2024-07-24 _ Creation is Salvation: God Revealed Without Exegesis II

An objective interpretation that attempts to convey the original author's meaning by considering the text's context. For example, in biblical exegesis, a pastor might exegete a passage by looking for the author's original message.

Exegesis requires intellectually breaking down an object, analyzing the component parts by comparing them with, or in relation to, other information, and resynthesizing the material to form an interpretation of the object. When humans are the exegetes, the interpretation will be different from the object in itself, since no matter how committed the human observer is in doing an “objective interpretation,” his interpretation will be influenced to a degree by his unconsidered biases and his human error.

In Genesis 1:1-2:3, God is revealing Himself in creation; but in Him, there is no intellectual breaking down, analyzing, and resynthesizing, in the way that humans interpret something. God knows Himself, and so reveals Himself, in one, complete act of intellection and of will. Just as He knows the past, the present, and the future, in what is for Him one simultaneous and eternal present, so He knows Himself, and reveals Himself, in what is for Him one act. Therefore, He knows Himself, and reveals Himself, in a manner that is not exegetical. This is important, for it means that what we learn about God from His self-revelation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 is not one of many interpretations of God. Rather, Genesis 1:1-2:3 reveals what and who God is per se. God is what and who He is (see Exodus 3:14: “And God said unto Moses, I am that I am”). When creation is ordered, which is to say, in sync with His will, then it will reveal that very point. When creation is disordered by sin, then it will insinuate that God is however we may interpret Him to be (see Genesis 3:5: “…and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”).

Therefore, Genesis 1:1-2:3 is about how God reveals Himself to us, which is to say, without exegesis. Later, when we consider Genesis 2:4-3:24, we shall see how man endeavor to try to interpret God, which is to say, through an imperfect interpretative lens. The two creation stories thus are two sides of the same coin: God reveals Himself to us in His harmony and His wholeness, and we interpret Him in our imperfection which is compounded by our sin.

Genesis 1:4-5: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

From our vantage point, it would seem that God is exegetical, for He sees the light and then interprets that the light is good. Nevertheless, in God there is no actual separation between His perception, His intellection, and His conclusion. There is no breaking down, analyzing, and resynthesizing. Moreover, since God is the measure by which something may be called good, which is to say, that something is as it ought to be, in seeing that the light is good God is acknowledging that the light is in complete harmony with His will. He is seeing Himself in the light. God’s self-knowledge and God’s self-revelation are the same. As such, God is not one thing, but revealing Himself to be something else.

For elaboration that there is no duplicity in God, see:

• 1 John 1:5: This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. There is no goodness in what is bad, and vice versa, and so there is a clear division between light and dark, or day and night. So in God, there are no moral half-measures (see Matthew 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect”). So what is good is real, for notice that God sees Himself in the light which alone is seen to be good. By contrast, He does not see Himself in the darkness nor for that matter even acknowledge the darkness as such except as it is not light and, therefore, is divided out from what is light.

For elaboration that what is real is good, see:

• St. Augustine of Hippo: “All of nature, wherefore, is good, since the Creator of all nature is supremely good…. When, however, a thing is corrupted, its corruption is an evil because it is, by just so much, a privation of the good. Where there is no privation of the good, there is no evil. Where there is evil, there is a corresponding diminution of the good.” Therefore, according to St. Augustine of Hippo, evil is not a thing in itself but is simply the absence of what is good. Evil is not reality but rather the absence of reality, which is to say, that part of reality that has been perverted by sin (what he calls corruption or privation). Therefore, unlike with Zoroastrianism, there is no Good balanced out by (and in everlasting conflict with) Evil. Instead, there is only the Good. Evil is simply when some good is missing or perverted. Thus, the devil is “good” to the extent that the devil exists like anything is good to the extent that it exists. The devil is “evil” to the extent that the devil has corrupted what God had intended originally for the devil to be (corruption resulting in an absence of good).

Genesis 1:6-8: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 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. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Firmament is the correct translation of the Greek word from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures dated approximately 150 BC. The older Jewish Scriptures in Hebrew, dating back to the time of Moses, would have used a different word here: Rakiang, which means extension or expansion.

Benson Commentary: “As this extension or expansion was to be in the midst of the waters, and was to divide the waters from the waters, it chiefly, if not solely, means the air or atmosphere which separates the water in the clouds from that which is in and upon the earth. Thus the second great production of the Almighty was the element which is next in simplicity, purity, activity, and power, to the light, and no doubt was also used by Him as an agent in producing some subsequent effects, especially in gathering the waters into one place. It is true, we afterward read of the sun, moon, and stars being set in the firmament of heaven: but the meaning seems only to be that they are so placed as only to be visible to us through the atmosphere.”

Genesis 1:9-13: 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. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good. 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. 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.

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary: “We must not picture the work of creation as consisting of the production of the first tender germs which were gradually developed into herbs, shrubs, and trees; on the contrary, we must regard it as one element in the miracle of creation itself, that at the word of God not only tender grasses, but herbs, shrubs, and trees, sprang out of the earth, each ripe for the formation of blossom and the bearing of seed and fruit, without the necessity of waiting for years before the vegetation created was ready to blossom and bear fruit. Even if the earth was employed as a medium in the creation of the plants, since it was God who caused it to bring them forth, they were not the product of the powers of nature…in the ordinary sense of the word, but a work of divine omnipotence, by which the trees came into existence before their seed, and their fruit was produced in full development, without expanding gradually under the influence of sunshine and rain.”

As much as there is an ordered progression in God’s creation, closer in form to a kind of evolutionary progression, there is also the divine miracle of fruit bearing trees appearing at once without first evolving out from simpler life forms. God is not bound by the order that He imposes on His creation. He can and will intercede with miracles that demonstrate His providential hand in nature. There is a hint that, by God’s will, nature is predisposed already to salvation, where life is lived even more abundantly than in the normal course of events.

For elaboration that living more abundantly is an indication of salvation, see:

•  John 2:10: Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

• John 4:14: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

• John 6:13: Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

• 1 Corinthians 15:4: …He was buried, and…He rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

According to the Scriptures refers to everything foretold in the Jewish Scriptures about the coming of Christ Jesus. More broadly, the phrase refers to everything foretold in natural law and in God’s Providential Hand in nature and in human history, which sometimes manifests itself in the miraculous overcoming of the limits imposed by natural law. In the Third Day of Creation, we see God miraculously overcoming the normal processes of His own creation, just as in the Third Day, we see His Resurrection overcome the strict imposition of death.

Genesis 1:14-19: 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.

In returning to the creation of light, but this time in the plural form, God is starting a second three-part phase to His creation. Like before, He starts off with the most elemental creation and then, in the third part, concludes with an expression of His providential hand in nature.

The lights in the rakiang, which is to say, the air or the atmosphere, indicate more than just the measure of time. Being that time is in the air, the connotation is that time (and therefore history) have dominion over what is living on the earth. We can be guided by time, but more often we feel driven, or even oppressed, by the passage of time. There are signs in the stars, because there are signs and seasons in time, in history, a history that sometimes seems to be progressing toward some end, but then seems to recur to past historical patterns just as the constellation of the stars follows a circular journey through the sky. The confusion of a time that is both chronological and circular sets the stage for the necessity of God’s hand in nature. God is creating a natural order that needs him for there to be an order that arises out from the confusion of trying to make sense of the signs and the seasons without Him.

For elaboration that God alone restores order to the signs and the seasons, see:

•  Luke 21:25: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring.

• Luke 8:24: And they came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then He arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.

Genesis 1:20-23: 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.

In this second three-part phase of creation, the Fifth Day is analogous to the Second Day. In the Second Day, we see the water separated from the air. Now, on this Fifth Day, we see the water and the air filled with an abundance of life.

Again, we see God’s providential hand in creation, for He dispenses with sophisticated life forms evolving out from simpler life forms. In this sense, the Fifth Day includes aspects of the miraculous nature of the Third Day as well: Without waiting here for the natural course of events in nature, God jumps ahead and creates “great whales.” It is like the created order is building exponentially in excitement for what is to happen in the Sixth Day, which is the final part of this second three-part phase. An excited hope is built into the basic fiber of all of creation.

For elaboration on how an excited hope is built into creation, see:

• Romans 8:22-24: For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope….