In the beginning God created
the Heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
The first book of the Bible,
Genesis, opens up with “in the beginning,” as Genesis means “birth,” “coming into
being,” the origin. Thus opens the narrative in regard to the “people of God,” those
special people with whom He chose to interact, all the while instructing these special
people to keep an account of that interaction, first as an oral tradition (families
repeating the story by word of mouth, passing on the tradition of the story in the
ancient art form of storytelling, vividly portraying what happened, when it happened,
who it happened to, and sometimes why it happened) and later in written form. Tradition
has it that Moses transcribed the story from God Himself, penning the book of Genesis,
the Book of Job, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Note, the Bible does not
open up with an exploratory presentation as to how God created the Earth, or why
He created the Earth; the narrative is not even about the Earth, specifically, but
more about the power and majesty of God, Yahweh, Himself. It is hardly about dirt, water, molecules, human blood cells,
or even the Creation process.
“In the beginning God created
the Heaven and the earth” is an opening statement, pointing to the Author of Creation,
and the word “Heaven” means literally “heavens, heaven, sky,” employing the Hebrew
word shamayim, for atmosphere. It is not broaching the subject of
the “place where God Himself resides,” or Heaven, because God is not revealing Himself
here at the opening of Scripture, but specifically what He did.
Note, the Bible has not depicted
the first act of creation in the events that it is portraying, but merely opening
the Scripture by introducing the subject, in the beginning. God created Earth, but
a long time ago, longer than we can even begin to figure. God has been creating
for eons, millenia, longer than humans with all their science and mental abilities
can begin to imagine or figure. God in His timing has been creating and moving through
the universe, shaping and arranging, and when His timing was arrived, God came to
a dead, lifeless world:
And the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:2
God created the matter of
the world, but we are not told when. The Bible does not present a time scale. Humans
have figured and counted upon their fingers and toes, adding Adam's age to that
of his children, counting upward to the flood and providing their own timeline.
But people, in their simplicity, have not provided for all the gaps in the narrative.
Because in the beginning, at the creation of the world, the earth was without form,
and void; the earth was already here when God arrived in His perfect timing to establish
a people here, to enact His plan.
Darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Note, God has yet to say:
“Let there be...” The first act of creation in this narrative has not taken place.
God arrives here, at Earth, and moves upon the face of the waters. Water exists
here on this planet that God created at some earlier time. God does not delve the
deep histories here, He is addressing the coming of LIFE to our world, the life
He places here, at this time. The planet is lifeless, empty. The planet is void.
But water is present.
Evidently, eons have passed,
possibly the birth and death of suns, cycles passing. The old adage, if a tree falls
in the forest and no one is there to witness it, does it make a sound? Most people
would answer the riddle by drawing out the conclusion, it didn't happen, God did
not create the world at an earlier date because we were not there to see it, we
are not told about it. Like children, we don't see beyond the gift, we pick up the
packages under the Christmas tree and believe they appeared by magic, hardly making
the connection between the appearing gifts and our parents. But when you are a child,
it is natural to think as a child thinks.
There were witnesses to the
Creation of our world, Planet Earth, creatures of God previously created, and there
is absolutely no way to fathom how old or how long ago these creatures were created,
but most likely these beings were alive in some distant age when the universe was
much younger:
Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid
the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon
are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When
the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Job 38:4-7
People grow upset when evidence
is proved that Earth has been through cycles of life and death, that its rocks and
waters are older than they can imagine, let alone count or compute. They wish to
suspend the magic. No, my Mommy and Daddy did not provide these gifts, it was magic,
it was Santa! And the child, at first fearful, becomes more and more angry, thinking
shuts down, opinions are clutched, and the poor child begins to yell. The temper
tantrum soon follows. Poor child.
But then again children cannot
think as adults, it cannot be held against them. When the child ages, however, it
is expected that they will set aside childish things and reason the way adults must
reason. They must think things through. And when the child has matured, they shake
their head and laugh at their youthful ignorance, and the hot arrogance they were
willing to employ to defend their stupidity, even to the point of fighting.
Adult men and women are no
different, if they refuse to learn, refuse to think, and merely grasp the man-made
traditions of childish thought. The absence of thought, the darkness.
Please, let there be light.
And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light.
Genesis 1:3
This is the first explained
act of creation as our world is concerned. God says “let there be light.” Notice,
the Scripture does not explain: God says “let there be water” or “let there be darkness”
or “let there be a world formed that is null and void.” We are also not told exactly
how God accomplishes this generation of light, only that He speaks, and that the
light forms. It is not the light of the sun, for that has not been created yet (more
than likely the “water” was actually ice, employing reason in that when a planet
has no light source, such as when a sun dies, the water turns to ice, it must have
been a dark, very cold planet indeed), but we receive some hint of power forming,
swirling before the face of God, light, some accumulation of exploding power, something
far beyond anything which humans have ever witnessed in our history, something worlds
more powerful than any nuclear explosion.
And God saw the light, that
it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Genesis 1:4
In some incredible balancing
act, God holds light and dark in His hands. God declares that the light is good,
but makes no such pronouncement regarding the darkness. So even at the beginning,
there is a distinction made that the light is good; but we are not told here that
the darkness is bad. The darkness was first, however, and God moved in the darkness
and created light, and stepping back from His work God “sees the light that it is
good.” And somehow God holds a division between the light and the dark, and we are
not told how he does this, as there is no sun brought to life as yet. Like a Master
juggler, God holds the ball of light in one hand, and the corresponding antithesis
in the other hand.
And God called the light
Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the
first day.
Genesis 1:5
This new thing, a “day” a
full “day” is comprised of light and darkness, a balancing act. Half of the day
is called “Day” and half of the day is called “Night.” And God presents here in
Scripture His own original division of the day. First there is darkness, because
when God arrived at the null and void planet it was in darkness, and God moved in
the darkness upon the face of the water, and then God speaks and creates light,
so there is darkness, and then there is light. As the Good News Version puts it:
“Evening passed and morning came.”
It could as easily be said,
“After darkness, light, the first day.”
This is a simple concept,
and yet people will adhere to their own traditions, and they will do so with fury,
wrath, and bloodshed. Man always attempts to improve on God's creation. The Bible
tells us clearly, there was evening (darkness) and then there was the arrival of
light (daylight), and this is the first day. Remember, first darkness, and then
light. People, attempting to improve upon God's creation, declare: “No! First light,
and then darkness,” but this is not the way of God. It is the way of the Romans,
with a midnight to midnight division of a day. But God Himself divides the day as
a block of darkness (the night) and then a block of light (the daylight).
It is also very important
to notice an easily overlooked point, that being that “a day,” in Hebrew yom,
is a concept, a reality apart from sunlight, as it is mentioned here before the
creation of the sun, which denotes that time as measured by 24-hour days (roughly
12 hours of darkness followed by 12 hours of daylight) existed before our sun existed.
This mean that time existed prior to our sun being used as a timepiece. God did
not create “time,” as it had already existed. Throughout time, for immeasurable
days and night and months and years and millenia, God created the universe, a tireless
artist, a loving, beloved Artist, and just as a human artist, working closely with
the details, must step back from his work and take in the “bigger picture,” so does
God, after every phase, step back from His work and “see that it is good.”
Yom never refers to an “age”
or a “world” or a “great period of time.”
Yom does refer to daylight,
but may also include the darkness, or a full day comprised of first the darkness
and then the daylight, but here in Genesis God denotes “a day,” the first day, even
before our sun was lit with fire.
And God said, Let there be
a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Genesis 1:6
Apparently this void world
upon which God would work His art like a painter working upon a blank canvas, was
a world of water, because God speaks again and raises up a “dome” or canopy of water,
vapors, atmosphere; we know there are levels of thickness and thinness to the various
layers of atmosphere, the troposphere, stratosphere, ionosphere, and the outermost
and thinnest layer the exosphere. God then continues with creation:
And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament: and it was so.
Genesis 1:7
This is the “heavens” mentioned
in Verse 1 when “God created the Heaven and the earth.” God activated the water
upon the dead world and raised it up as a “sky,” so that there was water above the
resting waters of Verse 6, as well as beneath it, and further explains this act
in Verse 8:
And God called the firmament
Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Genesis 1:8
The sky is the “Heaven” mentioned
in Verse 1. And again it is spelled out, there is first evening, and following daylight,
the second day. First night, then day, another day, the second day. The Holman Christian
Standard Bible says it like this: “Evening came, and then morning: the second day.”
And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear:
and it was so.
Genesis 1:9
We are not told how this
exactly was performed, or how the end result appeared, only that there was a distinct
separation between dry land and the waters, with the suggestion being that there
was one large continent, surrounded by water (unless half the planet was drawn up
into one half water and one half land). It could also mean that continents raised
up out of the waters and that there was an even distribution of land and sea, or
possibly not 50/50 distribution, just a clear distinction between land and sea,
dry land and wet world.
And God called the dry land
Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that
it was good.
Genesis 1:10
God names the dry portion
Earth and the waters Sea, and God sees that it is good, but His creation on the
third day is not completed:
And God said, Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after
his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Genesis 1:11
Upon the now-dry ground God
brings forth grass, herbs (vegetables), fruit trees, self-perpetuating plants upon
Earth. God is putting together a puzzle, an ecosystem that balances itself, that
keeps itself going like a perpetual motion machine, with plants providing the life-giving
breath that humans and animals require. Note, it would be difficult for this symbiotic
relationship to “evolve” out of nothing, as plants require the breath from animals,
and the animals require the breath from plants. Intelligent design? This is so far
beyond what we know of intelligence as to knock someone flat on their back, intellectually
speaking.
And the earth brought forth
grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose
seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening
and the morning were the third day
Genesis 1:12-13
The grass comes to life,
all other growing things, to self-perpetuate, a miraculous process that is almost
inexplicable. We are not told exactly how God accomplished this feat, whether it
all sprang up as one thing, perfect and complete, or if God painted on the canvas
of the world all the growing things that exist. But it is interesting to notice
that the land vegetation, which requires sunlight, was created before the sun came
online, much the same way that plants were put in place before the creatures that
would provide the very breath the plants desperately need.
It does appear God was working
“from the bottom up,” creating the more lowly life forms first, the more subservient
life, and then the higher forms, so that when the higher forms come into being,
they are in a fully furnished home, they have what they need. In other words, the
plants come into being, and they have an environment in which to flourish, immediately
followed by the fish and fowl, the animals, and finally the highest form of Earthly
life, Adam, otherwise known as “humanity.”
Perhaps it is time that mankind
step back from Creation, realizing that the plants were created before humans. Does
this truly entitle humanity to destroy the world, the very world that God created,
the very plants that God created, all for the purpose of putting up a parking lot?
God put in place something we need. God made something perfect. Should we care for
that thing He lovingly provided, or do we conquer and destroy it to prove our own
“godhood?”
For a third time we are presented
the pattern, like someone walking over a path and forming a trail that others might
follow, there was evening followed by morning, darkness and light: a third day.
The New Living Translation puts it this way: “And evening passed and morning came,
marking the third day.”
And God said, Let there be
lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let
them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for
lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night: He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Genesis 1:14-19
God establishes that the
two great lights, the sun for the day, and the moon for the night which merely reflects
the light of the sun. The sun flares to life with the light God had already created
with His “let there be light.” What had been there in the center of this rotating
solar system, a dead star born again? Was our sun a product of God's resurrection
power? And had the solar system continued to rotate in the darkness, or was it like
a clock stilled, all the rotating planets ground down to a silent freeze, quiet
in the darkness, gravity waiting, waiting, awaiting the Creator's hand to turn the
key? We are not told, only that the sun may be used to count time as Planet Earth
spins we experience night and day; as the planet approaches the sun and moves away
from the sun we experience seasons, and as the moon encircles the Earth we may count
months. The Earth circles the sun and we count off a year.
Almost as an afterthought,
the Scripture informs us: “He made the stars also.” It does not stipulate that any
star other than our own sun was created during this Creation week, only that it
was God that created each and every one of the stars, which are suns like our own,
some of them much larger, others much hotter, in the distant eons past. Genesis
Chapter 1 is, after all, the story of us, our world, and the Creation of
things that pertain to us and our ecosphere.
These stars would now be
visible in our “firmament,” our sky (as there was no sky before, but only a frozen
world, and again, like a tree falling in the forest, if there is no living person
on Earth to look up and see the stars, do they exist? Of course the stars exist,
and existed, beyond our dim ability to count time). The moon was probably there
already, stationed near Earth like a guardian, but only with the ignition of the
sun could the moon lend any reflected light to its ward.
Now there is a sky, and now
the sun is lit, and now the moon relfects the sun's light, and now the stars are
visible in the new firmament.
The evening (dark) and morning
(light) comprised the fourth day, with moon the new beacon representing the dark
(no light of its own, merely casting back light like a mirror from the sun) and
sun the ruler of the daylight hours. The New Jerusalem Bible spells it out this
way: “Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.”
And God said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly
above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and
every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in
the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were
the fifth day.
Genesis 1:20-23
God creates the rich varieties
of both sea life, plant and animal, with all the fowl of the air. Before sin entered
the world, God blesses all life and commands: “Be fruitful and multiply.” Through
some mistaken, prudish idiocy, churchmen through the years came to think and intrepret
“fruitful and multiply,” otherwise known as “sex” and reproduction, as a sinful
creation, from the darkness of their minds even terming it “original sin,” whereas
the Bible makes it amply clear that reproduction, sex, was created at the beginning,
was blessed from the beginning, is sinless and perfect.
Pride was the original sin,
and thus prideful churchmen misnamed original sin, in their pride, what a sin, both
the original sin and the later misnaming of it. Reproduction is a command here in
Genesis Chapter 1 and there is no sin in it. As Creation was perfect, so then sexual
reproduction. Be fruitful and multiply.
All this happened on the
fifth day, with the evening and morning listed repetitiously so that we should not
forget (have you forgotten already?). The New American Standard Bible - Updated
Edition interprets the fifth day as: “There was evening and there was morning, a
fifth day.”
And God said, Let the earth
bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and
beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the
earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth
upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:24-25
Notice, Verses 24 and 25,
first God says the thing, then immediately we are presented with the statement that
God made the thing, repetitiously listing what the thing is, and that God discerns
that it is good. To our modern ear, not used to the art of verbal storytelling,
and aural “storylistening,” this sounds repetitious, and of course as people do,
they will pounce upon anything foreign and attempt to twist it into a whole new
balloon animal shape. But clearly, in one simple statement, the Bible says: “God
made the animals.” There is nothing mysterious here.
God snaps together the other
side of the piece, the animal life that sustains the plant life even as the plant
life sustains the animal life, not only in breath, but also in food, also in manure,
a complete cycle of life, a pattern that works in a sinless world just as it does
in a sinful world. About the only thing that insists on interrupting this pattern
is mankind himself, insisting on cutting down the forests, killing the animals,
wiping out entire species, polluting the earth, the sea, and the sky, and often
declaring that this is what God wants, that this is WHY God created this perfect
ecosphere of support and sustainment. God made a perpetual-motion machine that both
lives and breathes, this living creation called Earth, an object much more complex
than human beings can every hope to understand, at least in this lifetime. God's
Creation confounds imagination and dizzies the intellect.
Kill the world! man cries, and feels that he is blessed by God. This is what God wants,
for us to destroy, maim, rape and pillage. Drill baby drill!
I have even heard people
declare that “God made the oil so that I can drive around in a big car.” If you
think about it, do you think God really made oil so that you could selfishly drive
about town, polluting the air and earth? Threatening the lives of others? Does God
really want this? Did He in fact plan it all at the beginning?
Or did God, who planned that
sea would support earth as earth would support sea, the vapors moving precipitation
one way and then the next; the very same God who planned that what animals breathed
out, plants would breathe in, and vice versa; the very same God who planned that
animals would eat plants and in turn the animals in their digestive process would
feed the plants the food they require; did God create “oil” for fat people to drive
about town?
Or did God have a very real
purpose for oil, one perhaps which we understand very little as yet with our vast
intellects and boundless imaginations? Is oil perhaps a form of “blood” in the Earth,
protecting the planet from extreme heats and cold, much the way it does in your
fat engine? True, we certainly don't understand the purpose of oil, we think of
it as a “black gold” so that Arabian princes might build luxury playgrounds for
the jetset, but perhaps the God of Creation had another purpose in mind. If God
blesses those He loves most, and if He has blessed Arabians and Persians with the
most oil, then perhaps God loves the Arabians and the Persians the most?
Or possibly God created oil
for a very real purpose, and we just aren't brilliant enough to figure that purpose
out. So we burn it, the oil, like we do everything else. Burn it.
We are not told if God “spoke”
and created oil. It is not written in Scripture. If when God came here to create
life and the water was already present as the Bible clearly states, would it not
be logical that oil was present, and gold and silver and rocks, dirt, and that there
are very real purposes in all these creations of God? Scientifically, it is proposed
that plants and animals were compressed over great lengths of time and were formed
into oil, but then again, this would still be the work of God's hand, over eons
of time, to God's purpose, it would have a purpose to support the earth just the
same way as the sky does, the ocean, the land, and if we run with the idea that
God does not create things on accident, perhaps oil is a safeguard built into the
earth, something the earth needs, much the way the sky is a very real protection
against the extreme heat of the sun, and more, the invisible rays which the sun
bombards the planet, and beyond the sky, the heavens, the magnetic field which surrounds
the planet and protects it. We are not told about the magnetic field, but we know
it exists. We know that the spin of the planet is crucial, that this plays into
gravity, days and seasons and years, none of it was created without a purpose.
Claiming that God created
oil for your car, or cows for your hamburger is like claiming that God created wind
so that you could fly a kite on a sunny Sunday.
If a family of mosquitos
found a comatose body to live upon, and “discovered” the wealth of the red gold
within that body, and began to greedily suck out that red warmth, grow fat and rich
upon its wealth, they might begin to think they were blessed, that the “Mosquito
God” had created this vast red oil for their own purposes. Stupidly, the mindless
mosquitos would drain the body, not discerning what they were doing. They would
probably infect the body with all manner of dangerous viruses as well, never knowing
that they did so. As they celebrated their blessings, their own doom would be rushing
upon them as their host sickened and died.
Is that a leap? That God
created the Earth for a purpose, and fat, greedy humans are industriously killing
that Creation?
Have we as humans launched
on the same kind of suicidal merchandizing of God's Creation? Who needs rainforests,
they are subject to mans' tools. Who needs the oceans, we are the mighty masters
of the sea. When we melt mountains for their treasures, hollowing them out, robbing
the great silver veins, the golden veins, all the “precious” metals, and all the
common metals, are we in some way affecting the very Creation of God? Are we so
insolent and arrogant that we think we can do anything we wish to do without consequence?
Aren't we affecting God's Creation, His miraculous ecosphere when we wipe out species
after species, when we with our mighty brains cross-breed violent African bees with
docile South American Bees and generate a new killer bee, is there no consequence?
When we improve corn, genetically modifying it so that it needs less water, and
can burst out with twice the produce, are we really improving what God put in place,
or are we greedily draining the body that sustains us, with no fear of consequences,
we the masters of our fate, the captains of our industry.
Think about what modern food
“gods” have done, chopping up sheep and other meats and feeding the slop to cows,
natural vegetarians. Chopping up pigs and feeding them to chickens and chopping
up chickens and feed them to swine. Just how brilliant are we?
Oh yeah, we
make a better burger, and a better bucket of chicken, but how are you going to end
up paying for such wonderful luxuries in the long run?
It is no secret that “mankind,”
even those that label themselves “Christian,” are now claiming to be god. Are now
claiming to have authority, and power, in and of themselves. What pathetic gods.
Tragic, really. Is this what godhood has come to, humans?
And what about the righteousness
of God? The thing we are to seek first?
Why should we seek His righteousness?
We have our own righteousness in and of ourselves. That is what is being taught
in New Age Christianity. We can be our own saviors. We have the authority. We have
the power.
Or do we?
And God said, Let us make
man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in
His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26-28
God makes man in His own
image, after God's own likeness. God makes a perfect, sinless creature, humanity.
Humanity, created in the image of God, Scripture spelling out “in God's own likeness.”
What does this mean, the image of God? In God's own likeness?
When we look into a mirror,
we create an image, and it looks somewhat like us. But it would be highly delusional
to come to believe that the image we are creating has any life of its own. The image
is only “alive” because we make it so, by looking into the mirror. If we leave the
image, it is gone, it perishes. The image only has life in us. Much in the way the
sun has light and sends out light, the moon has no light, but reflects back what
the sun shines upon it. The moon has no light of its own, but only that of the sun.
Man is tenuous. Man has no
life of his own. There is absolutely no mention of an “immortal soul” in the Bible, it is purely
an invention of mankind, a tradition of men. Man is utterly dependent on God (and
man naturally does not like this fact, man naturally wants more; it is only supernaturally
that man may accept his utter dependence upon God). Without God, man does not exist.
As if God is constantly looking into a mirror, we reflect Him, we exist because
He condescends to watch us, He condescends to keep us alive.
God creates humans in the
image of God, both male and female. Yes, the Bible states it very clearly that women
were also created in the image of God, that while masculinity issues from God, so
does femininity.
And so God, Who is high above
us, creates lowly mankind, and commands us to “have dominion” over every living
thing, whether it is of the sea, earth, or sky. In the context that it is given,
“dominion” means “completion” or “perfection,” in many ways it means that mankind
would be similar to a god above the animals, the very caretaker of the animals.
God created humans last in
the same way programmers may install a caretaker software on a computer, to watch
for mistakes, threats, to ensure things run properly. God created mankind to oversee
the great vast machine of the world, man is the mechanic, the janitor, the night
watchman, the nurse, the babysitter. In short, the reason behind God’s creation
of mankind was not to create babblers that lord it over others, or over the earth,
but to take care of the Earth. God created a vast ecosphere, in reality a very living
being, the Earth, a great creature, with oil for blood, water for cooling, air for
breathing, with plants breathing out this air, and animals inhaling this air and
breathing out a waste product that plants desperately require to survive.
Man was created by God to
care for the Earth. Adam and Eve were the first park rangers. There domain was a
perfect garden without sin.
What did man do? Man brought
about a curse upon the earth. It was man that brought death. And as we see, man
yet believes it is his duty to curse the earth. Man believes it is his duty to kill
as many animals as possible. To gather God’s intelligent creation into pens, hang
the creatures upside down and slit their throats. Quench his lust for blood and
dead meat by pillaging God’s Intelligent Creation.
Man does not remember the
Garden, the perfect place, nor the perfect job. Man shakes his fist and screams:
“Drill! Oh Drill Baby DRILL!”
Pollute the water with his
waste, drill deeply for natural gas and mix the gas with the water, oh yes fracture
mining is safe, it will make us rich with green pieces of paper, while the water
is polluted, while the oil is suck out and burned to fill the sky.
Man was created to steward
the Earth. Man was created to nurture the Earth. Go back and read what has been
written. God did not create the Earth to be a playground for the rich and fat, or
a plundering dungeons and dragons game to find and steal treasure.
At the beginning, Man was
created by God to care for the Earth.
At the ending, what? Surprisingly,
people have not truly read the ending of this Earth and why it is coming:
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come,
and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give
reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy
name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
Yes, God is coming to reward
the faithful. But the other group mentioned here is that group “which destroy the
Earth.” Think about that the next time you wave your “Drill Baby Drill” flag. Man
was placed here to be a life-giver, a peacemaker, a nurturer, a protect—Man, in
his genius, has talked himself into believing that he was set here in fact to destroy,
to kill, to annihilate, to rape, to plunder. The Bible is very clear, this group,
the Destroyers, will be destroyed.
God is love, and mankind
should reflect this, as a mirror reflects everything about the One looking into
it. God is spirit, and humans should be spirit as well, in the spirit, of the spirit,
by the spirit, born of spirit, filled with spirit, which means a person should reflect
the spirit of what God says, not just the letter. If God intends us to be responsible
for animals, we should be responsible for them (this does not mean we should eat
them). We should be responsible for the Earth, just as we should be responsible
for our children. We should be the prophets, the saints, them that fear His Name,
both small and great. We should not be the destroyers of God’s Intelligent Design,
His footstool.
I like the way The Message
paraphrases Verse 26, capturing the spirit of the original Biblical intention:
God spoke: “Let us make human
beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible
for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
Genesis 1:26, The Message
Man is supposed to be a caretaker,
not a rapist. Mankind is responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air,
the cattle, and yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.
Humanity is supposed to be a steward, not a greedy profiteer. Men and women should
be protectors, not attackers of the Earth. “Let us make human beings in our image,
make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that
moves on the face of Earth.”
As God is our Protector,
we should be the protector of everything He created, since He put us in charge.
And God said, Behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be
for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to
every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every
green herb for meat: and it was so.
Genesis 1:29-30
Oddly enough, this is perhaps
the most shocking verse in the entire Bible, and the one most hotly contested, or
perhaps just the most overlooked, because I have heard Christians say, very smuggly:
“God made animals to be our food.” How anyone can read Verses 29 through 30 and
interpret God's Words any differently than He says them, I cannot imagine, unless
people choose to intentionally twist God's very Words. It could be the word “meat,”
which is a very carnal world, and perhaps an even more carnal Christianity interprets
this word “meat” as bloody dead flesh in its lust. But Verses 29 and 30 spell it
out very clearly, at Creation, God created plant life to be the food of both humans
and animals. This is intelligent design, and this makes sense, it is beautiful and
easily comprehended, even by children.
Before sin entered the world,
carnivorous beasts were not carnivorous beasts, and we are assured that in the world
to come, that again as it was in the beginning, there will be no carnivorous beasts,
that both the wolf and the lion will be harmless and will eat grass. Thus the same
for humans, carnivorous humans did not exist before sin, just as carnivorous humans
will not exist after sin has gone.
This is shocking to most
Christians, because they are looking forward to sampling the various animals in
heaven. Can we kill this one now, Lord? I have never eaten lion before, can we eat
him? We have heard of a man-eating lion, but how about a man EATING lion?
There will be no death in
Heaven, nor in the new world, which is the eventual resting place of Heaven itself,
where God Himself will reside and where there will be no sun, but only the light
issuing from God (so Earth will be much as it was when God first came here, only
now it will not be null and void, but abundant with life, sinless life, deathless
life). No death, not dead meat, thus no carnivores in heaven, including carnivorous
people. The Bible is clear, the wolf and lion will exist, but they will exist as
they did in the beginning, in harmony.
In ignorance carnal-minded
Christians, filled with lust for flesh, point to 1 Timothy 4:3, and smuggly quote:
“...meats, which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth...” But Genesis 1:29-30 flatly chastises the carnal man, clearly stating
that plant life is to be “meat,” it is to be our food, it was God's intention at
Creation. “Meats, which God hath created.” Did God create meat at another time?
Perhaps tofu? Think about it, creation, meat, God created meat, and God says: “Behold,
I have given you every herb-bearing seed, which will be your meat.” Right there,
at Creation, God lays down the order.
I have even heard a New Age
Guru who calls himself a bishop claim that 1 Timothy 4:3 demands that people eat
meat, even pork. This is like a horror show, when I hear these New Age Gurus drawling
out their mystery interpretations of the Bible. Trampling on the Word of God, snarling
in their carnivorous lust, their lusts of the flesh. Are they attempting to kill
the Two Witnesses?
Later in the Book of Genesis,
after the Flood, when all plant life has been eradicated, God does provide for the
eating of animal meat; however, this same God who created the world also brought
the animals to Noah, the unclean animals in pairs, but the clean animals by sevens
(God's perfect number), see Genesis 7:2-3. There is a distinct difference between ignorance,
and willful ignorance. God does make provision for ignorance (see Leviticus Chapter
4 and 5, Acts 3:17-21, 17:30), but those who are willfully ignorant are deceivers,
and there will be no place for these in heaven. Even when they label themselves
and glorify themselves with the word “Bishop.”
God says: “I have given every
green herb for meat.”
For humans, meat equates
to plant life, and this is the way God intelligently designed the ecosphere to work,
a sustainable and ongoing process for the world to work and continue working.
Did God create animals to
be food? Certainly not. These creatures, these things, these plants and oceans and
atmospheres and seas, did God create these things which He calls “Good,” did He
create them for us to destroy and annihilate?
And God saw every thing that
he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day.
Genesis 1:31
Genesis Chapter 1 ends here,
with the closing of the sixth day, first the evening and then the morning, but in
the original manuscripts of the Torah, there would have been no division placed
here, because even in the very beginning God revealed that there were seven days
in His week, and on the Seventh day God capped His Creation with something very
special indeed, His first gift to humanity, the present of Yahweh's own Holy Day,
the Sabbath.
Thus the heavens and the
earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended
His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which
He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in
it He had rested from all His work which God created and made.
Genesis 2:1-3
Not only does God make a
perfect physical Creation, but He then blesses the world forever, throughout time,
by gifting humankind with His own Sabbath. Verse 2 of Chapter 2 clearly spells out
that God purposefully ends His work, for the purpose of rest, and in Verse 3 God
pronounces His blessing on the Sabbath, the Seventh day, and even sanctifies the
day (to sanctify means to “set apart,” make special from the rest). The Seventh
day is set apart from the other six days (thus it is not a principle of setting
aside one day in seven, but an actuality of meeting with God on His Own Holy Day,
the Seventh day, which God Himself set apart from the other six days; the principle,
set by God Himself, is to take the Seventh day for rest, not one day in seven, but
THE Seventh day). In Hebrew the word “Shabbat” is actually used, the Biblical word
for God's own Holy Day, meaning to repose, to desist from exertion, to cease, and
to celebrate.
It is curious, but the same
people who read Genesis Chapter 1 and discern that God created animals to be food,
also interpret Chapter 2 as that God is setting a principle, that people should
rest one day in seven, and the day is at their discretion, or spread out over the
week, while others attempt to link the weekly Sabbath to the moon and count from
the new moon seven days until the Sabbath (of course, the only way this could work
is if a full month could be crammed into Creation week). But there is what the Bible
distinctly says, and there is what people warp God's words into, to serve their
own self-serving agenda.
Genesis 2:1-3 clearly states
that God set the Seventh day apart from the other six days, that He specifically
blessed that Seventh day. God does something spiritual on the Seventh day. He blesses
and sanctifies, and throughout the Bible blessing and sanctification is tied to
God's own Holy Sabbath day, the Seventh day of the week (see Isaiah 58:12-14, and
notice God calls it “My Holy Day”). Throughout Scripture, God never rescinds this
blessing, this sanctification, God absolutely never transfers the holiness of the
Seventh day to any other day. He absolutely never calls any other day than the Sabbath
“My Holy Day.”
Any kind of transfer is an
effort made by people, ever and always attempting to improve what God has set in
place. Because, apparently, men are smarter than God. Or are they?
These are the generations
of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in
the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was not a man to till the ground. But there
went up a mist from the earth, and watered the
whole face of the ground.
Genesis 2:4-6
A curious thing happens here
with some interpreters of the Bible. If you haven't heard of it before, this phenomenon,
you might think that I am joking when I tell you that people jump on these three
verses here and claim this is an entirely different Creation! And these people generally
insert some huge amount of time between Creation week, ending at Genesis 2:3, and
beginning at Genesis 2:4. In some cases, people are just trying to start controversy,
or to laugh at the Scripture, or are searching vainly for novel interpretations,
some mystery twist that they can spring on their fellows and be the life of the
party.
Clearly, this is just a “zoom
in” view of the previously related Scriptures. Genesis Chapter 1 through Chapter
2 Verse 3 is chiefly concerned about what God did, and in what order. Beginning
in Chapter 2 Verse 4, Scripture presents another look at what has already been presented.
This is not a “second creation,” but another look, a closer look.
Through faith we understand
that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were
not made of things which do appear.
Hebrews 11:3
In the beginning the Word
already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. From the very beginning
the Word was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation
was made without him. The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light
to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.
John 1:1-5 (Good News Translation)
Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid
the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon
are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof; when
the morningstars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Job 38:4-7
Many people believe that
God created the world, and that God called the world and everything He created to
be good. A long time ago, many people believed that they were created by the same
God, Yahweh, the Creator of the universe, the One Who stood and at some distant
past and with a dazzling blast of unimaginable power, created an explosion that
soared out mightily through space, which modern-day secular scientists and philosophers
call The Big Bang.
Many people continue to say
that they believe these things, although their actions rarely match their words.
It seems people, especially those that call themselves “Christian” now believe that
belief is more important, that speaking of their beliefs is all important, and that
their lives (and they claim that God created them, intelligently) and what they
do every day in their lives really does not matter.
Think about it, most people
whether religious, or not believe that they have an immortal soul, not that they
are souls, as the Bible teaches, but that they are immortal, that they are a spirit,
that they will continue forever, regardless of God or His Son.
People believe, like spoiled
children set loose in a spotless mansion, that it is their duty to tear down and
destroy, rend and wretch, rip and slash, rape and pillage, instead of the Biblical
protect and care for, love and cherish.
A great many people living
today deny that they are in fact destroying the world. That their lifestyles are
affecting God’s intelligent creation in any way. These people believe that garbage
and toxic waste can be dumped into streams, fed into the very oceans. These people
believe that they can suck the lifeblood of the Earth out of its veins and set it
on fire, its smoke rising into the sky to pollute and choke, where in turn rain
falls polluted to further contaminate the ground. A great many people living today
deny that all these destructive activities are destroying God’s intelligent design,
and they mock those others that believe God wants all His creatures to care for
his intelligently designed world.
It does not take a lot of
imagination to picture what would happen if you purchased a Rolls Royce limousine,
removed the oil from the engine and burned it on the plush carpet inside the car,
and dumped all manner of abrasive chemicals into the radiator, ruining the water
that was meant to cool the car. It does not take much imagination to realize that
if you did this, even once, that you would ruin your expensive automobile, utterly.
And yet these same people
cannot imagine that the way society is running its course that people are in any
way negatively affecting God’s Creation.
These people refuse to believe
that He is coming back, soon, to destroy those who are destroying the Earth. These
people refuse to believe that God’s actual wrath is coming upon them, those that
destroy the Earth. That God is angry, He says so, because of their destruction of
the atmosphere, their depletion of the Earth’s blood which they choose to set on
fire, for the ruination of the oceans and the life therein.
These people are asleep and
refuse to wake up. In their slumber they point at everyone else, they point at same-sex
marriage and claim that is the reason for God’s wrath, and they are unable to smell
the wafting scent of dead pig on their very own breath, they rant about the abominations
of others, while they openly cherish their own abomination.
They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves
in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination,
and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
Isaiah 66:17
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come,
and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give
reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy
name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
When people awaken, they
realize that they very well might be on the other side from where they imagined
themselves to be. They have been singing holy songs, waving their hands in the air
like they just do not care, while all the while they have voraciously cheered on
and participated in the actual destruction of the world. Matthew 25 has a very clear
description of those standing on the palm of God’s left hand, and they scream at
Him that they are the righteous ones, they are the ones who said all the right things.
God will assure this group
of goats who thought themselves sheep that they did not care for Him as was their
job on this Earth. They were to be stewards and care for the weak. Instead they
lifted up and worshipped the Great Golden Bit and sang the holy psalm of “Drill
Baby Drill!”
