The Creation Week; Creation of Man; Gen. 1-2

The Pentateuch is organized in a very special way, unique to its time in history. It was written by Moses on the plains of Moab in roughly 1400 BC, just prior to the entry into the land. In liberal scholarship they always attack the Mosaic authorship. The assumption of liberal theology is that God has not spoken in history, that all the Bible is really man’s record of his interactions with “God.” According to that they reject any kind of supernatural breaking into human history by God, so the Pentateuch is always under attack by liberal scholarship because it violates their basic approach to life, which is the basic approach of fallen man, i.e. that man is independent and that God really doesn’t exist or interact with human history. One of the things that always happens in liberal scholarship is they tend to late date all the books of the Bible, so instead of the Pentateuch being written in 1440 BC they move it up to about 1200 BC. Obviously if the date was 1400 there would be predictive prophecy there, and my goodness that would actually suggest that there was a God and we can’t have that! There would be other things as well that would indicate divine authorship and so we can’t have that, so let’s move the date up to about 1200 BC. And that’s what they do.

< One of the interesting things is that Moses wrote this in a particular form that was unique to his time in history, the fifteenth century BC.

So Moses is on the plains of Moab poised and ready to invade the land that God has given them. That is why he is writing the Pentateuch. It is to explain to the nation why God chose them. It explains their national purpose and destiny and that God has a special plan and purpose for Israel. They were called specifically by God through Abraham into existence to be God’s firstborn and to serve as a priest nation to all the nations. So the initial books will explain how the nation came into existence. We have to understand that when we read the Pentateuch we need to read it like a Jew preparing to go into the land, wanting to know why they are doing this, why God wanted them to go into the land, why God gave them the Mosaic covenant, what is God’s plan of salvation, and how do we fit into this? It is written to explain a theological purpose.

When Moses structures the Pentateuch he does it in a special way. He uses a secular treaty form or contract form. The dominant treaty form that was used during this time was called a suzerain-vassal treaty form. A suzerain is a lord, an overlord, a great king. A vassal is like what we would call a client state, one that is under the domination and hegemony of a higher, greater empire. So there would be these contracts or covenants or treaties that the two countries would enter into. The great country would bring the lesser king in and tell him he would be kept on the throne and allow him to continue to rule, but here was the deal. He would be given the guidelines, the regulations. It would define the legal relationships within the present structure and then it would go on and list the things that could happen if the lesser king broke the contract and, on the other hand, if he abode by the contract. So we see that the Pentateuch was laid out with these basic patterns. There is a historical introduction to the covenant in Genesis 1:1 to Exodus 19:2. All of that covers the past relations between God and Israel. Genesis 1-11 is a historical prologue that explains why God has to call out Abraham specifically and create a new nation. Then in Exodus 19:3 through Numbers 10:10 there are the covenant stipulations proper, the main rules and regulations of the covenant that God is entering into between Himself and the nation Israel. Then the historical conclusion to the covenant is from Numbers 10:11 through Deuteronomy 34:12. Deuteronomy itself is laid out according to this same pattern and program.

The reason these are broken up into books is because of the size of the scroll. They could only get so much information on one scroll so they are broken where they are because of the size of the scrolls and the length of the paper. Moses wrote one lengthy document and it is broken down the way we have it today because of the way it is organized according to the scroll.

What we learn from all of this is that what the Bible claims to be true, that this is a document related to this time period, is substantiated by its very form. Now this suzerain-vassal treaty form is crucial to understanding all the covenants of the Old Testament.

When we examine all of this we see that the key verses are in Exodus 19:4-6 ^NASB “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and {how} I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

What is the purpose of a priest? A priest is the intercessor and mediator between people and God. The prophet was the one who spoke for God to the people but the priest was the one who came as the intercessor and the representative of the people to God. So Israel as a nation is put in the position of serving as a priest nation between God and the rest of humanity. This is why Israel has such a central role in all of human history. The focal point here is not the redemption of Israel. Israel is chosen as a means to achieving a higher purpose, and that purpose is the salvation of the nations. So Israel is chosen as a means to an end, the are the priest nation through whom God will come and reveal His Word for all the nations, and in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant that all the nations shall be blessed in them.

1. So the first thing that we learn from this passage is that Israel is not the purpose for the Old Testament but the means to achieving the broader purpose of God which is the salvation of all the people.

2. The second thing we see is that Israel was to serve as the mediator between God and all of the peoples of the earth. In the ancient world all of the trade routes of the world converged on Israel and at that point Israel would evangelize the caravans and then they in turn would take the Word of God back to their nation. That was how Israel was to be a witness and evangelist in the ancient world.

3. The third thing we see is that Israel’s role in the plan of God is to serve as a means to the end; they are not the end. Just a side point observation here: many people think that the whole purpose of the Bible and the purpose of the Old Testament is to express the salvation of God. But this same principle applies. Salvation is not the end; salvation is merely a means to an end. We are saved from something to something, so salvation cannot be the overriding purpose of understanding the Bible. What is the overriding purpose? It is the glory of God. Why is that important? One of the major differences between covenant theology and dispensational theology (and we are dispensational in our theology) is that covenant theology teaches that the overall purpose of the Scripture is salvific, related to salvation. But dispensational theology says that there is a broader purpose than salvation; it is the glory of God. That is why we are saved. We are saved to fulfill the role God originally intended for mankind.

4. The final objective is for God to have unbroken fellowship with His creatures, the people of the earth.

This leads us to one very important question: Why is the human race, then, so crucial? Why has God chosen to create mankind? To the Jews the question was why has God called us as a nation? Why are we here? Why has God given us this land? Why are we to go in and annihilate all of these people? Why is God using us in this way? But beyond that is the question: Why is the human race so i8mportant and crucial and why does God emphasize mankind as the central part of creation?

Here we see that the original vassal in God’s contract is: God as the sovereign, the suzerain; Adam was created as the original vassal, and he was created in perfect environment. We will see as we look at this that there are important ramifications for understanding this. The whole concept of the suzerain-vassal treaty is going to drive us right into being able to understand why Genesis chapters 1 & 2 are so crucial. If you do not take them literally, if they did not happen they way they are written, and it was not a literal interpretation, then it destroys the significance of everything that God says, and in turn it destroys everything that is in the New Testament. You cannot separate history from doctrine at all.

Three things we will look at. First of all the creation account of man as the image of God in Genesis 1:26, 27. This is the central focal point of the creation narrative in the first part of Genesis. The second thing we will look at is that that this creation account is a covenant-establishing document. There is a contract established that is inherent within the verbiage of Genesis chapter one and we see this in relationship to God’s covenant with Noah in Genesis 6:18. What we will see is that the covenant God makes with Noah is a repetition of what God said about mankind and mankind’s purpose in Genesis 1:28, 29, with a few significant differences. When God says to Noah, I will establish my covenant with you, what He has in mind is, I am going to reestablish with you the covenant I made with Adam in the Garden of Eden when I first created man. I will continue, despite this horrific global judgment, the covenant with man to serve as my vassal on planet earth. The third thing we are going to see is that the context of the creation week emphasizes the creation of mankind as the centerpiece and the purpose of all of God’s creative work. It didn’t just happen by chance.

In Genesis 1-11 Moses uses a phrase that he repeats seven times in this section, and this is the phrase around which all of his material is organized. We first find it in Genesis 2:4, “This is the account [generations of] of the heavens and the earth…” So the formula is: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.” There are seven statements: “These are the generations of…” Most conservative scholars believe that what this reflects is the fact that from the creation of Adam up through Moses there were records kept. It would seem that under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit Moses had historical documents going all the way back to the creation, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he was picking and choosing the information from those documents and editing them, putting them together into this particular document.

There are seven sections” the creation narrative in Genesis 1:1-2:3; the sins of Adam and his descendants in Genesis 2:4-4:26; human history from Adam to Noah, Genesis 5:1-6:8; the record of Noah and the world-wide flood, Genesis 6:9-9:29; the scattering of the human race, Genesis 10:1-11:9; the genealogy from Shem to Abraham, Genesis 11:10-26; the introduction of Abram and Sarai, Genesis 11:27-32. That is the overall structure. The reason for bringing this in is to help to understand that this is not, as liberal theology says, just a sort of collection thrown together by a later editor; there is a deep internal structure.

The context of the creation week is emphasizing the creation of mankind as the centerpiece and purpose of all God’s creative works. We need to remind ourselves that man was created to resolve the angelic conflict. In the document of Genesis we don’t go all the way into eternity past because that doesn’t fit Moses’ purpose to write to Israel. He is not putting them within their overall framework of the angelic conflict, he is putting them within the framework of God’s purpose for man, according the Genesis 1:26, 27, which is the centerpiece of this discussion.

The next thing we see is that the structure of the creation indicates that everything is created to provide the perfect environment for the final creation of man. Everything from day one through day five and a half is designed to provide the perfect environment for man. Everything is man-centric. On day one we see the separation of light from darkness and temporal separation. God says it was morning and then evening; He creates a time clock. On day two God creates the atmosphere. Day three sets up the seas and the continents. On the fourth day He creates the light-bearers, the sun, moon and stars that fit into the environment of the heavens. On day five is the creation of the creatures of the air and the creation of the creatures of the water. Then on day six is the creation of land creatures and man who will fill the continents created on day three.

What we learn from this is that God is an orderly God; He is intelligent in His approach and in His work. There is a plan; there is a procedure that is systematic. Application: If God is systematic we should be systematic. We are created in the image of God, we shouldn’t live life haphazardly; we should have a plan and a purpose and think things out just as God did.

Observations:

1. These days are 24-hour days, they are not lengthy periods or geologic ages. How do we know that? On the first day God creates the time clock—morning and evening indicate a 24-hour day. The second thing is based on the language used. In the Hebrew we have the word yom, the word for day. Yom is used with an ordinal number—day one. There are over two-hundred times in the Old Testament that yom is used and every time it is used with an ordinal number it refers to a literal 24-hour day; no exceptions. The third reason is given in Exodus 20:8-11 in the commandment related to the Sabbath, it says, ^NASB “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day…” They were to work six days and rest on the seventh. Why? Because that is the pattern of the creation. Furthermore, when God said he made the heavens and the earth in six days it is the plural of the word yom. The plural of yom is used over 700 times in the Hebrew Old Testament and every single time it refers to literal 24-hour days. There is no linguistic data anywhere to support the idea that yom used either in the plural or with an ordinal number means anything other than a literal 24-hour day.

2. When God says it was good it means that it was in accord with God’s plan. This indicates the expression of divine purpose.

3. The terminology “after their kind” substantiates categories. Categories are very important. God starts off with categories, creates the animals according to categories, and then He has Adam name them. He is going to initiate language; Adam is going to continue the process of naming. That is what history is all about. God initiates in His man the framework of knowledge and then man operating within that framework of divine knowledge then builds. It is designed for man to utilize what God has created, not just to live in harmony with what God has created. “After their kind” is used three times on the third day. God wants us to get the point that the pants reproduce after their kind, they don’t become some other kind of plant. It is used two times on the fifth day in relationship to sea creatures and birds. The Hebrew word means “category.” It is used only three times in three passages in Scripture: Genesis 6:20 in the instructions God gives Noah and taking animals on the ark; that these categories are the same. Then again the word is used in Leviticus 11:15, 16, 19, 22 in defining clean and unclean animals. So this word if a very precise term that indicates a rigid barrier between animals.

4. Sabbath. After six days of creation God rested on the seventh day. God didn’t rest because He was tired, He rested to establish a pattern for man. God rested because He had supplied everything for man that was needed.

5. What we see in the passage is indications of the Trinity. God said, “Let us make man.” Elohim is plural.

6. God exists; He is self-consistent, orderly, purposeful and comprehendible. Because of language He is comprehendible; language is the tool of thought. Implication: Therefore God’s revelation is also self-consistent, orderly, purposeful and comprehendible.

This creation account is covenant-establishing, and this is related to God’s statement to Noah. Genesis 6:18 ^NASB “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” We take it that this covenant is already in existence because of the parallel that we will see between Genesis 9 and Genesis 1:26-28. Genesis 9:1 ^NASB “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’” God says the same thing to Adam. If Genesis 9 is covenant then Genesis 1:26-28 has to be covenant. What did this mean to Noah? It meant go out and procreate. He said the same to Adam, but there is a difference. In Genesis 1 Adam was to rule over the fish of the sea and the beasts of the sea, but now there is a change. What happened in between was the fall. Genesis 9:2^NASB “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.” Now they become part of the food chain. [3] “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as {I gave} the green plant…. [7] As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it…. [9] Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you.”

Genesis 1:26-29 ^NASB “Then God 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 sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.’” There is a modification in Genesis 9 of the original creation covenant.