The first act of God that is recorded as taking place in the present order of things is an act of restoration, an act of giving life out of death, and light out of darkness. This present creation was ushered in by an act of grace, even as it will be followed by the fruit of glory. Many of our readers may remember arguments designed to adjust Genesis i. with geology. Genesis is God’s revelation, geology is man’s imperfect discovery. We do not need to adjust God’s revelation to man’s imperfect discoveries. We have to be careful, however, to distinguish between God’s revelation and man’s interpretation.
Here geology and theology stand more upon equal terms. The one is the finding of erring men in the records of God’s works, the other the finding of erring men in His word. These findings may continually disagree, but between His works and His word there can exist nothing but harmony. One set of interpreters tell us that the earth was brought into existence, was created in the absolute sense of the term, about 6,000 years ago. Another set tell us that they require countless millions of years to account for what they see in the crust of the earth. Some demand a period wherein the fossilized remains of extinct animals, and the fossilized forests that make the coal fields, shall have lived and flourished. Others, by reason of their attachment to another interpretation, have gone so far as to assert that the rocks were created with the fossils in them just as we find them! The microscope turns the chalk cliffs of Dover into masses of minute shells, shells which once contained living organisms. When once we have seen that the present creation which occupied six days in making is a successor to one that was created “in the beginning”, the demands of the geologist for as many million years as he may require make not the slightest alteration necessary in the revelation of God. The six days’ creation is set out in detail, and the order and arrangement as given seem to be purposely designed to foreshadow the sequence of events that constitute the outworking of the purpose of the ages. Six days are occupied in work, one in rest. That there is some definite arrangement may be seen in the following.
1st day. A | Day and Night. Division. Light.
2nd day. B | Waters. Division. The Firmament.
3rd day. C | Earth. Division. Grass, herb and fruit.
4th day. A | Day and night. Division. Light bearers.
5th day. B | Waters. The Firmament.
6th day. C | Earth. For cattle, grass. For man, seed and fruit.
It will be observed that the first three days complete the extent of creation, that is to say, they deal with light, heaven, and earth. In the second set of three those creatures that are to appropriate and enter into the creation already brought forth are created. The light of the first day is concentrated on the fourth day; there we have not light, but luminaries or light-bearers. The day and the night which were divided from one another in the first day, are ruled over by the moon and the sun, respectively, on the fourth. The waters and the firmament are dealt with on the second day. The waters already exist (they are not created on the second day), but a firmament is made which divides the waters from the waters. Some of the waters with which “the world that then was perished” have been lifted up above the firmament which God called heaven. These waters are referred to in Psa. cxlviii. 4, “Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens”, and again in Psa. civ. 2, 3, “Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain (the idea of the word firmament); who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters”. There is something here that has not yet entered into astronomy. The waters that were left on the earth are made to produce not only sea creatures, but also “fowls to fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven”. So the fifth day completes the second. The third day deals with the earth. First its separation from the waters, and then the fruitfulness of the earth, spoken of as grass, herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself. The sixth day sees the creation of beast and man. To the lower animals is given every green herb for meat. To man, the herb bearing seed, and the tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed.
Thus the whole creation is rounded off, all is adapted and prepared for its use, from the sun that rules the day to the provision of the green herb for the creeping things on the earth.
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. The two words translated “finished” (Gen. ii. 1), and “ended” (ii. 2), are translations of a word which indicates totality. The creation thus brought about was finished and ended. Any subsequent work or creation that may be attributed to God must therefore be of another creation than this present one. Where it speaks of God resting, it is “from all His work which He had made”, and “created and made” (Gen. ii. 2, 3). The work of the seven days occupied in the creation and making of “the heavens and the earth which are now” contains all the elements and provide the platform necessary for the outworking of the great plan of the ages.
We must be prepared to learn many lessons that may at first prove hard, by a recognition of this fact. On every hand we are faced with the fact that there are not only wonderful creatures, animal, vegetable, and mineral, that easily typify all that we mean by the word “good”, but that created by the same hand there are countless other creatures, animal, vegetable, and mineral, that aptly typify all that we mean by the word “evil”. The venomed snake is the creature of the same One who fashioned its harmless victim. The One who so marvellously sealed up the fruiting bud to preserve the precious life within, also created an insect armed with the necessary boring appliances to pierce through that protective covering, and deposit an egg which should produce devastation. These things are mysterious and are unanswerable upon any basis that ignores the purpose of the ages. That purpose definitely moves on beyond this present life. Vanity is written from beginning to end of this creation, and the teeming life, with its types of good and evil, its sheep and its goats, its serpents and its doves, its thorns and its figs, its darkness and its light, these speak plainly of the moral and spiritual state through which the creation is passing and urges us onward to “the rest that remaineth”. When pursuing various lines of research into the purpose of the ages, we are apt at times to fall into the error of laying down a law as to what God can and cannot do. While we know that He can do nothing unrighteous, we should be very careful that our standard is not self originated. In many instances when the Scripture brings us up against some problem, we are definitely faced with a fact that silences much argument, viz., GOD IS CREATOR. A well known instance is that reply of Paul given in Rom. ix. 20. Who among us has not had searchings of heart before the revelation of the purpose of election. Who has not felt at one time or another a questioning spirit that would, if allowed to go on, arraign the great God before the bar of our understanding? Or, when attempting to meet the objections put forth by others, how many times have we elaborated the argument concerning the sovereign grace of God? The Apostle embarks upon no long reasoned explanation. The questioner is taken immediately into the presence of the Creator, “Nay but, O man, who art thou that disputest with God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?”. Another typical example is found in the case of Job. Stoutly and persistently Job argues his case against the three friends. Job had “justified himself rather than God”, and Elihu proceeds to reprove him. Job had complained that God had unjustly sought occasion to afflict him (xxxiii. 8-11). What is Elihu’s answer to this? “Behold, in this thou art not just. I will answer” (12), not God is more righteous than man, but greater, and that He giveth not an account of any of His matters. Elihu returns to this statement again in xxxv. 5, and again in xxxvi. 26. Then from the storm Jehovah spake to Job, and again there is the direct appeal to the stupendous work of creation. Job is overwhelmed with the appalling greatness of the One against whom he had dared to murmur. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” “Hast thou searched the secrets of the deep?” “Where is the way where light dwelleth?” “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?” “Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom”. Job is brought low by this first utterance of the Lord, saying, “Behold, I am vile” (xl. 4). Again the Lord addresses Job, and again there is an overpowering exhibition of the strength of the Creator. The Lord draws Job’s attention to the Behemoth (probably the hippopotamus) and to Leviathan (probably the crocodile). There is no reference to God’s righteousness in the passage, but simply the impotence of any to stand against Him. Of the crocodile God can say, “None is so fierce that dare stir him up”, and follows that remark by saying, “who then is able to stand before Me?”. Again the Lord continues His description, and again, without one word of teaching concerning the question of whether God can rightly do this or do that with His creatures (the case in point), Job utterly breaks down. Job answers (we quote from the beautiful metrical version of the late Dr. Bullinger):--
“I know, i know, that Thou canst all things do:
No purposes of Thine can be withstood.
[Thou askedst (xxxviii. 3; xl. 2)]—
‘Who is this that counsel hides,
And darkens all, because of knowledge void?’
'Tis i! I uttered things i could not know;
Things far too wonderful, beyond my ken.
Hear now, i pray Thee: let me speak this once.
[Thou saidst (xl. 2)]—
‘'Tis I who ask thee: Answer Me.’
I heard of Thee by hearing of the ear,
But now mine eye hath seen Thee, i abhor
[myself]. In dust and ashes i repent” (xlii. 2-6).
The reader will call to mind many other passages where the Lord refers in a similar way to the great initial and unanswerable fact of creation. To say that because the term righteousness is not mentioned by the Lord, that therefore it is excluded, however, is not true. If we will only think for a moment we shall see that the creation involves righteousness as a fundamental.
If an engineer does not act righteously in design and construction, his machine will fail. Scrupulous care in measurement, adjustment, and material are first principles in successful work. The fact that creation has come into being so perfectly adapted for its multitudinous functions, so true in its response to the “laws of nature”, reveals to the anointed eye righteousness on every hand. Instead of endeavouring to frame an abstract standard the actions and purposes of God, we shall, when we have the closer acquaintance with God that Job had, realize that those very works and deeds that at first we hesitated not to question, carry with them their own justification, for if they were not right they could not be. While this view will simplify the issues in one respect, it will increase the problem in another, for we shall learn with chastened Job that in saying what God can or cannot do with the work of His hands, we have uttered things we could not know; things far too wonderful, beyond our ken.
Job xxxviii.-xli. asks us questions which deal with the realm which is within the bounds of scientific investigation, and, with all our boasted knowledge, what can we answer to the questions of the Lord. This, scripturally, should close our mouths from uttering what God will do in ages yet to be.
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