly, meaningful
and meaningless, majestic and degrading. It tells
us what is good and what is evil and why there
is good and evil. It tells us why we live and
why we die. It gives us the principles to be reconciled
to the Creator. It tells us that the Messiah,
the Savior is coming, and He will restore the
world to its original edenic condition, and that
we must look for the Redeemer when He comes among
us as a human being. It tells us why the physical
world is the way it is, with physical evidences
of the Flood all over the planet. It gives us
the basic principles to organize human society.
It describes the origin of marriage and the principles
that make marriage work. It tells us about the
origins of the many nations with their diversity
of languages. It tells us why there is a need
for the Chosen People, and what we are chosen
to accomplish, and how we started. It tells us
about the first covenants God made with key human
beings which are very important for us to know.
Before The Beginning
We
know that in the beginning God created the Heavens
and the Earth. The Scriptures reveal that the
Creator did some things before the beginning of
the universe.
Before
the beginning God the Father had been in an eternal
loving relationship with His Son: Messiah declared
at His last Passover: You loved Me before the
foundation of the world (John 17:24).
Before
the beginning eternal glory was shared between
God the Father and Messiah the Son. Yeshua prayed
during that last Seder: Father, glorify Me
alongside Yourself. Give me the same glory I had
with You before the world existed (John 17:5).
Before
the beginning God created the angels. The Lord
asked Job: Where were you when I founded the
Earth... when the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job
38:4-7). How else could the Serpent already be
so corrupt, if the creation and fall of some of
the angels hadn't already taken place?
Before
the beginning God had already had a plan to save
certain chosen human beings. Rabbi Paul informs
us that the Father chose us to be joined to the
Messiah before the creation of the world (Ephesians
1:4-5).
Before
the beginning God appointed His Son, the Messiah,
to be the Savior of humanity as part of His pre-determined
plan for mankind’s salvation. We weren't redeemed
with gold or silver, writes Simon Peter, but
something far more precious, with precious blood,
as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood
of Messiah. For He was foreknown before the foundation
of the world (1 Peter 1:18-20).
Before
the beginning God had already prepared an eternal
Kingdom for His chosen human beings: Therefore
the King will say to those on His right hand,
“Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom that was prepared for you from the
foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).
That
brings us to Genesis 1, which starts off
with these words: B’re-sheet bah-rah Eloheem
et ha-Shah-mah-yeem v'et ha-Aretz. In the beginning
God created the Heavens and the Earth. If
you can believe these few words - which you should,
you should have no problem believing anything
else in the rest of the Bible. After all, the
power and wisdom needed to create the Heavens
and the Earth easily allows for all of the miracles
which follow.
The universe
did not create itself. It did not come about by
a big bang. It will end with a big bang, but it
didn’t begin with one! It did not come about as
a result of evolutionary processes over billions
of years. The universe had a beginning. A great
Creator, who is a Person, who has great wisdom
and infinite power brought it into being out of
nothing. The greatness of the universe, and its
amazing design reflect God’s wisdom and greatness.
The universe
contains human beings who have personality, mind,
emotion and will. We have these elements of personality
because we are made in the image of God. Our personality,
mind, emotion and will reflect the personality,
mind, emotion and will of the Creator. If you
believe this, your life will make sense. If you
don’t believe this, your life will never make
sense.
Eloheem
is the third word in the Torah. It means the Strongest
or Mightiest One and is translated into English
as “God”. Eloheem is a plural word and can be
translated “gods”, yet it is also used to refer
to God. This plural title that is used for the
One God is a hint of the plural yet single nature
of one true and living God of Israel that is more
fully revealed in the rest of the Scriptures.
In contrast
to God, who is perfect, the Earth was formless
and void, chaotic and unorganized, full of deep,
dark waters. But God in the Person of His Ruach,
His Spirit, was there, bringing order out of the
chaos. The Ruach Eloheem - the Spirit of God -
who is a Person, who is God in non-material, non-physical
form, who is everywhere throughout the universe,
was hovering over the deep dark waters, bringing
the presence and power and wisdom and organization
of the Creator to His disorganized creation.
In verse
3 we are introduced to the Word of God. God also
created the universe by means of His divinely
powerful Word. He spoke His Word and the universe
and everything in it came into existence. We know
from subsequent revelation that the eternal Son
of God is the Word of God; He is the Executor
of the will of God. God the Father speaks and
God the Son, who is the Word, acts. It is through
Messiah that everything that exists came into
existence.
So, in
the first three verses, we have the singular yet
plural Eloheem God, which certainly includes God
the Father; we have the Spirit of God; and we
have the Word of God. We see the Three-In-One
God revealed in the creation of the universe.
Creation
is divided up into two sets of three days of divine
activity, plus a seventh day of divine rest. The
first three days contains the works of separation:
the light from the darkness, the waters above
from the waters below, and the dry land from the
sea. The second group of three is made up of things
which fill up what has been separated: the creation
of the sun, moon, stars; the fish and birds; the
land animals and man. On the first day God created
light - on the fourth day light-bearing sun, moon
and stars. On the second day He created the air
and the sea - on the fifth day the birds of the
air and the fish of the sea. On the third day
God separated the dry land - on the sixth day
He created land animals and man. On the seventh
day He rested.
Seven
days of creation - a prophecy of seven thousand
years of human history. Six days of work - six
thousand years of human toil, hardship and suffering,
followed by one day of rest - one thousand years
of blessed rest on Earth.
The first
day began with darkness, and ended with light.
All subsequent days begin with the evening and
end at the end of the day, which is how the Chosen
People still begin and end our days.
On the
second day the Lord created the newly formed atmosphere
to separate the waters below the atmosphere from
the waters above the atmosphere. The waters above
the atmosphere formed a water canopy protecting
the early Earth, shielding out harmful radiation,
and giving it a warm, uniform temperature. It
is from these waters that the rains come that
deluge the Earth during the time of the Flood.
On the
third day God made plant-life with the ability
to reproduce after its own kind. The amazing information
contained in DNA, and it’s ability to reproduce,
comes not by chance and mutation and evolution,
but from the design of the all-wise God. God supplied
the DNA of the various kinds with enough information
to adapt to various environments. Genetic information
can be lost over time, but not added, so that
creatures do not evolve - adapt yes, but evolve
- no.
On the
fourth day the rest of the universe came into
existence - the sun, moon and stars. The most
recent estimates are that there are somewhere
around 200 to 400 billion stars in our Milky Way
galaxy. We now think that there are a hundred
billion galaxies in the universe, with untold
trillions upon trillions upon trillions upon trillions
of stars. The Creator made each one and knows
each star by name, and all of these He made on
the fourth day!
The sun,
moon, stars help regulate day and night; the Earth,
rotating on its axis and revolving around the
sun determines the seasons; the sun, moon and
stars enable us to find our physical direction.
They can also give us spiritual direction. They
can function as signs which point us to significant
spiritual events, like the eclipse that occurred
when Messiah died. Just as the fourth day was
a yom - meaning a literal 24 hour day, so were
all seven days of creation.
On the
fifth day God made the creatures that live in
the oceans, and those that fly in the air. On
the sixth day He made the land animals. By that
point the Earth was beautiful, filled with oceans,
lakes, rivers and multitudes of sea life; lands
filled with plants and trees and flowers, with
everything living in harmony.
Then
comes the climax of creation - man. Man is very
special. He is made in the image of God. Before
God made man He said, “Let Us make man in Our
image, according to Our likeness”. Why the plural
Us and Our? We are being allowed to overhear a
very important conversation from the Singular-Yet-Plural
God; a conversation between God the Father and
God the Son regarding the creation of man in the
likeness of God.
Like
God, man has the attributes of a person; he has
a mind - the ability to think and reason; he has
emotion - so that he can feel and love what is
good and hate what is bad; he has will - so that
he can choose, make decisions, and exercise his
will.
Man,
who is so greatly blessed, is appointed by God
to rule the world. Man, made in the image of God,
is uniquely equipped to rule over all the Earth
with its amazing resources and its various kinds
of life.
Man becomes
the lord of the Earth. When man is blessed, the
lord of the Earth, the whole world will be blessed.
With the failure of man, the whole Earth will
be cursed.
The Earth
is a big place - too big for one man. Adam will
need help to rule the Earth, and the Lord equipped
Adam with the Creator-like ability to reproduce
other human beings. To make this possible, God
makes us male and female. He created us as sexual
beings. But our sexuality is designed to remain
within an exclusive one man and one woman relationship
which only ends with death. This enables reproduction
and the raising of other human beings who also
have the image of God, so that they can know the
Creator and enjoy Him, and help with the beneficial
rule over the Earth that humanity has been entrusted
with.
Before
sin and death entered the world, everything was
at peace. Everything was in harmony. Man’s original
diet, along with the diet of the animals, was
limited to vegetation. Neither man nor the animals
ate other living bei ngs.
At the
end of the sixth day, God looked over His work
of creation, and saw that He had brought something
out of nothing; order out of chaos; light out
of darkness; life where none existed; fullness
out of emptiness; an amazing and beautiful universe
composed of matter and energy, space and time.
It was organized by elegant physical laws. It
was designed with a greatness of wisdom and a
beauty that only the Creator God is capable of;
it was a magnificent planet perfectly designed
for human beings to live in, beings made in the
image of God, capable of having a meaningful and
eternal and wonderful relationship with their
loving Creator. Truly it was “tov m’od” - very
good.
On the
seventh day God rested and He blessed the seventh
day, giving it special meaning and setting it
apart from the other six days of the week.
Starting
with 2:4, Moses gives us additional details about
the creation. Earth’s early atmosphere was different
from the current one. There was no rain; instead
a mist rose and watered the land. This can be
explained by the waters above the atmosphere which
created a vapor canopy, which caused a greenhouse-like
effect around the planet.
The first
man had a unique beginning. He was formed from
the dust of the ground. In Hebrew man is “Adam”.
The ground, from which man is taken, is “adama”,
so man is a physical creature made from the same
physical elements as Earth. But, he is more than
just physical. God also breathed into him the
breath of life - something spiritual. Man is a
unique combination of physical and spiritual,
material and immaterial, heavenly and earthly,
body and soul. The physical and spiritual needs
of a human being must both be nurtured if he is
going to have the fulness of life that God intends
for him.
Man is
in some ways similar to the animals but also different
from the animals. God did not breath life directly
into the animals. They came into being by the
word of God. There was no direct communication
of the breathe of life with the animals as there
was with man.
Man's
first home was in a beautiful garden that was
specially designed for him. Eden was a real place
in the Middle East. Two of the four rivers are
unidentifiable today, but two of these most ancient
rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, remain identifiable
to this day.
Gan Eden
was a perfectly delightful place. In fact, “Ayden”
means delight or pleasure. It was the perfect
environment for man. Every tree that was pleasing
to look at, and good for food, was there. There,
the aesthetic interests of man as well as his
culinary interests and need for meaningful work
were provided by the good and wise Creator.
Man was
given meaningful work to do. He was to cultivate
the garden and prevent it from going wild. As
Adam did his appointed tasks he would learn; he
would develop new skills; he would be uplifted.
As he enhanced the garden he would be enhanced.
Work can and should have this beneficial effect
on us.
In addition
to the many other trees, two special trees were
in the garden. The Tree of Life was there to give
man eternal life. That teaches us that eternal
life is external to man. Eternal life is not inherent
within the soul of man. Man is not born with an
immortal soul.
The Tree
of Life was in the middle of the garden. It seems
likely that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil was also in the middle of the garden.
These two special trees, centrally located in
the garden, had to be frequently seen by Adam
as he went about his tasks.
The Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was meant to
teach man good and evil. Adam was morally and
spiritually immature. Adam was given a very precious
gift - the gift of free will, but he needed to
learn how to use his free will. He needed to learn
what is good and what is bad. He needed to learn
on what basis to make his choices; he needed to
understand how to make good decisions.
As part
of his moral and spiritual education, the Lord
warned Adam in very strong and clear terms not
to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil. If he did, the consequences would be
dire and severe. He would be alienated from the
Creator, who is the Source of life. He would forfeit
what life he had. He would surely die physically
and spiritually.
As our
first father passed by the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil, and trusted the Lord, and obeyed
the words of God, and made God’s will his will,
the first man would learn about good and evil.
He would learn that obeying the word and will
of the good Creator is the basis of what is good,
and disobeying the word and will of God is the
essence of evil.
Just
as there are physical laws that govern the proper
functioning of the physical universe, so there
are moral and spiritual laws that govern the moral
and spiritual aspects of the universe. There are
moral and spiritual absolutes. There is good,
and there is evil. Good brings the blessing of
God and life. Evil brings harm in a Good-God designed
universe, and harms life.
The essence
of good and evil is obedience or disobedience
to the word and will of God. When we know, believe,
trust fear, respect and obey every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God, we have chosen what is
good. When we ignore or contradict the word and
will of God, we choose evil.
It was
possible for Adam to learn about good and evil
while remaining on the side of good. Unfortunately
Adam learned the difference between good and evil
by siding with evil, and experiencing all the
suffering that choosing disobedience to the word
and will of God brings.
The Creator
made the animals out of the ground and brought
them to Adam, the lord of the Earth, for him to
name. As the lord of the Earth, he had the right
to name them. To name them he had to have some
knowledge of them. Gaining knowledge about creation
enables us fulfill our responsibility to beneficially
govern the world and brings honor to the Creator.
For humanity
to accomplish the good plans of the Creator, good
marriages are essential, and the last part of
chapter two describes the creation of woman, and
the first marriage, and the principles for successful
marriage.
The first
woman was not made out of nothing like the universe
was, nor out the dust of the ground like Adam
had been, but out of Adam himself. There is an
inseparable connection between men and women.
We are the same, even if at times it seems like
we are different species!
Man is
the superior in the man-woman relationship. Man
came first. The woman was created from him. But
the woman was formed from part of Adam, from a
rib - from Adam's side, close to his heart. She
was not taken from his head, to rule over man.
She was not taken from his foot, so he would walk
all over her. She was taken from his side, so
that the woman would come along side and help
the man, and together they would walk side by
side throughout life.
Someone
wrote the following beautiful observation: “Adam
woke from his sleep to behold a reflection of
himself, a complement to himself, indeed, a very
part of himself. God Himself then brought this
special creature to Adam, much as today the father
gives the bride away. Adam spontaneously broke
in the first love poem, saying that now at last
there stood before him a creature of such beauty
in herself, and similarity to him, that she appeared
to be m ade for him”.
In this
poem, Adam names Eve. He calls her “Isha” - woman,
because she comes from Ish - man. The idea of
the wife sharing the man's name is as old as Eve.
Adam names Eve, which again shows his primacy
in this relationship. But Adam’s words are also
words of love. “She is part of me. She shares
my name, she shares my life and she shares my
identity”.
Husbands,
you must love your wives as you love yourselves!
A woman can tolerate submitting to a good man
if she knows that he loves her, that he is committed
to her, that he will share everything with her;
that he will protect and care for her for the
rest of her life.
The man
must cleave to his woman which means that they
come together to form a permanent one-flesh unit.
They come together physically, financially, emotionally,
spiritually. They are to remain together throughout
life, helping each other, facing life’s challenges
together, raising good children together, teaching
them about the Lord and His word and will. Marriage
is a cleaving commitment or covenant which is
intended to be exclusive and permanent. How could
you share your body and spirit with someone that
you were not totally committed to? It's unthinkable!
But before
you can cleave to your spouse and form your own
family, the man and the woman need to leave their
father and mother. Good parenting means allowing
the child to become increasingly independent from
mom and dad.
The man
and his wife were both naked, but there was no
shame, no guilt. They were innocent. There was
nothing to hide. Their bodies and impulses were
under their control. Shame and guilt and other
negative emotions only came later after they sinned.
In conclusion
of chapter two, I give you the following observation
about Adam’s early life in the garden of Eden.
Someone observed: “The man, whom God had appointed
lord of the Earth and its inhabitants, was given
everything necessary for the development of his
nature and the fulfillment of his destiny. In
the fruit of the trees of the garden he had a
variety of delicious food to sustain and bless
his life. In the garden he had a great source
of beauty to elevate and ennoble him. In the care
of the garden he had a field of labor for the
exercise of his physical strength. In the animals
and plants of the garden he had a spacious region
for the expansion of his intellect. In the Tree
of Knowledge, he had a law for the training of
his moral nature. In the Tree of Life he had the
visible hope of living forever. In the woman given
to him, he had a source of companionship, helpfulness,
fruitfulness and joy. In the God of the garden
he had a source of never ending wonder and fellowship.
In these circumstances he could have developed
his physical and spiritual nature in accordance
with the will of God. But something happened that
brought ruin to Eden and humanity”.
Lord
willing, we will cover that and more next week,
as we continue with these very important for us
to understand beginnings, since they are foundational
for having a proper understanding of the rest
of the Word of God, and foundational for having
a genuinely meaningful and successful life.
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