Creation of the World
See the Holy Spirit in creation PAGE ONE
There is only one God. {persons or really personae are NOT separated}
H. Leo Boles and the Gospel Advocate
Jesus told the Apostles that TRUTH WAS HIDDEN in PARABLES from the foundation of the world to keep it a mystery to those who did not "have ears." Jesus then explained that people are like "soils" which treat the "seed" in different ways. It was not given to the multitudes of the Jews to understand because they had rejected His words for hundreds of years.
We need to be careful because God does not speak to all of us in the same way but based upon what we have done with the initial gift of mind or spirit and the natural laws known by everyone. As different forms of soil:
But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Matthew 13:23
If you plant a wheat seed you get dozens of wheat seed. If we plant the word in the heart the Word will naturally flow out.
Those who "draw out" the word into the good "earth" or fruitful place and "put the seed together mentally" and really possess it will reproduce that Word because things reproduce after their kind. All of the types of soils or human hearts are responsible for their own condition.
All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: Matthew 13:34
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Matthew 13:35
The creation of the world does not say that the "globe" was created but the "earth" or fruitful places were made suitable for mankind:
Kosmos (h2889) kos'-mos; prob. from the base of 2865; orderly arrangement, i.e. decoration; by impl. the world (in a wide or narrow sense, includ. its inhab., lit. or fig. [mor.]): - adorning, world.
If Jesus is going to speak to us it is important to begin with the basics. Paul wrote:
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world (age): but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Hebrews 9:26
Jesus spoke to the multitudes, including the Jewish clergy, using parables because they tried to make God into a controller of everyday life just as had the Babylonian clergy which ruled from the "towers" of Babel or Ur. Isaiah 48 shows that God hide His truth from them because they would dilute it and peddle it door-to-door.
He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet, and drinketh damage. Prov 26:6
The legs of the lame are not equal: so is a parable in the mouth of fools. Prov 26:7
Mashal (h4912) maw-shawl'; appar. from 4910 in some orig. sense of superiority in mental action; prop. a pithy maxim, usually of a metaphorical nature; hence a simile (as an adage, poem, discourse): - byword, like, parable, proverb.
In the creation of the world, God did not create the sun and moon on the fourth day. Rather, as the clouds (ignorance) cleared away, the sun and moon were ordained to rule or regulate the day and night:
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, Genesis 1:17
Nathan (h5414) naw-than'; appoint, ascribe, assign, bring forth, distribute do, occupy, offer, ordain, pay, perform, place, pour,send out, set (forth), shew, shoot forth (up), give.
Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; Ezekiel 20:15
ASK ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. Zech 10:1
By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches Psa 104:12
He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down. Psalm 104:19
Asah (h6213) aw-saw'; a prim. root; to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest application (as follows): - accomplish, advance, appoint, apt, govern, serve, set, shew,
While the word bara may or may not mean "create out of nothing" the word asah means to make out of existing material or to appoint it to a new use.
And the function of ordaining the Sun and Moon:
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. Genesis 1:18
Mashal (h4910) maw-shal'; a prim. root; to rule: - (have, make to have) dominion, governor, * indeed, reign, (bear, cause to, have) rule (- ing, - r), have power.
While the Babylonian accounts are myths they are not, like a lot of the Bible, parables:
"The term myth is not normally applied to narratives that have as their explicit purpose the illustration of a doctrine or standard of conduct.
Instead, the term parable, or illustrative tale, is used. Familiar examples of such narratives are the parables of the New Testament. That parables are essentially non-mythological is clear because the point made by the parable is known or supposed to be known from another source.
Parables have a more subservient function than myths. They may clarify something to an individual or a group but do not take on the revelatory character of myth. "myth" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Parables speak only to those who already discern truth from nature and general knowledge handed down. When they hear the explanation then the total mystery becomes clear. The mystery of many of the parables is that you may waste your time planting the Word in a parking lot. After all, Jesus said: "If they will not receive you, shake the dust off your feet" because no revivalistic scheme will arouse those already dead.
The "creation of the world" theme is repeated many times in the Bible and illustrates various conditions. For instance, we have spoiled and polluted that which God freely gave us in perfect working order. God will destroy and burn up our own works to prove -- over and over -- that we are not God.
The Creation of the earth out of Chaos accounts are at times identified as parables or songs or laments. They just confuse those who make "gods" out of the natural elements such as wind (spirit) or fire. The ancient myths are worthy of study because they are the songs and sermons of seekers but not finders of the true God. For this reason, Scripture makes liberal use of both factual history and pagan myths (as did Paul) to dispel error or darkness before it teaches the truth or light. Or, as Jesus would say, "It has been said, but I say unto you."
To understand creation as quite different from the Babylonian accounts, we must understand that God was not evolved and His creative acts in what is perhaps an infinite universe has been going on for an extremely long period.
However, the Bible speaks of a certain period which concerned the people who were then living and in conflict with a carnal or "beast-like" people who hated truth.
These post flood people like Nimrod knew how to use wine, women, music and sex to enslave people and make them serve a Tower of Babylon or temple state much like Israel at Jerusalem under the Human Monarchy. In order to enslave people they composed their own versions of creation, the flood and other events and used these to educate people to become slaves OF the gods. This meant, slaves of the priests, musicians, prostitutes and other temple "ministry."
The pagan saw all things coming into existence through sexual-like reproductive process. Therefore, when Genesis one speaks in sexual terms such as "hovering" we must be spiritual alert not to try to force God to say what He never said. When the "elohim" of the pagans do something God wants us to know that He is the only True "El."
The image of God's spirit or wind hovering over the waters is the image of a conception; the foundation of the world in Hebrews is its deposition which is figurative of conception (g2602). Paul used this word later of conception:
Through faith also Sara herself
- eceived strength to conceive seed, and
- was delivered of a child when she was past age,
- because she judged him faithful who had promised. Hebrews 11:11
The end is the consumation of a dispensation or completion of a plan. The world here is aion or age. However, this period began when the earth was "set up on its foundations" and became a fruitful place. Genesis, for instance, does not speak of the creation of the world as a globe but of the fruitful places able to conceive and bring forth fruit suitable for human habitation.
In First Samuel 2:8b the writer said: "For the foundations (pillars) of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world." The image is that of the land masses of the earth being conceived and birthed out of the deep or Tehowm. In the Babylonian Myths this was personified as the goddess, Tiamat. We may be tempted to personify the agents such as wind and fire as minor "gods" or spirits.
The "mystery" which we must see is that the Bible speaks of real events which are spiritually discerned. The seed is planted into our heart where we must "put the seed together mentally" if the Word is to multiply. Because the Word never bore much fruit as the Words of God, we should expect that the myths about creation, kings, temples, sacrifices and mandatory ritual celebrations to keep the world from collapsing if we don't "give God a hand."
This study is not to establish creeds. It is a think piece which will go along with our series on Ancient Near East history out of which men like Abraham were called.
The Spirit of Christ warned over and over that the collective religion of the Jews was birthed out of chaos and it would come to an end and His Covenant which governed that earth would be shredded and He would create a new Heaven and a New Earth with a New Covenant. The Israelite failure was that they refused to "go into the world and be a blessing to the nations." To dull their consciences and pretend that God never meant what He said, they did -- and do -- worship like the nation of Babylon. As a result, God said:
And I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth: and no oppressor (animal drivers were the burden Jesus removed) shall pass through them any more: for now have I seen with mine eyes. Zechariah 9:8
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem behold, thy King cometh and
he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. Zechariah 9:10
The peace and quiet of Jesus is defined as "beside still waters." Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed (again) to break up housekeeping of a like-the-nations 'church" and send them packing into all the world.
Because Paul said, and I paraphrase, "fools love to be fooled," when the oppressors are fired the people who love false shepherds will not be happy. However, God just loves it. The Babylonian form of government, mixed up with religion, used force to herd the people into their "walls" to serve the temple and the clergy. However, Jesus understood that certain people, based upon how they treat God's evidence in nature and in their heart, will hear or not hear the gospel. When that test was administered He told the people on the limited commission to "shake the dust of the city off their feet." Seeker forms or revivalistic self-help efforts take up a lot of religious energy of the contemporary world, but Jesus speaking through Zechariah insisted:
Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and
- my soul lothed them, and
- their soul also abhorred me. Zechariah 11:8
Then said I, I will not feed you:
- that that dieth, let it die;
- and that that is to be cut off,
- let it be cut off;
- and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. Zechariah 11:9
- (In A.D. 70 This became literal)
When the people shouted for salvation and told others about His miracles they were looking forward for help, but Jesus was on His way to denounce His covenant because the Jewish clergy had, in fact, already rejected it as The Book of the Covenant before God gave them The Book of the Law as punishment:
And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. Zechariah 11:10
- And it was broken in that day: and
- so the poor of the flock that waited upon me
- knew that it was the word of the Lord. Zechariah 11:11
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. Zechariah 11:12
And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Zechariah 11:13
And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. Luke 19:39
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. Luke 19:40
And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Luke 19:41
........... Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou,
........... ........... at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace
........... ........... but now they are hid from thine eyes. Luke 19:42
Those who reject Christ's Commission but remain on the payroll devoutly wish that Jesus had organized "prayer circles" or "evangelistic teams" or "shepherding groups" and called an assembly of the lost Jews and forced them to be converted -- or at least dunked into the water.
But, He didn't. When people know the truth and reject it by substituting, as did the Jews, their own traditions of the elders, their own songs and their own scripture in a cut-and-paste job on Christ's words, you know that no amount of jubilating praise will "lead them to Christ." They are lost beyond redemption and Jesus would say of the sheep who tolerated a false shepherd:
- Then said I, I will not feed you:
- that that dieth, let it die;
- and that that is to be cut off,
- let it be cut off;
As prophesied, this whole event was to pass Judgment upon the Jews who knew the Word but refused repeat it or to act upon it:
For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, Luke 19:43
And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Luke 19:44
As we continue, we will look at the story of the "beginnings" and see that following the flood event the overwhelming majority of people still failed to grasp the spiritual nature of the earthly accounts. Genesis repeats the pre-flood pattern by showing that Abraham was just one person chosen to be fruitful and spread the seed or Word to all of the nations. The population of "the children of men" continued to honor the nature "gods".
The failure to honor God as the One and Only Elohim is still repeated as we make the Godhead over in our own image and reproduce the Babylonian families of gods. Some of us still show that Jesus isn't speaking to us any longer when we worship the father god, worship the son god and worship the spirit or wind god.
The Babylonians believed that the first gods made a mess of things. The "children ruled over them" and replaced them with better gods such as Enlil, the "holy spirit" or wind god who became the administrator. The lazy gods created mankind so that they could rest. The "patron god of music" arranged magical rituals and they built temples in a communistic system. If we do not hear the parables, we will believe that Jehovah (the One and only elohim) was part of a like the nations triad of gods and we will, like Israel, demand a king to enslave us so that we can worship like the nations and be destroyed like the nations.
The serpent was the symbol of Babylon. Therefore, the Creation of the world Myth, Enuma Elish, must be understood as the Babylonian version handed down through history. The Hebrew view draws many contrasts but we may miss most of them. As an illustration, with many of Paul's letters, we don't have all of the questions and we must understand them based upon his answers. Nowhere is this truer than in the very first verses of the Bible where God begins to dispute the pagan, Babylon view.
And the other end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, warns that the religion of the Babylonian myths will be the end-time religion throughout the world.
The Babylon accounts begin with the origin and evolution of the gods. Each new generation of emerging pairs of gods are new and improved. It sounds much like modern theories of evolution which must begin with nothing.
Whatever exists and whenever it existed, on the other hand, was created by God, first out of nothing and then by making or forming the materials. For an excellent treatment of creation Click Here.
Those who have too many gods usually have too much religion and it becomes a "burden" laded upon you as you are treated like a pack animal. The ancients really had too many "gods" in contrast to the One God of the Bible. As a result, they really lived a life of total committment because they were temple slaves:
"All of the ancient Middle Eastern people saw the agency of the gods in every aspect of life and nature. Everything on earth was regarded as a reflex of its prototype in the divine or sacred sphere, such as in the biblical description of the creation of man "in the image of God";
"God was viewed as the primary reality of the universe, and human beings were seen as the reflection of that reality.
"In Egypt, Thoth was the scribe in the pantheon. Mortal scribes were viewed as the human reflections of Thoth, and "the beak of the Ibis (i.e., Thoth) is the finger of the Scribe" (Wisdom of Amenemope, ch. XV, 17:7). (See nature worship, Britannica Online.)
"The ancient Middle Eastern people believed that the universe resulted from the injecting of order (cosmos) into chaotic primordial beings or matter (Note: this was the hovering as in copulation), followed by divine acts of creation.
"Genesis 1:1-3 says that
"when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the 'earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
"And God said, Let there be light'; and there was light." Thus darkness (i.e., evil) was preexistent. Moreover, the deep (tehom in Hebrew) is the same as the primordial dragon called Tiamat (cognate to the Hebrew tehom) in the Babylonian epic of creation.
"The first act of creation is God's evoking light (i.e., the forces of good) by fiat.
"Accordingly, God is not responsible for the forces of evil, which were there before he embarked on the creative process. Proceeding by fiat he separated the water-containing earth from the water-containing heaven, confined the earth's waters to the bodies of water (leaving the rest as dry land), created the various species of vegetation, the heavenly bodies, the animal kingdom, and finally man, who is to rule over the earth. All this takes six days, after which God rests on the seventh, so that the Sabbath crowns the epic of creation and imposes the obligation to observe the sabbath in keeping with the principle of imitatio Dei (the imitation of God). The concept of the sacred Britannica Members.
This is not Sabbath day "worship" using modern rituals: it is ceasing from Work and concentrating on God and His Word.
This is an important point: the myths -- and a lot of modern religion -- insists that mankind serve the gods by serving his agents. However, Jehovah serves mankind and "came to seek and save the lost" where part of the lostness is the burden of rituals which are, almost by definition, labor-intensive. Those with "50 ministeries" have built their own Tower of Bable.
The sun and moon were not created on the fourth day but were ordained or appointed to be the time keepers. On the other hand, light was created in the beginning:
Light is: Owr (h216) ore; from 215 (glorious); illumination or (concr.) luminary (in every sense, including lightning, happiness, etc.): - bright, clear, / day, light (-ning), morning, sun.
The book of Job (27, 29) explains a similar process and calls it a parable. In chapter 12, the light is to rescue Israel from darkness which is ignorance and slavery:
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Many of the events which were recorded by Moses show the conflict between the "serpent" in the form of nations or kings acting as "gods," and Jehovah Who was the one and only "elohim" Who created all things. The Lucifer-types always tried to take credit so that they, and not God, would be worshipped. The chaldean astrologers of Babylon are seen throughout the Old Testament and the myths under the symbol of a serpent which is related to the brass instruments and weapons of the human oppressors
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Babylonian deities surmounted by Sin, surrounded by Shamash and Ishtar and ascended by Nabu the wise serpent. King Naram-sin is horned as a god in victory.
Hebrew NEBO, major god in the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon. He was patron of the art of writing and a god of vegetation. Nabu's symbols were the clay tablet and the stylus, the instruments held to be proper to him who inscribed the fates assigned to men by the gods. In the Old Testament, the worship of Nebo is denounced by Isaiah (46:1). |
The "nations" under the direction of Lucifer stood for ignorance or darkness, slavery and working for the gods. Yehovah, on the other hand, represented light or knowledge and freedom from religious burdens. Rather than having to go to the king's temple for the king's worship, the Sabbath permitted you to rest and even restricted your travels to the sanctuary except the males three times a year. To remedy the situation, God ordained that the Priests go into all of their world and teach the law. This freedom from ritual is always the product of knowledge about God:
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10
Deep is: Bathos (g899) bath'-os; from the same as 901; profundity, i.e. (by impl.) extent; (fig.) mystery: - deep (-ness, things), depth.
Depth is the Hebrew: Bathus (g901) bath-oos'; from the base of 909; profound (as going down), lit. or fig.: - deep, very early.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? John 4:11
The Spirit of Christ as full Deity (Colossians 2:9) went to great depths to keep us from personifying His Mind or Spirit and making us guilty of polytheism. The spiritual waters come from the deep because Christ is uniquely qualified as God Incarnate to draw for us. And the "water" turns out to be His Word:
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16
And His Spirit:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit, and they are Life. John 6:63 (NIV Note: "or Spirit)
While the Babylonian Epics picture mankind as the servant of the gods who rested on the sabbath and thereafter while mankind became their slaves, the Bible has God creating all things so that mankind lives by the gifts of God and is served by the gifts of God. The Sabbath was given to serve mankind but Israel, living like the nations, turned it into a god which had to be served.
When evil people reject the rest of God brought when Jesus removed the "burdens of anxiety created by religious ritual," God puts them back under a Babylonian form of faith and worship. Again, they have to WORK at worship to force the gods to come down or move the worshippers into the presence of the gods.
They work to build a "house of worship" to which you must come if you are going to meet the god. They annoint human mediators to help you feed and appease the gods with "action words" totally devoid of Biblical truth.
They, like the kings at the towers of Babylon, use musical worship to help move you up, step-by-step, to meet the gods as the agent of the god's living in the house of the god at the top. Or they "provide a platform upon which the gods land."
This is all in forced imitation of the Babylonian "work for the gods" worship. In reality, it is not dangerous. It will not lead people astray. In fact when this "revival through external means" becomes visible, it is God's sign that the pretend-gods are lost beyond redemption. In Corinth, speaking in tongues trying to make contact with God was identified by Paul as madness and a sign to unbelievers, as they had been to the unbelieving Jews in Isaiah 28. Human effort in commerce and music is the sign of the end-time religion in Revelation 18.