Published: November 14, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 1 - The Arc of Revelation - Part 13 | Scripture: Genesis 9:1-17; Isaiah 5:1-7
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Hearts to your word and to one another that we would have a edifying time and a time in your word and in Fellowship that would be pleasing in your sight for we ask in Jesus name
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amen want to finish up some thoughts from last week and talking about creation and again I want to present you know typically the creation account uh
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in modern Western especially American evangelicalism is is apologetic we try to uh prove that
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um that it's scientific that it that at very least it's not contradicted by science um but our our focus on Genesis is as I said last week primarily
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historical and then within that scientific I don't have a problem with Genesis as scientific personally um I've I've never read anything
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that I felt contradicts the creation account but I also don't think that's that was in Moses's mind or even the Holy Spirit as he inspired Moses to to
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write down account remembering that you Moses was writing the account probably 2,000 years or more later okay he's not an eyewitness it's not like gospels uh
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where where he saw any of this stuff this was given to him by Revelation but I think it's important that we realize that he was writing within a cultural context of the ancient
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near East where we we know and we've known for a long time that every one of those cultures had a a massive cosmology myth you know they they had an
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explanation for why there is not nothing and that was not only the creation of the universe but also especially of mankind and so their their Central focus
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in the Anum Elish uh for example is no different than the central focus of of Genesis in that that it culminates in how man got here um and man's
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relationship to the God so the the basic framework of these cosmologies is similar and and so Liberal theologians Liberal Old Testament Scholars have said that Moses
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derived his creation account from these contemporary and in some cases older cosmologies now when you read them side by side you could hardly imagine a more
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ridiculous conclusion than that Moses Drew from these ancient Babylonian or Egyptian cosmologies the Egyptian one is so convenient knowing that Moses grew up
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it's kind of ironic he grew up in a in a in a Egyptian court so sure certainly he would have heard all the the stories the myths but then on the other hand it's it's those books are denied to Moses to
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begin with because he was illiterate okay so the Liberals they they talk out of book both sides of the mouth um but from a standpoint of accepting Moses the Biblical history of Moses which we
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should yeah he probably heard and maybe when he was in elementary school he probably read about uh cfre and and his tears creating man and and all the
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different gods but he didn't derive the creation account from those cosmologies there's really no material similarity between them in fact I think it is more accurate
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to say that the creation of of Genesis is a poic against the Pagan cosmologies with which the ancient near East would
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have been uh so familiar he's writing something that would have been somewhat like what Paul wrote much of what Paul wrote would have been very politically
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radical in the days of the Roman Empire when you said when he says Jesus is Lord that that's a statement that says Jesus is see Cesar okay or higher than Caesar
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so that would have been a political statement very um subtle but when Moses writes this when God inspires Moses with the truth the truth stands against all
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of the errors that were uh again pervasive in the ancient world and and that becomes itself a symbol throughout the rest of scripture so for example
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again I'm just kind of summarizing um the the creation account and how then creation becomes creation becomes itself um a language of further
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Revelation so you have creation as a poic it is it is written if you put the Genesis 1 and two
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side by side with the Epic of Gilgamesh it's stunning how many similarities there are there there are interesting similarities
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interesting similarities including a great Deluge a great flood um but what's even more important is the vast differences um in that none of these other
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these other cosmologies none of them are nearly as simple straightforward and of course none of them are them are monotheistic okay so this is a monotheistic argument
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it's a trumpet blast and it ought to be read that way and I think it's beneficial if you if you have the time not to read the entire Epic of Gilgamesh but to read the flood account which I think is like chapter
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book 10 or something like that um you know just just read the the the Epic of a little bit about some of the enuma Elish or uh some of the cosmology of ancient Egypt just to see where the
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liberal Scholars are coming from but also that they can't get there from where they're starting um that really when you when you do read the ancient myths and including the Greek and Roman
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myths of of later centuries you see that the Genesis the Genesis account is is really a very loud no that's not how it happened
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yeah that and that's and so what that means and that that's exactly where I'm going with that because that that polemical angle and there there are many angles don't don't misunderstand me to think that by focusing on the pical
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angle I'm I'm diminishing any other perspective of the creation account no I'm just simply trying to highlight one of them because it does become itself a
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motif that then threads through the rest of scripture and so we find in the Psalms and and in the prophets especially um in Isaiah but certainly
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not only in Isaiah that the um the um the Divine condemnation of
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idolatry is founded and rooted in God as the creator of the universe so Isaiah 45 for example okay so the the point here
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is that is that the polemics
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continue throughout the Canon and of course that's why we're not doing a class on creation or the creation account we're doing a class on canonical theology so some of the things I'm highlighting as we talk about um
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creation and then we talk about man and we talk about uh life and death um the point is is not to get into the the Weeds about each of these topics but to
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see how each of them are presented to us pretty much all of them in Genesis 1 through3 and then they each become a major theme that runs through the rest
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of the cannon and they all culminate in the person and work of Jesus Christ okay so these are the arcs of Revelation that we follow um and that we pick up on as
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we're reading scripture and we read for example in Isaiah 45 one of the the more um indepth
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condemnations of condemnations of idolatry Isaiah idolatry Isaiah 459 through 13
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woe to the one who quarrels with his maker an earth andw vessel among the vessels of Earth will the clay say to the Potter what are you doing or the thing you are making say he has no hands
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woe to him who says to a father what are you begetting or to a woman to what are you giving birth thus says the
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Lord the Holy One of Israel and his maker ask me about the things to come concerning my sons and you shall commit to me the work of my hands it is I who
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made the Earth and created man upon it I stretched out the heavens with my hands and I established all their host I have
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aroused aroused him to righteousness and I will make all his ways smooth he will guide my city and and he will let my Exiles Go free without any payment or reward says
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the Lord of hosts now there's a lot in that of course but there's also the the Dual lines of both creation and Covenant
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in this one passage and I want I'm going to highlight that when hopefully whenever we see it but he says thus says the Lord the Holy One of Israel and his maker and then he goes on to say it is I
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who made the Earth and created man upon it so there's both the adamic and the abrahamic or we could say the covenantal or the I'm sorry the creational and the
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covenantal okay both of those threads are are vitally important in understanding the message of the scriptures as I've said before we have
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through the teaching of the last 50 or so years or maybe even to some extent from the time of the Reformation we've tended to focus on the covenantal which means we've we've lost
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an an entire motif of creation and and all that that would provide our Systematic Theology as well as our understanding of scripture we've
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kind of lost that and and not that we should throw away the covenants I'm not saying that but we need to regain what the scripture teach teaches us about creation Isaiah 51 is just one or 45 is
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just one of many passages where God condemns and even makes fun of and ridicules Idols but in doing so he he is
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almost always basing his judgment not only the fact that he is a holy God and will not share his glory with another but just the ludicrous nature of a man making an
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object and then calling it God and and he bases that on the fact that he is the god who created all he's God who created the human hands that are making this object and then calling it
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God that's ridiculous on the face of it but the point being is that's what's going on in the Fallen World okay the the the corrupted memory of
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mankind created the cosmologies the mythologies and the idolatries and so the scripture come in not as um a moral code so much as a
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pical argument to say that's all ridiculous this is the truth The God Who made Heaven and Earth he is the god of Israel he's the same one now that again
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is going to be an argument against the Greek philosophy of the the unknown deity and then the emanations that then create the material world and we'll get
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into that when we talk about um um well when we continue with the new creation uh so there there's a lot of of worldly philosophy and teaching that is
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summarily dismissed by the Genesis account of account of creation the problem has been is the church has dismissed the Genesis account of creation and is em bibed the very
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philosophies against which that account was written so we've not only dismissed the biblical account we've gone on to the other side in the professing church and and that's
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that's not a good thing um so that I think is one of the reasons why I want to emphasize the symbolic nature of
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creation but I hope you understand that that symbolic importance could not exist if if creation as accounted in Genesis were not also
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historical that if these things are not historical they cannot then be symbolic but they're historical and they become symbolic for the rest of
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progressive revelation um and and creation is just exactly one of those types of things so um first of all it's a poic against the the mythologies and
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the Pagan idolatries of the ancient near East um it also
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becomes another thing that is recognized in all in all um ancient philosophies at the very least because in the ancient world there really was no such thing as atheism okay so creation
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also becomes the
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interface the proper relationship of mankind to the created realm or to Mother Nature is not something that man has ever been able to work out on his
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own he's either completely destroyed by nature or he is oppressive and exploitive of exploitive of Nature and so the the only way we can
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understand the proper relationship from example Romans 8 where creation is groaning for the revelation of the sons of God that's a remarkable statement
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right there and is so much packed into that statement in terms of our relationship to the world in which we
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live yeah they do they do not right there's no there's no doctrine of sin in most ancient religions and and what we're going to hopefully Lord willing in the the kind of the the next theme that we're going to talk about is Adam and
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the last Adam man and the son of man okay that's the creation New Creation man the son of man and then life and
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life and death we look at those as physical medical processes they are actually forces um and and sin is is considered
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in the scripture as not just doing wrong but it is a principle a power that must be defeated and and so yeah they don't have
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that's that's one of the uh the weakest aspects even of for example um Islam you know we have a growing tendency in the
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west to accept Islam as an equal monotheistic religion but in fact it has no doctrine of sin and and and even I
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mean it it's not like everything's fine they they all have a moral philosophy but they don't have any means of of either explaining or dealing with
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sin primarily because they don't have a holy God to start with okay so yeah that's a major flaw in most world religions um but it is it is mistaken to
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think that ancient paganism was ignorant it was not ignorant in fact in many cases it was very advanced in astronomy
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um and in mathematics and in um medicine uh the the the the world that God created how do I put
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this the world that God created placed in man's hand everything he needed and Adam knew it the the The Narrative of
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him naming the animals that was not just something like well I think I'll call that a giraffe okay it it says
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he he called it and that's what it was and and and that was leading up to his naming of Isa woman okay that that
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whole thing is Flowing towards the one suitable for him and that suitability caused caused him he is Ish she is ISA caused him to name her
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according to her nature whereas he had named all the other creatures according to their nature he understood that and you can see that in in ancient I mean
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even Alchemy you you can see that working from a pagan Foundation man was still able to build the pyramids and man was still able to to accomplish a great
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deal in in the scien ific what we would call the scientific disciplines although in a completely different approach than we do it now and that is not to say that the way we do it now is universally
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correct okay but they we tend to think of paganism as kind of dumb brutes no they weren't they were human beings they were created in the image of God they had the vestage of the glory of Adam
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still in them as it is still in man today so we have to kind of change our understanding of paganism to some degree and give it a little bit more credit than we tend to in order to realize that
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the creation account is so much better we don't have to denigrate paganism to elevate creation paganism has enough faults of its own um just as it stands
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so um you you have this interface and so the point of this is
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say because I'm not talking about social interactions that the scripture does deal with that as well but not and it deals with that more in Genesis 4 unfortunately but it's it's Genesis that that does
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begin the teaching of man's relationship now later on as we see this as a theme we see in in the promised land as Israel comes into the land that that you have
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the sabatical year and then you have the Year of Jubilee that that the land itself is treated as if it's another tribe so to speak it's it's not treated
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as something that the Israelites can exploit at will there are there are responsibilities that the Israelites have toward the land and then that is
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again that is um uh emphasized in the calculation of the years of Exile the 70 years of Exile correspond to the 70
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sabatical years 490 years that Israel did not observe and let the land rest okay rest is another thing that comes in as a as a theme but we won't we won't
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get to that in this session um but I'm just trying to kind of pull back the veil a little bit and say that you know these things are when you read Genesis 1 through3 you're not just reading a
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historical or even scientific account of how things came to be you're reading the prologue of the rest of the Canon and everything else I think it can
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be argued everything else should be read at in light of that not necessarily to exclude any other but certainly in light of Jesus Christ and in light of God's
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glory and grace certainly but in terms of the of the framework in which God has revealed himself in his purpose Genesis 1 through3 gets it started if you give
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up those then you you are you're wrong footed from the beginning a lot is made um about the fact that there are two
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creation accounts uh Genesis 1 Genesis 2 and again the modern old Old Testament Scholars say that this proves that that
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the penet took is a patchwork of of um uh documents and sources that some pseudo Moses uh wo
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together into into a book that for examp so the point is Genesis 2 has a completely different Source than Genesis 1 uh that being the case it's a very bad
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Patchwork okay A a good seems would have made the connection a whole lot smoother than what we have what we do have is two different perspectives on the same event
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creation the second one is it is it emphasizes the emphasizes the garden the first one culminates in the
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creation of man in God's image the second one emphasizes the garden and man being placed in
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it so it talks about the the rivers it talks about the trees okay it it it's really it's describing the garden that God made for man to be in and tend and
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keep which is again the same terms that are used of the Levites or the priests as they are to minister in the Tabernacle the same Hebrew words
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together tend and keep okay that's also very important because we're all we're going to see in a few weeks that man was created in the in the image of God with
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the function of Vice Regency to Regency to rule but his ruling was of the nature of a Shepherd all these things as I say these
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words your mind should go to places like uh Psalm 23 or um Psalm 8 or um you know other p pages in Ezekiel for example where they will have one
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Shepherd over them David shall be their prince and where the shepherd and the ruler or the prince or the king are brought together well they're right there in Genesis 2 okay Genesis 1 and
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two so all of these um motifs that then flow out um are are very important to catch at the beginning so that we can then hear them as we go along so the
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garden um another echo of the G I wish we had more time to talk about just the garden but in Isaiah 11 is it 11 or is it 5 Isaiah 5 where
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God talks about the vineyard that he planted and he took a Vine and he planted it and he cultivated and he put up a tower and he put a fence around it and then what' he do he put Israel in
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it well what does that all mean the promised land flowing with milk and honey with sisters that you do not dig living in houses that you do not build harvesting crops that you did not plant
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what what is the point of all that well the illusion is to man in Eden and what was man supposed to do in Eden he was supposed to obey God what is Israel supposed to do in the promised
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land they're supposed to obey God what do they do same thing Adam did they didn't okay so the The Echoes keep going now it's not called a garden but it's it
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is still a Vineyard prepared by God independent of Israel to which God's son Israel is then taken and put in okay
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that's Genesis that's Genesis 2 it it's not meant to be read uh it can be read independently of Genesis 1 but never in opposition to Genesis 1 it is
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the same event but from a different uh perspective of perspective of purpose where God is creating a place in which man is his vice Regent to tend and
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to keep and also to obey okay so hopefully you're beginning to see does anybody have any comments or questions
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disagreements I mean have at it I mean if I make a connection you don't see it I'd rather not kind of like in chemistry when I'm teaching chemistry if I keep going you're just going to get loster and loster um so I try to loster and
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loster yep that's what they do and then eventually by January they're lost
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all right I'll move on then um let's see if I have everything from last week that I wanted to cover oh one other thing I did want to cover that I think is is just kind of um pretty amazing and that
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is oh where do I have it the role of God's work okay so we have this issue of
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God's work and of course we we we're left in Genesis 2 at the beginning of Genesis 2 with the idea that God is resting from his work then we get to the Gospel of
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John and we soon realize as we should have already as we go through the rest of the Old Testament that God's rest in Genesis 2
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is by no means um inattentiveness or um lacks oversight God is Not resting in the
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sense that he's taking a nap and doesn't know or care what's going on with the creation he just made so however we interpret rest we cannot interpret it as
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um Perpetual um Perpetual inactivity so we see God continuing to work through through the Old Testament calling out um individual members of of
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his lineage that he is going to bless um uh Seth Shem Abram Isaac Jacob Judah
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David okay it's going on down Solomon it's all of these God is still active but then we go to uh John chapters 4 and 5 and I think these are these are two
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passages that cannot be understood even in the beginning of understanding without the background of Genesis 2 John 4:34 Jesus said to them my food is to do
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the will of him who sent me and to finish his finish his work okay that's canonical theology that's like the Jesus opening up the
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scriptures to the two disciples on the road to emus that's canonical theology that God is still that's uh John 5 he he says I'm going to write these down in a
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moment for this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath but Jesus answered them my
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father has been working until now and I have been working so there's a completely different perspective that to many people that God is he done that's
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kind of the the underlying uh Theology of deism for example that God has created everything wound it up like a clock and pretty much left it to run by natural laws that's
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not scriptural at all God is still very much involved his creation is still very important to him which we're going to get into in more detail this evening it
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it is it may only it may only be the stage on which the drama of redemption is played out but it's a very important
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stage and the the um what's the word what's the word when you the backdrop the the various furniture that make up that stage are
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vital to the understanding of the drama that's played out on it but it's not that I don't like that metaphor because it it makes um creation
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itself something distinct from man but scripture doesn't let us do that man and creation are united not equal by any means but they
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are their their fate their Destiny are intertwined and not separable now our hity in the modern western church
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has not only lost sight of that but in some cases have have downright denied it and we'll talk about that in a few moments I don't mean all of our hity but some some of the more um like within the
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last 15 so years um have really emed a neoplatonism concerning our relationship to this world that is very unbiblical
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our relationship this world is is inextricably connected so creation itself becomes a necessary motif
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necessary motif by which we can understand God's
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plan yeah that's why I changed this word to to Earth as opposed to world because we are that when when you know there's certainly the the um the lust of the
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flesh the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life if any man loves the world and the love of God is not in him uh yeah that that there's that aspect but that that's going to come in
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the discussion of the powers that were um that were in creation and then Unleashed by the Fall there was one power let me let me
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give a little pre preview there was one power that came with creation and that power it it has two
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names light and life another Power sin and
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death okay so now the world is torn and and is moaning and groaning Romans 8 because it has been subjected to
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futility on the basis of what man did so but our relationship to what God created hasn't changed
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changed our reaction to what has happened to what God created has changed we are at enmity many times with the world we are at the
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capricious um what's the word uh hand of the world we we we found that out back at the what September 27th right you
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know n nature is not something that we can you know like King Cano we can't just stand there and and hold off the the Hurricane by commanding it we don't do that although there this also brings
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into um a broader light Jesus calming the wind in the waves Jesus walking on the water Jesus feeding the 5,000 with
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just a few fish and and a couple loaves of bread does that make sense I mean we're seeing an unfallen atom here is what we're seeing and and if we
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understand where it all began where God started his self-disclosure then we get more understand I do not think that and I've said this many times in the past I do not think that Jesus walked on the water as
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water as God he walked on the water as Jesus as the God man he had just as much mass and lack of buoyancy as any one of us right he you know he didn't somehow become
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ethereal he he was still a physical man and he walked on the water that's that says something but we like to say well I was his divine power well maybe so but I don't think so I
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think when we look at those Miracle we call them Miracles mainly because we we don't have a clue what Adam was like before he
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is to come back to earth I guess in a sense that's the garden again it it is and that's why Revelation 21 and 21 and 22 are echoes of Genesis 1 and 2 they
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are book ends beginning and the end of the Bible of the Canon and you you cannot read Genesis or Revelation 21 and 22 without
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22 without recognizing the illusion and The Echoes of Eden but it's not just Eden anymore it's the new creation um but it's also the New Jerusalem so there there are a
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number of metaphors that are used I don't frankly think the new creation is a metaphor but um it's it's not just one big city I you know and we'll get to that hopefully tonight when we talk
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about that's where we're heading creation is the Prelude to New Creation the first adom is the Prelude to the last atom life is the Prelude to New
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Life it's not the Prelude to death so that that one's a little bit different okay but um hopefully you're beginning to see so God's work now the
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point I made here was in John 4 and John 5 Jesus
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work now again a Jew in talking about the work of God would have thought of the works of Creation in fact the scriptures speak of the the creation of Israel which is a work of God but it's
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spoken of in terms of the creation account in Genesis that becomes a paradigm that then describes symbolically all other similar works of
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God okay so there's not several Creations there there's just one creation where it all begins but then everything else FL flows out of that and uses its language to describe God's
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works so when Jesus says my father is working and I am working or I have come to do his will and to finish his work this is what he's talking about he
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is he is come to reverse the curse he has come to redeem man and creation he has come to set everything
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right so as in 1 Corinthians 15 he might then present the kingdom back to his father that God may be all in all it all begins to tie together and we see it as
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one book by one author um when we understand it canonically so talking about creation then and moving on to um New
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Creation let me get my notes shifted over to to this week
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chapter 1 um not sure verse 31 perhaps I think let me let me get it right very simple but again um
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I think often overlooked and and even at times um misunderstood so yeah verse 31 and God saw that he all
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that he had made and behold it was very good so that phrase very good is um is
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something that we should latch on to so okay creation is symbol
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Creation as very good
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traditionally that has been interpreted as meaning without fault or perfect okay so if we look at uh possible
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interpretations and and certainly it does bear that connotation or can bear that connotation but what this interpretation doesn't deal with is the change between what God has said about
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the work of his hands on the previous days on the previous days God observed the work of his hands and and announced it to be good okay
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good okay so the holy spirit is giving us what is that a adverb what is very everb
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hey lucky guess lucky guess all right so he's giving us that
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uh is that opposed to the Simply Good of the previous statements
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perfect well in a sense yes not in the sense of its own innate character or nature everything that came from the hand of God or from the word of God was perfect there was no corruption
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in it right does everybody accept that so if we look at it simply as the the N the sinless nature then we can't discriminate between good and very
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good but very good comes after the creation of man in God's image textually okay we have 26- 28 and then
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31 everything's very good so the um the context in which the goodness is being measured is not qualitative but
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functional that it is it is not yet functional to the full desire of God because his his image is not yet placed
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in his in his Temple everything is fine everything is great through most of day six but it's
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incomplete without the creation of man okay does that make sense and also this this also goes into chapter 2 where we find that that it's
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not good for man to be alone that even man is man is incomplete apart from the creation of woman okay so we're we're having somewhat of a progression here although
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I think it's the same thing because Genesis 1 does tell us he created man in His image male and female he created him so it's not that women is not you know women is not in Genesis 1 we're looking
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at the same thing from a different perspective first of all that that without man creation is incomplete it's good but it's not very good but without woman man it is not
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good that man should be alone so the creation of of woman is is the necessary concomitant of the image of God that God is placing within his
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Temple which means that that um the kind of patriarchy of patriarchy that only looks to men to provide what God has intended for creation is not
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biblical now that doesn't mean that men and women are equal in their roles don't please don't go too far with what I just said and take me where I don't want to go um but it is to say that that we
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can't look at this um we don't have to worry about the pronouns I think the scripture itself is clear okay we don't have you know everybody up until recent generation has understood the word man
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to be generic okay but not anymore okay we can't understand language anymore because it might offend somebody that's all silly and if we chase after that we
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have to realize we're just being diverted okay we we can't chase after that foolishness um and so the the thing here is is not so much um
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functional okay the purpose of
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man every day not just man every part of creation together oh
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absolutely well that's what I was saying earlier that man's relationship to creation and vice versa is inextricably intertwined you can't have one without the other but man is still the the Crown
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Jewel there still has to be a crown of which he is the Crown Jewel he is the image of God in God's Temple but there has to be a temple
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in which the image is placed does that make sense so yeah creation doesn't lose its importance but we understand very good to mean that that it wasn't
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quite ready until man was put
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there come yeah Moses finishes the work and then the Lord comes and dwells so that is the whole purpose of a temple or a tabernacle you build this beautiful
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house for your God and then when it's all done and ready you place an image of the god in the most holy place of the temple that's what God's doing in Genesis I
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guess yes the the the shikina wasn't coming until everything else was done according to God's pattern that he gave him on the mount that had to come first so God did not that's where Genesis 2 people get confused it kind of seems
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like God created man and then he did the garden no that wasn't the order it's just coming from a different perspective everything had to be prepared and then man the image of God is placed in the
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temple of God which is the Garden of Eden which is creation which will get into more when we talk about the aspect the functional aspect of the aod de being as Vice Regent to the Creator and
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that hasn't changed okay but that can be misunderstood and misappropriated as well so you're absolutely right Abe that all of the other components had to be
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there and and the fact that it was lacking it was only lacking in fullness of God's intent there was nothing intrinsically wrong with anything God
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okay that's what made it very good that's what makes the difference between the good of his earlier pronouncements and the very good of verse vers 31 that he has created
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man okay so if we if we start with let's just start with day one okay we
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have okay we have a pattern developing God pronouncing his work he saw that it was good okay but then we come to um
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it was the creation of man that completed the functional purpose of creation itself so with the creation of man God can now say he looked at the works of his hands and behold it was very
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good without the creation of man it's still perfect there's no flaw in it there's no corruption inherent to it there are
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those who say that there must have been and I know that's kind of a Sticky Wicket when when you when you think about um whales eating Plankton and stuff like that and I don't really want to go there but whatever God had
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intended for everything to be it was without any admixture of corruption um or or sin but it was not
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yet complete it was a beautiful and perfect Tabernacle but the image of the deity was not yet placed in it and in a sense
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it wasn't yet open for business does that make sense you know that a that a tabernacle or a temple that does not have the shakina glory does not have the image of the deity in
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it is not yet finished so it teaches us that it was completely and perfectly finished and
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had everything it needed for the full operation of God's intent that's what Adam threw
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away to do it has to with the whole thing now because it says he he he looked at the works of his hands and said it's very good but it's very good now because of
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the creation of Adam but you're right it does not simply pertain to Adam and everything else is just good okay it it's it's the statement of functional
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completion the the temple is now dedicated and open for worship and man is to tend and keep the temple
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eeden as a vice Regent of God he's to be fruitful he's to multiply he's to subdue the Earth he's to govern but he's to govern as a Gardener He's to govern as a
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shepherd okay now what we're going to see through uh the next chapters of of Genesis is how man governs lording it over okay but this is not how God intended and so the
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motifs of Shepherd will keep coming back but also the motifs of King will keep coming back coming back too and we'll talk about that when we talk a little bit more about the imod
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day next week Lord willing very good then is perfect oh it's all perfect it's hard to say there's a degree of
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perfect qualitatively it's all perfect each day was a perfect creation of God
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but functionally the reason for which God made for which God created was not yet complete until he created
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man with the creation of Man In His Image and then Genesis 2 placing man in in the garden is like carrying the image of the god into his
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Temple now it's open for worship prior to that you have an empty Temple now you have a temple with the image of God dwelling within it I just
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I'm not doubting it trust me believe that I
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unbeliever Skeptics kind of like
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God I wouldn't necessarily disagree with someone saying that up until Genesis 1:26 I wouldn't call it wiggle room I would simply say that God has yet to complete his
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complete his work and I think this is a very important argument against evolution and of the view that man is simply simply a higher evolved animal no the
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church cannot let go of all mankind as image bearers of God because with if you do that you have you have destroyed the essence of humanity as well as its
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responsibility and nothing will happen from nothing will come from that but absolute chaos okay so the these are all very vital doctrines but what I what I want to point out because um it's it's
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easy to get into the theology of them but I want to stay with the with the canonical theology because I want to highlight the fact that that that what God has God has done is very
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good there's no need for him to redo it to start over from scratch for example and so we never see him starting over from scratch no matter how bad his
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very good creation gets he doesn't start over from scratch he may flood the Earth and kill all of humanity save for eight people but he's not starting over from
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scratch he may discipline Israel with the with the thorns and the whips of foreign Nations and carry them off into Exile but he will preserve for himself a Remnant he's not starting again from
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scratch and I think that principle remains through it needs to remain through our through our eschatology that God is never going to start from scratch he has no need to
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what he has need to do and had always intended to do is to restore that which he had created very good and to do it in a way that manifests to the maximum
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extent the glory of his grace that that is what I believe God is doing with what he has created I I don't see any evidence in Scripture that will that
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will support the principle of complete annihilation of the heavens and the earth I also don't see any principle in Scripture that allows
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[Music] Believers to consider their Destiny to be otherworldly and when I mentioned our hity I was thinking of um such hymns as
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when we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be okay is that what we read in Revelation with the martyrs under the altar I mean certainly they're not not rejoicing they're in the
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presence of the Lord but what are are they doing how long oh Lord will until you avenge our deaths until we are clo Paul says we we when we put off this
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clothing what we long to be clothed again right job says that in my flesh I will stand upon the
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Earth and praise My Redeemer basically in my flesh upon this Earth that's job you know that's back in the days of Abraham so um and we talk
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we're going to talk more about this when we talk about life death new life but the the the essential point is that the very the very nature of God's
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creation and its subsequent subjection to corruption by sin intrinsically Demands a new
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creation not an Annihilation and a starting over that that is not what God is going to do and yet that is largely well
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actually modern Christianity tends to think that when we die we just go to heaven now we understand and we accept that there's going to be a resurrection
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but frankly we don't know what it's all about because we're still going to be in heaven hopefully by that time we'll get wings okay this is not what the Bible teaches
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the expectation Peter says that we have is for a new Heaven and a new earth on which righteousness dwells and the phrase new heaven new earth makes us think that the old ones will pass away
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and and and Peter says it will be melted with fire okay but the newness of the Heaven and the newness of the earth is like the newness of the Covenant the New Covenant is still the
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abrahamic Covenant is it not did did God abrogate the abrahamic Covenant in order to Institute the New
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anybody who did he promise to make the New Covenant with Italy a Jacob and Israel right you know then the New Covenant is is new in again
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functional completion but not new in that the old one no longer has any uh pertinence to the the whole Redemptive plan of God we're just simply gonna
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throw that one out because it didn't work that's the essence of dispensationalism um that we're going to no that one didn't work so we're going to start a new one that's not what new means and I don't think it means new and improved either like you know all of our
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products it's not that I've heard that preach that it's the new and improved Covenant you know you get you get a third more Washings out of it I don't that's you're third whiter okay um no
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that's that's not what it is it is the it just like this it is the completion of what God started okay and so um talking about the new creation then get
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back to my notes here
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exactly all over again from very beginning that that's one of the fundamental problems with dispensationalism is if you look at what's behind it is that every one of God's plans fails now of course it fails because man fails but at the end of the
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day God fails his word does not return to him void it does okay in dispensationalism it does he starts something it doesn't work so he starts
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something else and it's really just kind of almost trial and error um which which I think is very uh detrimental to the glory of God I often think it's just not the least bit biblical that God knew
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from the from the beginning U Christ was slain the lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world okay the the the Believers are written in the Lamb's Book of Life from before the foundation of the world now
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that's that's hard to understand and a lot of people think that that's a determinism or a fatalism but it's it's not it's again it is hard to
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comprehend the inter relationship between Divine sovereignty and human responsibility but we must allow both of them to stand fully as they do in
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Scripture that man is responsible for his re his reaction to God's grace and yet man cannot respond properly unless