Dan Olinger

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood | Part 4: The Sabbath  

Having surveyed the first section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Torah, or Law—the 5 books of Moses—we turn now to the second, the Prophets. This section is normally divided into the Former Prophets, what we Protestants call the books of History, and the Latter Prophets, what we call the Major and Minor Prophets. There’s a lot of creation material in the Latter Prophets, but I’m going to touch on just one passage in the Former. 

During the reign of Hezekiah, Assyria invades, conquers, and takes into exile the northern kingdom of Israel, where Hoshea is king (2K 18.9-12). Ten years later, as one would expect of an invading king who has faced resistance from both these kingdoms, the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib, turns his attention to the southern kingdom of Judah. He begins by merely demanding tribute in the form of silver and gold. Hezekiah strips the precious metals from Solomon’s Temple and turns them over (2K 18.13-16). 

Sennacherib, however, is not yet done. Perhaps noting Hezekiah’s initial cooperation, the Assyrian sends emissaries, backed up by a large army, to mock Hezekiah and to threaten to destroy Jerusalem (2K 18.17-37). He calls for the city’s complete surrender, if necessary against the wishes of their king. 

This is no mean threat. In these days Assyria is the Big Kid on the Block, the conquering army that can operate at will across the Near East. Sennacherib’s emissaries have made threats, and they can keep every one of them.  

But things are different in the South. Whereas Hoshea, the northern king, had been evil, Hezekiah is godly; and placing the Creator of heaven and earth on the scales tips them infinitely toward Hezekiah. 

The godly king humbles himself as he seeks God’s presence in the (much reduced) Temple. He sends messengers to the leading prophet at the time, Isaiah, and requests his prayer for the nation (2K 19.1-4). Isaiah responds, apparently quickly, that God will deliver his people from even this essentially omnipotent king; he will need to return to his land, where God will judge him with death (2K 19.5-7). 

The prophecy eventuates. On his way out of Judah, Sennacherib assures Hezekiah of his eventual return and the defeat of Judah (2K 19.8-13). His ground? That the gods of the surrounding nations have not been able to deliver their people. 

Ah. Logical flaw, comparing the gods of the nations to Judah’s God. Hezekiah takes Sennacherib’s written diatribe before the Lord in the Temple and tells him: 

“O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. ¹⁷Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have devastated the nations and their lands ¹⁸and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them. ¹⁹Now, O Lord our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O Lord, are God” (2K 19.15-19). 

Powerful words. The gods of the nations do not deliver, because they cannot; they are not gods, or even persons, or even sentient beings at all. They are wood and stone, themselves the creations of men’s imaginations and craftsmanship. 

But Judah’s God, this God, is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He made all things from nothing, with spoken words. Any God who can do this can do anything else, if he wants to. And if his prophet has assured Hezekiah that Judah will be delivered, then it will most surely be delivered. 

And it is, spectacularly. The angel of this God massacres the Assyrian army as they sleep in their tents (2K 19.35), and upon returning home, Sennacherib is murdered, ironically enough, as he is worshiping his own (false) god. 

This Creator God can do anything. He certainly can deliver his people from finite enemies. 

Now, the God who created and made covenant with Hezekiah is also the one who created and has made covenant with his people today. We are safe in his care. 

Creation matters. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood  

Moses gives us one more application of Creation that I’d like to note. One of the Ten Commandments, the fourth, makes a direct reference to the creation as a basis for application to how we live. I note that two of the commandments—the second and the fourth—receive considerably more column inches than the others. (Not that any of the ten are “less” important than the others, of course.) The second, which forbids graven images, protects the holiness of God; since God is unlike any of his creatures, to make an image of him is to represent him as less than he actually is. 

Does the fourth commandment do something similar? God says that his people are to honor the Sabbath—because he did. Interestingly, there is a second recounting of the Ten Commandments over in Exodus 31, where God says something that ought to get our attention. He says there that by resting on the seventh day, God “was refreshed” (Ex 31.17). 

Now, God doesn’t get tired; he’s omnipotent. And creating the universe, even in just six days, was not at all taxing for him. But when he finished his astonishing work, since he had created time as well as space, he took some of that time to sit back and enjoy—take pleasure in—what he had created. We know, because he created sunsets, that he enjoys the beauty of sunsets; we know, because he created flowers, that he enjoys the beauty of flowers. 

One of God’s attributes is aestheticism. 

And because we are in his image, we should take the time to sit back and enjoy a job well done. 

Aaaahhhh. 

Is there more to it than that? 

I note that in Israel, violating the Sabbath was a capital offense (Ex 31.14). Does God kill people for being insufficiently aesthetic? 

I suppose, given enough time and thought, I could try to make a case for that, but I don’t think it’s necessary; these passages add further depth to the significance of the Sabbath. 

God calls this practice “a Sabbath of rest” (Ex 31.15). We’ve noted that he was not tired at the end of the Creation week, so the seventh day did not serve as recuperative for him. But he knows that we, his people, whom he loves, do get tired, and as he provides all our other needs, he provides our need for proper rest and recovery from exertion. He goes further than that; he commands it. We must rest, as a sign of our relationship with our Creator God. 

Work/life balance. It’s a thing. 

We think we show our love for God by doing all the things. Well, if we love him, we do obey him. But we don’t show love for him by abusing ourselves in his service; we plan regular times of refreshment, of enjoying his presence and the beauty of where he has placed us in his created world. 

Which brings us back to aesthetics, doesn’t it? 

Some years ago I was blessed to visit in the home of a Messianic Jewish family in Arad, Israel, on a Friday evening. We gathered around the table for supper, joined hands, and sang their traditional song: 

Shabbat shalom! 
Shabbat shalom! 
Shabbat shalom, shalom! 
Shabbat shalom! 

We smiled, and we circled the table, and I experienced newly the joy of entering into God’s Sabbath rest, receiving it as a precious gift, and delighting in it for itself alone. 

How much we 9-to-5 commuters abandon, and unnecessarily. 

I don’t have room here for a thorough discussion of Sabbath theology; there’s a lot more to it, and there are whole books on the topic, from both sabbatarian and non-sabbatarian perspectives, and in each of these directly opposing views there are strengths and motivations to appreciate. Suffice it to say that it is a deeply important concept—and the reason it is important is that it is rooted in the doctrine of Creation. 

If we have no Creator, we have no provider; we have no meaningful beneficence; and we have no assurance that there is one who loves us perfectly, knowledgeably, and wisely for time and for eternity. 

Rest. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning  

As Moses continues his narrative of beginnings, he comes quickly to an account of the Flood, God’s global judgment on human sin. Perhaps you’ve never noticed how thoroughly the flood account is imbued with Creation language. 

The account begins with the observation that “man began to multiply on the face of the earth” (Gen 6.1)—which is a direct response to God’s command to multiply in Genesis 1.28. A few verses later (Gen 6.6), Moses states that God “repented” that he had made man on the earth. Thus Moses introduces the Flood as, in effect, God’s reversal of the Creation event: his Uncreation, if you will. 

And so begins the account. God describes all the life he created in Genesis 1, using the same language: “man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” (Gen 6.7)—“all flesh, wherein is the breath of life” (Gen 6.17). God orders Noah to preserve two of each of these life forms (Gen 6.20), specifying “male and female” (Gen 6.19). 

As he continues his instructions, he specifies not just two, but fourteen–seven pairs–of the clean animals, again including both male and female (Gen 7.2), and specifying both beasts and fowl (Gen 7.2-3). 

Sidebar: Some question why God specified 7 pairs of each clean beast—and some are completely unaware that this specification was even made. Why this command? Well, for starters, we’re told that upon exiting the ark, Noah made a large sacrifice (Gen 8.20), and after going to all that trouble to preserve breeding pairs, you don’t want to kill them. I also note that that dove eventually didn’t return to the ark (Gen 8.12).  Further, I speculate that Noah and his family might have eaten some meat on the ark, and further, they may have wanted some breeding insurance for clean animals as the repopulation proceeded. 

Back to our account. 

As Noah and his family enter the ark, the Creation language is repeated (Gen 7.8-9). And then they wait for seven days until the rain starts (Gen 7.10). Is this intentionally matching the Creation week? Maybe. 

Summarizing the entry into the ark, Moses recalls the Creation language of “after its / their kind” (Gen 7.14), “the breath of life” (Gen 7.15), and “male and female” (Gen 7.16). As the water rises and the death begins, Moses repeats the language: “of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man” (Gen 7.21, 23). He speaks further of “the face of the earth” (Gen 1.29) as the now-emptied home of animal life (Gen 7.23). 

As the rain continues, “the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth” (Gen 7.18). This too recalls Creation language; in the beginning the Spirit was on the face of the waters (Gen 1.2), and on the 2nd day God separated the land from the water. This gracious provision for life in the Creation week is now reversed; the means for life among land animals is removed, and all flesh “in whom is the breath of life” dies (Gen 7.22). 

After the ark lands on dry ground, Noah waits for seven days (there’s that period again) to send out a dove (Gen 8.10), and another seven days (Gen 8.12) to sent it out (successfully) again. Is this an intentional doubling of the Creation week to imply the completeness of God’s restoration of his good Creation? I’m just suggesting this; we don’t have any way of being certain of the significance. 

So on “the first day of the first month the waters were dried up from off the earth” (Gen 8.13)—for the second time (Gen 1.9-10). And into this new world “every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” emerge to “be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth”  (Gen 8.17-18). 

And the account closes by recounting God’s words: “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8.22). 

Creation order is restored. 

So we find that Creation and the Flood are intimately linked in the plan of God. In response to man’s sin, God undoes his miraculous creation—miraculously—and then returns it to its original state, despite the presence of sin. He shows his mercy more spectacularly than he did by creating humans to begin with. And he can do this, obviously, because he was capable of creating the cosmos in the first place. 

Creation is the basis for mercy. It matters. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Part 1: Introduction 

Moses himself, the author of the creation account, begins to interpret and apply it almost immediately. He finds his opportunity in two specific events: the initiation of the godly line, and the Great Flood. 

After the account of the Fall (Gen 3) and the birth of Cain and Abel and Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4), Moses begins to trace the line of “the seed of the woman” (Gen 3.15). That line is clearly not through Abel, since he is dead and without any named offspring, and it’s clearly not Cain, the murderer and outcast (Gen 4.12), as his offspring Lamech demonstrates (Gen 4.23-24). So Eve has a third son, Seth (Gen 4.25), whose name means “to appoint,” implying  that he is either “the seed of the woman” or the seed’s progenitor; indeed, shortly later “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4.26). 

Moses chooses to begin chapter 5 by announcing a formal genealogy: “This is the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen 5.1). But at the beginning he chooses to spend some column inches on the birth of Seth, more than is usual in a genealogy. He begins by referring back to his creation account—specifically the key fact that Adam and Eve were created “in the likeness of God” (Gen 5.1). Borrowing almost precisely from his earlier language, he emphasizes that both Adam and Eve, both of whom are essential in producing the godly line, are created directly by God and are in his image (Gen 5.2). He even says that God “called their name Adam” (Gen 5.2), which sounds odd to us until we realize that the name “Adam” simply means “person” or “human” (e.g. Gen 2.5). 

Now Moses applies that language to the birth of Seth: 

And Adam … begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Gen 5.3). 

Likeness. And image. Just as God, so to speak, created “after his kind” (Gen 1.11), so Adam and Eve did as well. And this language is more specific than “after his kind”; it’s a mirror image in certain ways. 

What’s the significance of this? It tells us that the image of God is not a “one-shot deal” effective for just a single generation or birth. It continues; Adam passes that image and likeness on to his offspring, who pass it on to theirs. We’re all, all of us, in that image and likeness. 

We find evidences of that in later Scripture. The New Testament repeatedly describes man, or all mankind, as in the image and/or likeness of God (1Co 11.7; 15.49). It describes Christ as particularly in that image (2Co 3.18; 4.4; Co 1.15; He 1.3), and believers, who are “in Christ” (2Co 5.17), as further conformed to that image (Ro 8.29; 1Co 15.49; 2Co 3.18; Co 3.10). 

I find it interesting that in the first reference to “image” in the New Testament, Jesus implies something further about its significance. In Matthew 22.20 and its Synoptic parallels (Mk 12.16; Lk 20.24), Jesus points out that since a coin bears the image of Caesar, it must belong to Caesar, and should be paid as a tax. What he does not say, but clearly has in mind, is that whatever bears the image of God—mankind—must then belong to God, and not to the state. We are his by right of creation, and he has marked us with his image—a brand, if you will—as visible evidence of that. 

The first significance of creation, then—established from the very beginning—is that God is our Owner and Lord, whether we acknowledge that or not. I suspect that a significant motive in the invention of other creation stories is the desire to circumvent, even to suppress (Ro 1.18), that fundamental fact.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash