Don't miss Christ in the book of Genesis. For my part, this thread on Genesis will focus on seeing Christ the central One of the Bible's revelation, in Genesis. This is especially true of chapters one and two.
I am pushing that Christ should be seen in Genesis rather than taking Genesis as a exhaustive scientific description of how God created everything.
It should be evident that God was not trying to give man an exhaustive account of how everything was created by Him. Had that been the case the account would have been multiple times longer, larger, wordier and extensive then the economical few words about creation.
Just to explain what water is, for an example, God could have revealed many chapters or even whole books. But it is expressed briefly that water was was inundating everything one the first day.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. But the earth became waste and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." (1:1,2 Rcv)
From the high point view of the whole Bible I think God is saying water, darkness, emptiness, waste are indicative of man's existence apart from Christ.
I want to show you Christ in Genesis. And this is the first negative background against which Christ is revealed in the typology of the account of creation.
The seven days of Genesis one are going to show on God preparing the world for life. Life is important to God. And all He does there culminates in bringing forth life.
Light, dry land are for the bringing forth of life. From our modern science viewpoint we probably think of life starting in the ocean, in the water. From the Bible's view dry land coming up out from under water is mentioned before life.
I hope you can see the land coming up out of the water points to Christ rising from the dead. Why is it that the dry land appearing happens on the THIRD day?
Look at the sequence - dry land appearing, life first appearing on the third day.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas and God saw that it was good." (vs. 9,10)
Read between with spiritual eyes. This is about the Son of God rising from the dead on the third day. And His rising from the dead precedes the development of all life. In the Bible's view it is rising dry land - life. In the Bible's view it is not sea water - life.
Man is begotten again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Pet. 1:3)
The eternal life is imparted into man through the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead. Man is regenerated with the life of Christ dispensed into him through the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
Now we go back to the THIRD day when the land rose and see how this event precedes the mention of the first life.
"And God said, Let the earth sprout grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit according their kind with their seed in them upon the earth; and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with their seed in them according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, a third day." (vs.11-13)
Can you see on the THIRD DAY resurrection out from death and generation of the first life? This points to Christ.
Academically most modern minds are educated to think of water as preceding biological life.
That is a scientific matter perhaps. In the Bible's revelation the creation account mentions the land coming up from the water FIRST. Then it mentions life on three levels. We may say three progressive levels of expression.
grass,
herbs,
trees .
What is being symbolized here is Christ's resurrection followed by the growth and development of higher and higher consciousness of life.
Genesis is concerned with life, preparation for it, and its ascending consciousness of it until man expressing God and reigning for God is reached.
Biological life is only a vehicle for pointing to the divine life which is in Christ.
That life is first available to be imparted into man with the resurrection of Christ signified by the rising of the dry land out from under the death waters on the third day.
Only Christians view the OT in general and Genesis in particular as prophetic of the coming of Jesus. The Jews view it rather differently.
They see Christ but do not see Christ clearly.
I mean they see (some of them) the Law of Moses in the typology.
But the Law of Moses is actually the reflection of Christ as the light of the moon is
a refection of the light of the sun.
@moonbus saidAnd you do realize that Paul was a Jew.
@sonship
Only Christians view the OT in general and Genesis in particular as prophetic of the coming of Jesus. The Jews view it rather differently.
That is a Jew who God called to be an apostle and wrote 13 books of the Christian
New Testament.
You realize that the first disciples of Jesus by the tens of thousands were Jews in the city of Jerusalem?
Not to suggest error in what you stated. Among non-Christian Jewish rabbis there is of course the emphasis on different things in Genesis. Some would emphasize the revelation of the Law in a way that I am emphasizing the revelation of Christ there.
Anyway, why do you think the dry land is revealed on the third day? Why could it not have been on the fourth or the second or some other day? I think in light of the whole Bible its separation from the water on the third day certainly alludes to the Son of God's resurrection on the third day.
@moonbus saidI thought your comment was good by the way.
@sonship
Only Christians view the OT in general and Genesis in particular as prophetic of the coming of Jesus. The Jews view it rather differently.
I mean God gradually reveals His eternal purpose and nature in the whole Bible
from Genesis to Revelation.
The Jewish bible ending with Malachi, the last book of the "Old Testament" is what they accept as God's speaking. But the old covenant ITSELF had God promising that He would establish "a new covenant" in Jeremiah.
In light of the new covenant God predicted He would establish, the New Testament, we have explanation of the centrality of Christ to all of God's operation in outworking of His full salvation.
Integral to the establishing of the new covenant God promised is the incarnation of Christ, His living, death, and resurrection from the dead. God foreknew this even as He revealed things to Moses who wrote Genesis.
But before this light of the centrality of Christ came to the New Testament apostles the central matter seen by the Jews was the Law. And some elaborated on the importance of the Law even in the book of Genesis.
In this side of the coming of God's new covenant I think we have to see more of Christ depicted in Genesis. But the Law of Moses is certainly not unrelated to the coming of Christ who alone fulfilled the law and was the end of the faith.
Christ brought in the law of life in Him - the divine and eternal life of God dispensed into man via the resurrected Christ. Christ in resurrection became a life giving Spirit.
"[T]he last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) Meaning Christ became a new Adam so to speak, a new Head of a new humanity with God's life indwelling them in addition to the created human life. A life giving Spirit actually means a GOD giving Spirit - the Holy Spirit.
@sonship saidThis is not seeing Genesis through spiritual eyes, this is eyes seeking to corrupt the original text and inserting things that simply aren't there. (No different than the attempt to muscle in the Trinity.)
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas and God saw that it was good." (vs. 9,10)
Read between with spiritual eyes. This is about the Son of God rising from the dead on the third ...[text shortened]... In the Bible's view it is rising dry land - life. In the Bible's view it is not sea water - life.
This is not seeing Genesis through spiritual eyes, this is eyes seeking to corrupt the original text and inserting things that simply aren't there. (No different than the attempt to muscle in the Trinity.)
Please be specific and point out exactly WHERE the original text was "corrupted" by what I quoted.
Your best English translation of the Hebrew compared to the alleged "corruption" of my quotations will suffice as an example.
You may disagree with my exegesis. Show me where my interpretation is a corruption of anything.
@sonship saidYou wrote:
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
This is not seeing Genesis through spiritual eyes, this is eyes seeking to corrupt the original text and inserting things that simply aren't there. (No different than the attempt to muscle in the Trinity.)
Please be specific and point out exactly WHERE the original text was "corrupted" by what I quoted.
Your best English ...[text shortened]... may disagree with my exegesis. Show me where my interpretation is a corruption of anything.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas and God saw that it was good." (vs. 9,10)
Read between with spiritual eyes. This is about the Son of God rising from the dead on the third day. And His rising from the dead precedes the development of all life. In the Bible's view it is rising dry land - life. In the Bible's view it is not sea water - life.
Your statement 'This is about...' and everything that follows, is complete nonsense. It is not a profound insight you have glimpsed with spiritual eyes, it is an attempt to give new meaning to a text that wasn't intended at the time it was written. Is biblical text not good enough for you that you feel the need to change its meaning? - There is no Christ in the above references in the same way that there is no Trinity in the entirety of the Bible.
You wrote:
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas and God saw that it was good." (vs. 9,10)
Absolutely no corruption of the text there.
False alarm on your part.
When you want to say "I don't like or agree with your expounding on the text" say that instead of the misstatement "Oh, you're CORRUPTING the text there."
Read between with spiritual eyes. This is about the Son of God rising from the dead on the third day. And His rising from the dead precedes the development of all life. In the Bible's view it is rising dry land - life. In the Bible's view it is not sea water - life.
Some of us read the Bible as a whole revelation. And while you may not appreciate it, in the end of the Bible there is "no more sea" and there is no more DEATH.
The SEA is eliminated " And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, AND THE SEA IS NO MORE." (Rev. 21:1)
And DEATH is also no more - "And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; AND DEATH WILL BE NO MORE." (Rev. 21:4)
There is a strong correlation in the Bible with the sea and death.
So some have noticed that the FIRST mention of things in the Bible establishes often a principle. The first mention of the waters has a meaning of death.
And it could have been that the dry land came up on the second day, or the fourth day. That it came up on day THREE could mean it is pointing to the Son of God rising from DEATH on His third day.
If you cannot receive that it is ok.
But the resurrection of Christ from death is not some small miscellaneous matter
in the Scripture. It is very central to the whole Bible.
Your statement 'This is about...' and everything that follows, is complete nonsense. It is not a profound insight you have glimpsed with spiritual eyes, it is an attempt to give new meaning to a text that wasn't intended at the time it was written.
Actually it is not nonsensical at all. In Genesis the resting of the ark of Noah on dry land coincides DATE wise with the day Jesus rose from the dead.
From The Life Study of Genesis by Witness Lee. [my bolding]
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E. Life in Resurrection
The Bible is marvelous. Genesis 8:4 says that the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. If you read the Bible carefully along with history and the best lexicons, you will find that, at the time of the Passover in Egypt, the seventh month was changed to the first (Exo. 12:2). The Jews have two kinds of calendars, the civil calendar and the sacred calendar. The civil calendar was the old one, and the sacred calendar was the new one, which began from the first Passover. When God told the Israelites to have the Passover, He told them that that month had to be counted as the first month of the year. In Hebrew the name of that month was Abib (Exo. 13:4), which means sprouting, budding, fresh ears of corn. This signifies that, in the eyes of God, the Passover was counted as a new beginning of life. Why do I point this out? Because the Lord Jesus was crucified on the day of the Passover, on the fourteenth day of the month (Exo. 12:6; John 18:28). According to the sacred calendar, He was crucified in the first month, and according to the civil calendar, He was crucified in the seventh month, the same month as when the ark rested upon the mount. The Lord was crucified on the fourteenth day of that month and was resurrected three days later. Thus, according to the sacred calendar, Christ was resurrected on the seventeenth day of the first month. According to the civil calendar, it was on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the very day that the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. So, in that early type of the ark resting upon the mountain, we were told the exact date of the resurrection of Christ. This is wonderful.
In 1 Peter 3:20-21, Peter connected the resurrection of Christ to the ark. He said that "eight souls, were brought safely through by water: which figure also now saves you, baptism..through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The figure of baptism also saves us through resurrection. I say once again that the ark resting upon the mountaintop signified Christ's resurrection out from the death waters. The month and day of both were exactly the same.
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https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=1CABFBD2C7
The day the ark of Noah, which is clearly a type of Christ, rested on DRY LAND was literally the calendar day Christ rose from the dead when you compare the sacred and the civil calendars of the Jews.
He who has ears to hear let him hear.
That's all.
But by all means people should read the Bible to receive from it what light and wisdom God imparts to them at the stage of spirituality they are at.
@sonship saidBlimey, that's a stretch, even by the Ministry's standards.
Your statement 'This is about...' and everything that follows, is complete nonsense. It is not a profound insight you have glimpsed with spiritual eyes, it is an attempt to give new meaning to a text that wasn't intended at the time it was written.
Actually it is not nonsensical at all. In Genesis the resting of the ark of Noah on dry land coincides DAT ...[text shortened]... receive from it what light and wisdom God imparts to them at the stage of spirituality they are at.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
You explain the "coincidence" then.
Its time you put some substance on your criticisms and stop relying on everybody being wowed by your mastery of Christian jargon.