Genesis I
if is our ‘faithful Creator’ (1 Pet. iv. 19) who here
speaks to us. He loves us too well to hide from us the great things which He has done. He would have us know how He made all things; and as He delighted in them, so He would have us delight in them.
When creation came forth, ‘the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy’ (Job xxxvilil. 7); and when the different parts of the new creation come into being, there is likewise ‘joy in heaven.’ In both creations God is represented as taking divine delight (Prov. viii. 31); and in both cases ‘He calls. together His friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me’ (Luke xv. 6).
‘He has not left Himself without witness’ (Acts xiv.
17): and in this first book of Scripture we have His
testimony to Himself and to the work of His hands.
Creation says ‘God is love, though on a lower key and
with less distinctness than redemption. ‘The invisible
things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly VOL, ¥I. A
po oe ee ee
2.) i THOUGHTS ON GENESIS. seen, being understood by the things that are made’ (Rom. i. 20).
And this creation bears testimony to the Son of God; for by ‘Him He made the worlds’ (Heb. i. 2). ‘By Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible: all things were created by Him and for Him’ (Col. i. 16). His connection with creation reveals to us His love. His love to man and man’s world is no new thing. It did not begin when He was made flesh. Long before that we find that He ‘rejoiced in the habitable parts of His earth, and that His delights were with the sons of men’ (Prov. viii. 31).
Nor less has the Holy Spirit His part in the mighty work. He ‘moved’ or ‘brooded’ over the face of the waters (Gen. 1. 2). ‘By His Spirit He hath garnished the heavens’ (Job xxvi. 13). ‘Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created’ (Ps. civ. 30). In creation, as in redemption, Father, Son, and Spirit are spoken of as working. Creation belongs to each: and the love manifested in creation is the love of Father, Son, and Spirit, ‘God is love:’ and this, though in dimmer characters, is written on the heavens and earth, and shines out in sun, and moon, and stars, The Holy Spirit is
1 Thus old Joseph Beaumont (1648) describes the manifestation of God and His love in creation, or rather in the purpose to create — —
* All things at first was God, who dwelt alone
Within His boundless self. But bounteous He
Conceived the form of the creation,
That other things by Him might happie be
A way to ease its streams His goodness sought,
And at the last into a world burst out.’
love; and His love is in the sunshine of the first creation as truly as of the second.
Yet, though surrounded with the loving works of God each day, how little have we learned the lessons of heavenly love which creation teaches! How sadly do we misinterpret creation ; — reading in it power, wisdom, majesty, and greatness; yet how seldom, Love!
HEAVEN and EARTH are the two places or regions whose history God, in His word, purposes to write.
Ver. 1. ‘Lx the beginning God created the heaven (or ‘* heavens’’) and the earth.’
He who alone knows everything relating to these, secret or open, visible or invisible, physical or spiritual, undertakes to put on record for us, ‘at sundry times and in divers manners,’ some memorials of the varied wonders which have taken place within their bounds: to tell us something of what ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard;’ and what man, in the full sweep of his science, could not discover.
It is to ‘heaven and earth’ that He confines His information; and of things beyond these He says but little. Of what He intended them to be; of what He made them; of what they have been; and of what they yet shall be, when His great original purpose shall unfold itself in all. its parts in the ages to come, He gives us His own account. Who but Himself could do this? “Man may guess or fancy, God only can make known the things of God, in any part of His universe (zt Cor. ii 11); the Architect alone can give us the
Resi: eternal plan of His great structure, at least in outline, and tell us something of its carrying out, the process of erection, the hindrances, the successes, the failures.
The Bible is God’s history of heaven and earth, — the only authentic history of them in existence. He is His own historian. He begins and ends His volume with these: and throughout it, they form the scene of His manifold plans and workings, the circle over which His divine love spreads itself in its manifestations of wisdom and power, and within which it gets vent to its eternal fulness, — a fulness which finds its way into all that which we call ‘nature’ (z.e. essential constitution of things, Rom. xi. 24), or ‘creation’ (ze. things as coming from a Creator, Mark x. 6).?
He sets out with asserting His own prerogative as Creator, — His exclusive and undivided prerogative, — the originating One, the unbeginning One.? He tells us that the things we see are not self-produced, nor are they from eternity. They once were not. They once
1 Both of these words are sanctioned by inspiration: the latter expressive of derivation from God, the former of the nature or essence of that which God has imparted to that which He has brought into being.
2 ‘Beginning’ is sometimes used, as here, to mean former ages or times (Gen. x. 10; Isa. xlvi. 10); the corresponding Greek word (épx%) is applied to Christ in reference to the eternal past (John i. 1; Prov. viii, 22). Hence His name, ‘Him from the beginning’ (1 John ii. 13), and ‘the beginning’ (or head) of the creation of God; and simply ‘the beginning’ (Col. i, 18). Hence He is named ‘ the beginning and the end’ (Rev. i, 8, xxi. 6, xxii, 13); and we may notice that the words in which He is designated (Heb. xii. 2) ‘author (or leader) and finisher’ (bringer up of the rear), are derived from the above expressions of the Apocalypse.
began to be. It was He whose name is God (Elohim) that caused them to begin. He created them all, upper and lower, far off and near: thus giving the lie to the pretensions of every idol, and setting aside the gods of the heathen as on-creators (Ps. xcvi. 5; Jer. x. 11).
He gives us no daze for His creation. In many places afterwards He dates His signs and wonders, as when He brought the deluge over earth, or led Israel out of Egypt. But He does not tell us when the heavens and earth began to be. He affirms that they had a beginning, but when that was He does not say. It might be six thousand or it might be sixty thousand years ago. At some time during that past period which He calls ‘the beginning’ (dpy7), before ‘the ages’ (aidves) commenced, (which we call time), He created the heavens and earth. His object here is to claim creation as His own direct and exclusive handiwork, and to declare that when it began to be, it did so not as the result of a certain pre-existing, eternal order of things or laws, but as the
‘simple offspring of His creating power.
It seems strange that any other thought should have entered man’s mind. Self-creation, how absurd! Chance creation, how irrational! Evolution by innate law, how unphilosophical! A palace selfbuilt! A temple evolving itself from dead atoms! A city reared by chance! Life without a living One to originate it! How incredible!
The world declares its Creator (Ps. viil. 1). It has a voice which says beyond mistake, ‘I did not create myself: He who created me is infinitely more glorious than I am’ (Rom. i. 20).. Even man’s reason sees this;
yet it is faith that discerns it fully, and sees wHo it is that made all things. The God of the Bible is just such an one as we could suppose to be the Creator of the world. What ‘ nature’ shows us of God is altogether in harmony with the Jehovah of Revelation. The jarring things in this fallen creation are only to be explained and reconciled at the cross. The gods of the heathen (taking the loftiest descriptions of these deities) could not have made the world. It is far too glorious a creation for Baal, or Buddha, or Jupiter to have produced, or even conceived. Look at this earth and these starry heavens, and say if the worship of such gods as these is not the height of unreason. But read what the Bible makes known of God, and you will say this is just such a God as could have planned and made such a world as this. Read what is written on these blue heavens above us, and you will say, ‘He who made these heavens is just such a God as could have written this Book.’
He who made all things To BE, must be the I am, the Being of beings, the fountainhead of being. And who but He can give us the history of creation? Who but the Beginning and the Ending could speak from His own knowledge, and say thus with authoritative certainty, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ Reason may speak of ‘a God,’ for the visible creation does declare an invisible Creator (Rom. i. 20); but when asked ‘what is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if thou canst tell’ (Prov. xxx. 4), it is speechless. God Himself must be the revealer of the’mighty secret. And He has revealed it. He has told us His name, and His
Son’s name. Man cannot give a name to God: God Himself has done it; and the name is our refuge and our joy. ‘The NAME of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.’
O folly of atheism! O folly of those who tell us that matter is God, and God is matter! A world without a Maker! A law without a Lawgiver! O misery of atheism! No glorious One, no perfect One, no blessed One. How sad! What a blank, if this were true! A sky without a star, a world without a sun!
What feebleness in reason! It cannot even name the name of God; and when it tries, as heathenism has done, to repeat the name first given, it does so with a stammering tongue. What could reason tell us of Jehovah? What can it reveal to us of that which is outside the creature? What can it say without a Bible? No voice of God heard or to be heard! Nothing but the dull, unmeaning clank of matter’s dead machinery, as it moves round and on ; — as it rises and falls ; — as it grinds on its various axles, — self-impelled, or driven by fate! No heart, no soul; what we call conscience only ‘a corporeal nerve; what we call affection, only a pulsation of the blood; what we call sorrow and joy, only the movements of a finer materialism, — the twitches of invisible nerves which science will soon be able to discover and control! No communication between Creator and creature! No message either of love or wisdom from One infinitely wise and loving! No Book of sure wisdom, whose teachings can be beyond dispute! Impossible. Surely this is the height, or rather the depth, ee eel of unreasoning credulity: sillier than the fables of heathendom, poorer than the dreams of pagan savage.
Ver, 2. ‘ And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’
Such was the state of this earth about the period when this history begins. It was a region of rayless darkness. Deepest night rested over it. It was without form, utterly shapeless in all its parts. It was void, that is, unfilled up. None of these things existed which make up its ‘ fulness’ (Ps. xxiv. 1). In none of its parts was there any filling up. It was like the newly quarried block ere the sculptor’s chisel has touched it. Evidently pointing back to this chaos, and using it as a figure, Job describes the grave as ‘a land of darkness, and the shadow of death; a land of darkness; as darkness itself; of the shadow of death; without any order, and where the light is as darkness.’ Jeremiah also describes the land of Israel, in the day of calamity, in language of the same kind (Jer. iv. 23), and Nahum predicts the ruin of Nineveh in words taken from this description of the original chaos (chap. il. 10). Then further it is called ‘deep,’ or abyss; as if it presented one great mass of confused and turbid water.
How long this state of chaos might have existed, we know not. Not a word is said to intimate the time. It is not such a condition of things as might have been expected to come directly from the hand of God; for all that comes from Him is ferfect, in its kind and in its degree. The infant is perfect in all its parts, though it GENESIS 1. 2. a6
is not a man; the seed is perfect, though it is not a flower oratree. So that this chaos looks like the wreck of a former world, the ruins of some vast city or temple; it seems to be the result of the destruction of a previous state of things. It is not the infancy of a new creation that we behold, but the mangled and corrupting corpse of the old, which must be buried out of sight ere the new can be begun.
Ver. 2. ‘ And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’
How long or how brief the period of chaos was, it matters not. The appointed time was now come when these ruins were to undergo a change, and under the hand of the great Master Builder to rise into another temple. God’s Spirit went forth to renew the face of creation.’ Like a bird brooding over its eggs, and bringing life out of them by its vital heat, the Spirit brooded over the face of the deep or abyss. Immediately the quickening, renewing process began. In what way He wrought upon creation we know not, but His almighty
1 The different senses of the word may be thus classified: — 1. It means zd (Ex. x. 13), which is by a figure the spirit of the earth. 2. The spirit of a man (Prov. xviii. 4). 3. The spirit of the evil one (Judg. ix. 2, 3). 4. The Spirit of God (Isa. lxi. 1). In all of these there is Zersonality implied, not mere vague influence. As when the spirit of a man.is spoken of it is a Zersonality that is referred to, not an 7nfluence; so when the Spirit of God is spoken of it is the same. It is of this personality in God, which comes out everywhere in Scripture, so vividly and so blessedly, that rationalism robs us; thereby snapping the firmest links that bind us, whose own personality is such a conscious thing, to Ilim who is infinitely personal, the three-one Jehovah. touch produced some change, and vitality was diffused throughout creation (Job xxvi. 13; Ps. xxxiil. 6, civ. 30). And when the great restoring process is begun at the Lord’s second coming, the Holy Spirit takes the same part in the work of restitution as at first; for it is when He ‘is poured out from on high,’ that ‘the wilderness becomes a fruitful field’ (Isa. xxxii. 15), thus identifying Him as at once the converter of the soul and the restorer of creation. He is the great agent in every process for restoring or perfecting or beautifying soul and body, nay the very earth itself.. He is the author of all the loveliness that we see around us in herb, or shrub, or tree, or flower. All life, all beauty, all order, all perfection are from the Holy Spirit!) How near should we feel Him to be, how gracious, how willing to quicken us, and to restore to us the lost beauty of our first creation!
Ver. 3. ‘And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.’
God put this question to Job, ‘ Where is the way where light dwelleth?’ (chap. xxxviil. 19);1 and this verse is an answer to this, as if God had said, ‘The light dwelleth with me; for I issued the command, “Be light,” and “light was.”’ Thus God claims light as His production,
+ In Job xxxvil. 15 we read, ‘Dost thou know when God disposed them, and caused the light of His cloud to shine?’ As this seems to refer to the time of creation, are we not to understand that the light then made to shine was kindled by the ‘ cloud,’ the same cloud which gave light to Israel in the desert, and is, in the latter day, to pour down its glorious brightness on Mount Zion? (Isa. iv. 5.) Is not the Shekinab the abode and fountainhead of light? ‘who coverest Thyself with light as with a garment’ (Ps, civ. 2).
GENESIS toa II
-as He had already claimed creation. The name of the Maker of light is Z/ohim, — God! ‘I form the light’ (Isa. xly. 7). Of all light, both for soul and body, He is the Creator, nay the great central sun and source. ‘I am the light of the world’ (John viii. 12).
God does not mean to teach us here that this was the first time that such a thing as light existed at all. There must have been light before, light with God, light with the angels, light in heaven, and, it may be, light shining on this very earth before its state of chaos began. It isa heathen or philosophic fable that darkness was the original and uncreated state of things. Darkness is always associated with death in Scripture, just as light is with life. Nay, darkness is associated with ‘him who has the power of death, even the devil;’ he is ‘the ruler of the darkness of this world;’ and it is in connection with
1 Hail, holy light! Offspring of heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee
Bright effluence, of bright essence increate.
Or hear’st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who can tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the vast and. formless infinite.’
—Milton’s Paradise Lost, b. iit.
2 We may notice that Christ adds here, ‘ He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life,’ — +é ous vis Cwis, “the light of the life;’ referring to chap. i. 4, ‘the “fe was the Aight of men,’ 4 fan 7» +d Pas cwv dvparwv. It is as the d7vzmg One that He is the Aght-giving One.
the sin and doom both of him and his angels that darkness is spoken of (2 Pet. ii. 5; Jude 4). Whatever may have been the origin of the darkness, we know that it covered the earth, thick and impenetrable in its gloom. But now the command went forth, and the darkness began to disappear. The sun did not at once show itself, but its light began to find its way dimly and faintly through the gloom, which from this time became less and less dense, so that there was now only partial darkness, such as there is in a dull misty morning. How this alteration was produced we know not. We know this, indeed, that a very slight change in the component parts or elements of our atmosphere, or in the proportions in which these elements are combined, would completely
1 The question may arise here, What was the connection of Satan with this world before this time? Was it through him and his rebellion that the world was first wrecked and brought to the state of chaos and darkness mentioned in the second verse; was the restoration of light (third verse) an invasion of his domain? Was the fall a partial
* quenching of the light ; — fartial, for grace was to prevent its being total? Has not the state of the world ever since been one of darkness and subjection to the prince of darkness? Were not the words of Christ (Luke xxii. 53) an intimation of a crisis in the history of this darkness and of its ruler, as if it were for a time to succeed in its longwaged conflict with the light: aten dudy tor h dpa, xal 4 kovola rod
gxorovs. The expression, tZouria ro exorous, is a very remarkable one, and full of solemn meaning. And had not the darkness on the cross a reference to the past history of the world, as the region of darkness and the kingdom of its prince? And does not the darkening of the sun and moon, just before the coming of the Lord, betoken that darkness had reached its destined crisis, both spiritually and morally, the earth being reduced to the state of chaos described by Moses; and
therefore ready once more for the interposing power of Him who said at first, ‘Let light be’?
disorganize it, and prevent its being the medium of light.
Its transparency depends on combinations which require
to be most nicely proportioned; so that as, on the one hand, an alteration in these could have produced the previous state of total darkness, so another change would, by restoring its lucidity, let in light upon the earth. Accordingly the command went forth which was to restore transparency to our atmosphere, which at this time was not only unfit to transmit, but even to bear, the dense humid vapours that loaded it. One word from Almighty lipseffected the change, whatever it might be. He spake, and it was done! A word, no more! How easy with God! And He who lighted up the world, is the same as He that lights up the soul (2 Cor. iv. 6). He is the ‘light of the world, ‘the morning star,’ the sun of righteousness. His work in the soul is to fit it for receiving light, and then to pour it in. He restores transparency to the faculties of the soul, and then the light begins to find its way into each region and recess,
‘On whom does not His light arise?’ asks Bildad (Job xxv. 3). David says, in reference to the heavenly orbs, ‘ Their line is gone out through all the earth’ (Ps. xix. 4); and our Lord says, ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good’ (Matt. v. 45). What a declaration of grace does each day’s light make tous! What a gospel does each sunbeam preach! He has not turned our earth into a region of ‘ outer darkness;’ and this is grace. He still bids His sun go forth each morning to light our ways, sinners as we are; and this tells us of His willingness to give light to the darkest,
a aan ena nen eee nee pine.
‘Light is sown for the righteous!’ Yes, it is sow in the fullest sense of that word; not merely scattered abroad, as commentators would have it, but sowz. And this both naturally and spiritually. 1.) Vaturadly. ‘This is not the time of light. A change has passed upon it by the fall. It has lost much of its purity and brightness. And the mere increase of its zzéensity would not serve unless its innocuous mildness were restored along with it. But there is a time predicted when ‘the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days’ (Isa. xxx. 26).* Were the sun still to ‘smite by day, and the moon by night’ (Ps. cxxi. 6), this increase of light would be no blessing; but the ‘restitution of all things’ shall embrace in it a restitution of primeval mildness to the light; and who can tell how much of the removal of the curse upon the earth may be effected by this restoration of its genial, health-giving, fructifying properties to the light. But this is only the time of sowing. It doth not yet appear what it shall be. It is underground, or at most it is but in the blade or bud. And oh, if this its imperfect state be so
very beautiful, what will not its perfection be in the 6
1 There seems to be in reference to the Zed, just as in regard to all the various parts of creation, a time of crisis spoken of in those predictions, which point to the latter-day glory, and the previous signs of its arrival. The deterioration which took place at the fall, and which has been going on since, arrives at its crisis just at the coming of the Great Restorer. Everything is to be at its worst just when on the point of being renewed. Hence the darkness which is to be spread over the earth — ‘the day of darkness and gloominess,’ etc., —
the darkening of the sun, and the withdrawal of the light of the moon, etc. (Matt, xxiv. 29).
- coming harvest? if the bud be so fair and fragrant, what
wili be the expanded blossom in the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? The sowing time is one of tears, the shower and the sunshine mingled together; but the reaping time shall be glorious. (2.) Spiritually. This is the hour and the power of darkness. In one sense we have been brought into ‘marvellous light’ (1 Pet. ii.); ‘Christ has given us light’ (Eph. v.). But still we see through ‘a glass darkly’ (1 Cor. xiii.). Clouds fold themselves round us; sorrow and conflict, misgivings and faintings, beset us on each side. But sunshine shall yet burst on us. Light is sown for us; the light of an unsetting and an unsmiting sun; the light of Him who is light itself, and in whom is no darkness at all, Through this sowing time of darkness and sorrow we are passing to the reaping time of light and
JOY:
Ver. 4. ‘And God saw the light, that it was gooa: and God divided the light from the darkness.’
On the light that was now beginning to stream in upon the earth God fixed His eye. He saw the light; it did not steal in unobserved; it was not too trivial to attract His notice. It is minute, noiseless, unaccompanied with vast or terrible results. Yet He looked upomr it, considered it, surveyed it fully. For each stray beam of light, each twinkle of the distant star, each undulation of the atmosphere, each faint ripple of the ocean, came under the notice of His eye. He sees them all. Such is the eye of Him with whom we have to do, — the eye that searches all things: yet the eye that delights to eS a — —
rest in love upon each part of the workmanship of His hand.
But God not only looked upon the light ; — He tells us His opinion of it. It was good. Such is the divine verdict. He made it, He compounded it of its subtle elements, and therefore He knows it well. It was He who arranged its parts and proportions; it was He who twisted its sevenfold radiance; it was He who bade it shine forth,in its beauty. Who, then, can speak of it as He can? And He calls it good. He approves of it, delights in it, sees it to be altogether suited to the end He had in view. It was ‘good’ in respect of its innate excellence, ‘good’ in respect of its beauty, ‘good’ in respect of its usefulness; one of the fairest, most needful, and most gladdening of all His handiworks; apparently feeble, yet working mightiest wonders; altogether noiseless, yet accomplishing each moment, by its silent, secret virtue, greater results than the lightning or the hurricane; calling forth little of man’s wonder or praise, yet diffusing throughout earth a greater and more continuous amount of gladness than any other of the’ material elements; coming down each day upon us with reviving, refreshing, healing power. All God’s creation is good, but light is
- especially excellent, the brightest and purest part of all. It is the only thing that cannot be soiled or stained. It corrupts not, it withers not. We may bend a sunbeam, or decompose a sunbeam, or shut it out of our dwelling, but we cannot soil it. It is the fairest, and freshest, and most heaven-like of all created things, — fittest emblem of Godhead, both of the Father and the Son.
GENESIS 1. 4.: pe
The wise man says, ‘Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun’ (Eccles. xi. 7). Yes, it is even so; and what marvellous love does this betoken in our God! — love that was not dried up when sin entered, but only came out more largely in another form, that of grace. Though, doubtless, there has been some change in the light since the fall, some deterioration, yet still it is the most joyous thing in nature.” It might have been made so feeble as hardly to impart the needed warmth and light, or it might have been so intense (as it shall be when the fourth angel pours out his vial on the sun, Rev. xvi. 8) as to scorch the dwellers on the earth, but it has not been so. God has so attempered it to our condition that it suits us well. And in so suiting us sinners, it preaches to us the ‘grace’ of God. We might have been in the
- blackness of darkness, but we are not; and this is grace.
We might have been in the everlasting burnings, but we are not; and this is grace.
And if light’ be so ‘good’ even now when shining through a sin-obscured atmosphere upon a cursed earth, what will it be hereafter when coming down through the new heavens upon the new earth, wherein dwelleth right-
1 In that passage of the book of Esther which speaks of the deliverance of the Jews, we read that ‘the Jews had ght, and gladness, and joy, and honour’ (Esth. viii. 16). And when referring to Israel’s coming days of gladness, Isaiah says, ‘Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting Zeht, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended’ (Isa. lx. 20).- In both of these, as in other passages, the connection between light and joy on the one hand, and darkness and grief on the other, is strikingly brought out.
VOL. Vi. B eousness? What will it be in the New Jerusalem, ‘when the glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb shall be the light thereof.’
But next, God made a division between light and darkness. He then introduced the alternation between them which has continued ever since, the ‘ grateful vicissitude of day and night.’ Now it was, perhaps, that the earth began again to revolve round its axis, God laying His finger on it and giving it the precise impulse needed. How simply is the division effected! No vast curtain alternately drawn and undrawn; no huge cloud wrapping the earth in its foldings, and again disappearing; no alternate kindling and quenching of the great source of light! God speaks, or stretches out His hand, or sends out one of those ‘angels that excel in strength,’ and the earth begins to revolve.t Thus the light and the darkness are sundered, or rather alternated.
1 Milton speaks of angels as employed in altering the earth’s
position and motions:
“Some say He bid His angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun’s axle; they with labour pushed
Oblique the centric globe.’
—Paradise Lost, Book x. line 668. A commentator on the Apocalypse has thus finely caught up the thought: ‘That angels do excel in strength we well know, from Ps. cilil., and other parts of Scripture. And when the proclamation, Who is able to open the book? was to be made throughout the region of the heaven and the earth and the deep, a strong angel was chosen to lift up the creation-filling voice. Whose is it to wheel the spheres in their courses, as if they were bowling balls? Whose strength is it that splits the solid rocks, that heaves the ocean from its oozy bed, that holdeth the winds, and anon letteth them fly amain? I believe these things are under the angels. God will not leave inanimate matter to
In the present state of our earth, and according to the present constitution of its inhabitants (both animate and inanimate — man, animals, and herbs), this alternation is absolutely needful. A world all light would be nearly as uninhabitable and unhealthy as a world all darkness! What wisdom and grace are displayed in this division! We sometimes say, What would become of us if it were always might? Have we ever thought what would become of us if it were always day? We need the change, and God has kindly thought on us and provided for it, in the surest, yet the simplest of all ways, — -a way which, in producing this alternation, produces along with it a thousand other things, all pleasing and helpful. Let us
have the glory of these wonderful powers, He hath some intelligent ones, I ake no doubt, who have the noble consciousness of working the will of God therein, and of rendering unto Him the homage which thence is due. ‘This is the way in which these philosophists have dispeopled the world of intelligence, by supposing that, because they see not spiritual agencies in the mechanical and chemical regions of nature which they examine, therefore there are no such intelligences. But because we cannot see beings whose property it is to be invisible, are there therefore no such beings? Not to see them is the very condition of their being. If we could see them, they were not. But, for my part, I believe out of this text, that the strength, the main strength and force of things, consisteth in their subjection to mighty angels, who work the work under God, and so display the goodness — the creative goodness, and the riches of the providence of God, I reverence tradition; and J find herein the most venerable traditions of, all men concurring, from the superstitions of my native land, which people the waters, and the earth, and the woods, and everything with invisible power and agencies, up to those cf the remotest antiquity of which we have any record, In ascribing their strength unto the Lamb, therefore, I do think that these angels acknowledge all the powers which we are wont to call the powers of nature, the laws of the created world, to be due unto Him, and unto Him alone.’
20 tam THOUGHTS ON GENESIS.
ee
praise Him for the revolving earth! Let us praise Him for the darkness as well as for the light, for the night — as well as.for the day !*
Ver. 5. ‘And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.’
God does not leave His works nameless. He who made them and knew their properties and uses, gave them their names; for names are the properties or features of a being or thing expressed to the ear or eye in words, so that He who hears or reads them may at once understand what the thing or being is, and wherein it differs from other things and beings. At the outset we see how God proclaimed His own name; now He names all His creatures in succession. Of the stars we read, ‘He calleth them all by names’ (Ps. cxlvii. 4). He tells us how to call His works. Let us not overlook this part of God’s proceedings, nor forget Him as the zamer of His works. When we speak of night or day, let us remember that He called them by these names. God does not count even the naming of His creatures beneath Him. He has named the heavens and the earth;
? Yet the darkness which God has so graciously given for repose and refreshment, and the quiet both of the vexed soul and the weary body, man has perverted and made a covering for his sin. Deeds which he fears to do in the light he reserves for the darkness. Hence the expression ‘works of darkness,’ ‘children of night,’ and such-like; and hence the use of the term darkness for ‘sin;’? and hence Satan js called ‘ruler of this world’s darkness;’ and hence the difference between the world and God is spoken of as that between darkness and light: ‘What communion hath light with darkness?’ (2 Cor. vi. 14.)
GENESIS t. 5... = aI
He has named the changes of light and darkness. How closely and how lovingly must His eye have rested on our world! Is there anything, great or small, of which He was or is unmindful?
Ver. 5. ‘And the evening and the morning were the first day.’
Thus He sums up these wondrous statements by announcing the completion of a day, — of that period which embraces an evening and a morning. He begins now to number time. ‘This is day the first.’ Thus God dates His operations. He not only says, ‘I did these things,’ but He adds, ‘I did them then and there, in such a place, and at such a time.’ And throughout Scripture we may notice the same minute accuracy as to dates. In the prophets especially, God sets down the year, the month, the dav when He spoke or did such and such things. How wonderful.is it to see the Eternal One thus numbering the minutest sections of time! He is truly the God of order, and arrangement, and method, and accuracy, in all things great and small. It is the fool that takes no note of time. God takes - note of it, and in so doing teaches us to prize it, and to ‘number our days.’ Though He ‘inhabiteth eternity’ (Isa. lvii. 16); though He calls Himself the ‘ Eternal God’ (Deut. xxxiil. 27); though a ‘thousand years are in His sight as yesterday’ (Ps. xc. 4), yet He reckons up and names the smallest fragments of time. And He who says, ‘Before the day was, I am He’ (Isa. xliii. 13), is the same who records so carefully the date of His doings as Creator: ‘It was evening and it was morning, day the first.’
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What a marvellous day has this been! Order, light, motion, beauty, are all now begun. God has spoken the word! He has set His hand to the mighty work, and He will not rest till He has finished it, for He is the eternal Purposer, and all His purposes shall stand. There can be no defeat, no reversal. This earth is to be the sphere of His mightiest work; and in these first days’ operations He is gathering together the stones for the foundation of His vastest and fairest temple, which, though delayed and obstructed for a season in its erection by Satan’s craft and: man’s sin, shall not on that account suffer loss, but shall, by this temporary frustration, have its foundations laid broader and deeper, that its walls may rise the higher, and its compass stretch the wider, in the day of final restitution still in reserve for it. Scoffers may mock, and say, What! all this care for this little fragment of creation, this pebble on the shore of infinite space! Yes, even so. It is God’s way, and shall be so to the last, alike in creation and redemption, ‘for the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.’
Vers. 6-8. And God said, Let there bea firmament (or expanse) in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7. 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. 8, And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Up to this time the atmosphere had not been sufficiently. dense to bear up the evaporating waters; for there had hitherto been two kinds of waters, the more solid waters of the abyss, and the evaporating waters rising from these. This evaporation would go on much
more rapidly and incessantly if the atmosphere were
rarer (or thinner), and yet it would not be borne up, but would rest over the immediate surface of the earth, so that there were these two bodies of water, the thicker and the thinner, the more solid and the rarer, in close conjunction with each other; the deep still throwing up its vapours, yet these vapours unable to rise, but mantling the earth with one vast watery shroud, allowing light to penetrate, yet not revealing the bright round disc of sun or moon, nor permitting the stars to show their sparkling lustre. The scene somewhat resembled the state of earth during those months when the waters of the deluge were descending; the waters above meeting
- the waters beneath, and wrapping the globe round with
inexhaustible rain-clouds.
God again interposes. There is need for both kinds of waters in that world which He is preparing; but they must be separate, not intermingled. There can be no life either of man, or beast, or vegetable so long as they are thus mingled. Accordingly the word goes forth; the atmosphere is made to undergo a change by which it is enabled to bear up the vapours, and thus divide the two bodies of water, while the needful process of evaporation is still carried on. This atmosphere is made to stretch round the earth like a firmament or expanse, and bears up into its higher regions the ever-ascending waters of the lower, yet furnishing them also with the means of re-descent in the form of the gladdening shower. How y ea oo g |. simple the change! How vast and wonderful its resu Let us note the following passages in connection ) ith all this: — Gen. vil. rz, 12; Job xxvi, 8 and xxxvil rr, 18; Ps exlvili, 4; Prov. vill, 28; Jer x. ro-33, li, 15,165 Zech. xii. x. Such are some of the references in Scrip: ture to the two great bodies of water, upper and under,
the view of Jehovah; as if now His witdem were Specially coming forth, whereas hitherto it had been His fewer chiefly that had been seen. =e. God names and dates His handiwork. He calls the [| firmament, heaven or the lofty place; and this character. [| istic is in many ways and figures brought under our notice in Scripture (Job xi. 8; Ps cil, 21; Prov. xxv. 3; Isv Wy. 9). The love, the power, the majesty of i:: God, His thoughts, His ways, His purposes, when com.; pared with those of man, are set forth to us by the height of the heaven above the earth. And in this way He gives iv Us some famt measure of these, some poor conception of His infinite glory and grace. This heaven or firma ment shared the curse when man fell, either directly, by being in itself altered for the worse, or indirectly through the curse which took passession of the soil and exhaled into the mantling air. There is something in earth’s atmosphere that blights and injures It is not the same healthful, genial, joyous firmament that it was when; God created it. And this deterioration has doubtless contributed to the decay of creation, to the Propagation of disease, and to the curtailment of hie; asifthe seeds of death were in it aiter the fall as largely as were the ee: a “of life before. After the deluge it became deteriorated, and man’s life became shortened, ly shortening in its dates till it reached the escore years and ten. Since that time it has remained the same, and probably will do.so during the short remaining period of earth’s fallen state. We do indeed read of a period when the seventh angel is to - out his vial into the air (Rev. xvi. 17) as if its s had come; so that having been brought into its cst condition, it was preparing to put on its best, — P just as death is our way to resurrection-glory, — but how far this is connected with the curse or its removal we cannot say.4. After this the firmament is made new; for just as there isa renewal of the earth, so there is a 4 renewal of the encompassing atmosphere. This upper ‘a part of creation must partake in the deliverance from ‘the bondage of corruption’ This renovation of the firmament will contribute to the superior brightness of y sun and moon, which millennial days are to witness; and it will contribute to the restored longevity of man; on earth when his days shall be ‘as the days of a tree’ if (Isa. Ixy. 22). How many of the groans of creation af will this restoration, this healing of the firmament still!
What health to the body, what vigour to the soul of.
’ man will it tend to impart, when the primeval blessing ’ is renewed, which man’s sin had so long restrained!
4 The angel’s pouring out his vial into the air may point both to
) the netural and spiritual crisis in the history of that part of creation, and indicate that the time is come when not only physical evils are to ela out, but the spiritual wickedness in high places expelled.
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What new strength, yet also what new gentleness of nature, will it bring to the animal creation! What new verdure to the leaf, what new beauty and fragrance to the flower will it impart! What a change in the blue of the heavens and in the green of the earth, when this long-poisoned air is at length disinfected by the healing touch of Him who has disease, with all its varied sources, seen and unseen, at His command; who, when on earth, showed Himself as the world’s great Healer, and whose voice shall then be heard saying, ‘Behold, I make all things new!’
It is in this old firmament, this defiled: Gioeenee of ours, that Satan has taken up his abode. How the darkness became his peculiar birthright we know not. How or when he was permitted to take up his abode in the air so as to become ‘the prince of the power of the air,’ and thence to wield the darkness, which is his heritage, we know not. We know simply that it is so. The encompassing air of earth is Satan’s special residence and domain. From it he ‘rains his plagues on men like dew.’ In it he has set his throne, and from that throne he rules this world and its kingdoms, sending down his legions to scour the earth, to reinforce his citadels, to assail the Church, to form the bodyguard of Antichrist, to lead men captive at his will, till the day arrive when he shall be cast down from his seat and bound in the dark abyss for a thousand years, in preparation for the ‘outer darkness’ in which he is to dwell for ever. And who, believing these things, can look up into
e fair yet wan azure without longing for the time when its sickliness shall be exchanged for the intensity of brightness? Who, remembering that it is the haunt of Satan and his angels, can gaze into its depths, either of midnight or of noon, without longing for the time when he shall be cast out, and these old haunts of his purified and filled with blessed angels carrying on their glad ministry both in the upper and lower regions of God’s redeemed creation?
It is into the air that the saints are to be caught up to meet their reappearing Lord. In the progress of His descent to earth, He halts there with His angelic ‘retinue; and pitching His pavilion on the confines of earth, He calls up His saints to meet Him; there to hear the final sentence of ‘no condemnation’ announced, to celebrate the completed union, to sit down at the marriage-supper, and to begin the long festivity of the bridal day.’
1 These verses give us one of the first intimations of the distinction which Scripture preserves throughout, between ‘ the earthly’ and ‘the heavenly,’ the upper and the lower chamber of the palace of the great King, this earth the lower, these skies (the floor of a more glorious heaven) the upper. At present it is full of ungodliness, it lies ¢y rq xovnpa; and the air is full of unclean spirits. But God’s purpose must be fulfilled, and the day is coming when both shall be purged; when earth and heaven shall be reunited; when the ladder of communication ‘between the upper and the lower region shall be set up (Gen. xxviii. 12; John i. 51); when, in the Jerusalem above, the risen saints shall dwell; and in the Jerusalem below, Israel shall abide; and over the whole blessed earth, now delivered from the curse, shall dwell the nations of the saved, rejoicing in the double splendour of the upper and the lower glory, filling the new firmament with the odour of their incense and the harmony of their songs, ’ ‘ Change of air!’ how common the expression, how little thought of what it implies!
Vers. 9, 10. ‘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. 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that i was good.
No change had as yet taken place upon the mighty mass of waters, which, like one vast and unbroken ocean, covered the whole earth. It was still in the condition referred to in the 104th Psalm, ‘Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.’ It was truly ‘the melancholy main.’ There was no life, no joy, no intercourse of happy being. If then the earth is to be the dwelling-place of life, there must be a change. These waters must, in part at least, be dried up. They are not wholly to pass off; for they are needful in many ways. They are needful for deauty, and God considers this in all. His works. They are needful for supplying the atmosphere with vapours, and the earth with showers, as well as for filling the rivers which fertilize and gladden it. They are not indeed needful to the extent in which they now exist; and hence in the new earth they shall be largely curtailed, if not wholly done away (Rev. xxi. 1). But though in a measure needful, they must be changed, and their limits abridged. The land which they cover must rise above the surface, and become a fit habitation for man. How this was done we are not told. God said, ‘Let it be, and it was so.’ It
is but a word, and all is done. This one word went,
like lightning, through the deep foundations of earth,
upheaving some parts into mountains, sinking others into valleys or deeper receptacles for the ocean. The process is alluded to in such passages as the following: — Job xxvi. 10, xxxvili, 8; Ps. xxxiii. 7, xcv. 5, cxxxvi. 6; Prov. viii 29; Jer. v. 22; 2 Pet. iii.-s. Thus God refers to His operations, giving us indeed but little insight into the actual process, yet finely painting and spreading out before us its great features. The two parts of the globe, thus formed, received their names from God, the dry land being called earth,. and the gathering of the waters seas. God then looked upon His handiwork, surveying it in all its parts, and then pronounced it ‘good.’ The earth was ‘good,’ as it now spread itself out in all its inequalities of valley and mountain, of plain and precipice. A goodly earth! Fit to be the dwelling of creatures made in His own image; fit to be the material out of which the bodies of these creatures were to be fashioned; nay, fit to be the ‘material out of which the body of His own Son was to be composed when He took flesh in the virgin’s womb. A goodly sea! Goodly in its stretch of illimitable vastness, and in its transparent depths of unpolluted blue; goodly in the grandeur of its deafening storms, and in the still moré wondrous grandeur of its majestic calms; goodly in all its moods whether of gloom or gladness, whether shadowed with the cloud, ‘or spanned with the rainbow, or reflecting the sky’s clear azure, or bathed in sunshine, or silvered with the moonbeam, or stzewn with starlight; whether break-SS eee
30 THOUGHTS ON GENESIS. a
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ing in surges against the rock, or stealing in soft ripples
over the glittering sand.?.
If sea and earth be thus ‘good,’ according to God’s own judgment, there can be no inherent evil in matter, as philosophy would teach. Matter is not in itself carnal. It is not the corrupter of spirit. It was created good, and it cannot corrupt itself. It is spirit that has done this. It is spirit, not matter, that is the fountainhead of evil.
What a world is this of ours for scenes, and associations, and remembrances! Earth and sea are full of them; evil and good, sorrowful and glad. What feet have trodden this earth, what eyes have gazed on that sea, since God brought them into being! Here holy men have lived; here the wicked have triumphed; here Abel’s blood was shed; here Enoch walked with God; here angels have been visitors; here the Son of God abode; His footsteps were on the earth and on the sea. It is a small enough speck in the map of the universe, but it is the most wondrous of all. And though it has felt the curse for a season, it is to taste the blessing again. And when the mighty angel is seen descending to claim the heritage (Rev. x. 2), he sets his right foot on the sea, and his left upon the earth, in token of his having
1 We may notice some things connected with this part of creation, (1.) God is very often spoken of as Maker of heaven and earth and sea and as such to be praised (Ps. xcv. 4-6, cxxxvi. 6; Rev. xiv, 7). (2.) The wicked are compared to the troubled sea (Isa. lvii. 20), (3. It is symbolically the place whence the four great beasts come up (Dan. vii. 3). (4-) It is the emblem of vastness (Job xi. 9). (5.) Of tumult (Ps. lxv. 7). (6.) Of instability (Jas, i. 6).
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GENESIS 1, t1-13.- 31
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come to take possession of all things which God at first
created.
The earth and sea are now the depositories of the dead. The bodies both of the holy and the unholy are resting there. But the day is near when out of that earth and that sea the trumpet shall call the dead. Neither shall be able to detain their victims when the life-giving voice shall be heard (John v. 28, 29; Rev. xx. 13). In the dust of earth, or deep beneath the roar of ocean, the saint sleeps soundly, as in a peaceful bed, till Jesus come. In that same dust, or beneath these same cold surges, the sinner lies, like the criminal in his cell, awaiting the summons of the Judge.
Vers. 11-13. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,y 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. 12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after his kind; and God saw that it was good. 13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The great work proceeds apace. We are made to trace its successive steps, rising the one above the other, in fair order. ‘There was first “ight, followed by the division into day and night. Then there was the atmosphere, followed by the division of the upper and the under waters. ‘Then the earth, with its division into sea and land, so that/a soil was prepared, with all the needful oe and appliances for making it productive. This having
1 Literally, ‘Let the earth sprout forth grass of green herbage (Borkuny xéprov, as the LXX. give it), seeding seed; tree of fruit, making fruit after its kind.’ y)
y / t Diner i. 5 ae been done, the word goes forth, and the clothing of the earth begins, with the two great divisions of grass and trees, the smaller and the larger orders of the vegetable creation. All these sprang up at once when the divine command went out.1. And in this first generation there is contained provision for all future time, each class being so created as to be able to reproduce itself. They could not produce others of a different kind, or gradually pass up from a lower into a higher order; each could ‘only bring forth his own. Each species was to be separate from the other, bringing forth seed ‘ after its kind’ There was to be no confusion, no intermingling of diverse kinds. Such was the law of the Creator, and in the carrying out of that law no mistakes occur, and no rebellion is ever seen. Man may mistake or resist the law, but into the lower parts of creation mistakes and self-willed resistances cannot come. All there is order, certainty, continuity, and regularity of the most perfect kind. There is a law woven into every fibre of their being, — a law from which no power or skill can force them to deviate. In that law we read the will of God Himself, — a will stamped upon all creation, and meeting us in every clod of the soil, and in every herb,
: Milton thus describes the scene:
* He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned, Brought forth th tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal jace with pleasant green, — Par. Lost, Book vii. 312 ny
Ne description of Lucretius is so exact that we may cite it;
‘ Principio genus herbarum, viridemque nitorem,
Terra dedit, circum colles, camposque per omnes
Florida fulserunt viridanti prata colore.’
—De Rer. Nat Book vy. 78% f or flower, or tree. Why does this seed bring forth only grass, and that other only corn, and that other only the shrub or tree? Because God so willed it at first, and because He has left the stamp of that SovEREIGN WILL upon the minutest seed that ripens under the autumn sun. Why do they never run into each other, and become mixed or confounded, but everywhere preserve the original diversity assigned to them six thousand years ago; so that when at any time man with all his skill fails to discriminate different seeds, he has but to appeal to these seeds themselves, by covering them with a little moist soil, and forthwith each seed declares itself without mistake or uncertainty? Because in each of these atoms of creation there is a force at work, far superior to man, — the will of Jehovah. Why does not the acorn sometimes through mistake produce the elm, or the fir-cone the chestnut, or the thistle-down the rose of Sharon? Why does not the fig-tree sometimes pass into the vine, or the branching cedar shoot up into naked stateliness; and put on the coronet of the palm? In all these myriads of seeds there is, oftentimes abortion, but never a mistake. The seed may rot and die, so failing in its end, but otherwise it fails not. In a perfect world there would be no-abortion or decay, but this world of ours is blighted, and therefore failure exists. But it is simply failure, not mistake. It is JeHovAH’s WILL that they should often prove abortive, in order to be a witness to sin and the curse; but it is also His will that there should be no mistake or confusion, that it may be seen, even in the lowliest, that He is still
the sovereign of creation. Thus. has God engraven the VOL, VI. c ee insignia of His sovereignty upon all His handiworks, even the minutest. The form and colour of each seed, each leaf, each blossom; all these continuing to this day without mixture or confusion, are the badges of His sovereignty as well as the witnesses of His wisdom and love.
This day’s work, which God pronounces good, and which-He da/es, as in other places, may be called either
-the clothing or the painting of creation. Figure, size,
proportion, had all been given before, but still earth was a dark-brown mass of mingled soil and rock. But now the command goes out for its adornment. For God’s purpose is to make it a world of beauty as well as of stability, seeing He is Himself the possessor and source of all that is beautiful. He chooses d/we for the colour of sky and sea, but he chooses gveew for the hue of earth. His word spreads over its varied surface the green mantle
which has from that day to this made it to be known as the ‘green earth.’?
1 Let us notice two special references to earth’s greenness. In Song of Sol. vi. 11, the Spouse says, ‘I went down into the garden of nuts to see the gveenzess of the valley,’ for it is greenness, not fruit, that is signified by the word (see Job viii. 12); the deauty of the eveen valley is what is referred to. In Rey. iv. 3, the rainbow round the throne was ‘to look upon like an emerald.’ As the emerald is green, so the symbolical rainbow, all tinctured with that hue, declares the connection of the scene mentioned in the chapter with the evecn earth. It seems like the reflected verdure of earth formed into a canopy above the throne, to show that He who sat upon the throne was earth’s Redeemer and King. That emerald rainbow is God’s
covenant-pledge to creation that He remembers it, and will ere lone restore to it its blighted verdure.
GENESTS 1. 14-10. ay
”
7: “Vers. 14-19. ‘And God saia, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night (between the day and between
the night); and let them be for signs, and for seasons (set times), and
for days, and years: 15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of
iF
the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16, And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: Hle made the stars also. 17. And God set them
; sin the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, 18. 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. 19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.’
There had been %ghz* before, but there are to be Liehts; the light hitherto had been dimly diffused over: creation. Its source has not yet become visible. The firmament was still clouded, so that neither sun nor moon could be seen; and it was under this cloud that God sowed His seed, and planted His herbs and trees. But now the veil is to be brushed away, and the two great centres of radiance to become visible. They, with the stars, had been created at first, as parts of the heaven and earth spoken of in the first verse. But not till now are-they unveiled; for now they are needed to nourish and mature the springing plants of herb and tree, which God had on the previous day been planting. The operations of the third day suited best the shade, but now something more is required,
1 In Ps. lxxiv. 16, the distinction between the light and the source of light is marked, while both are ascribed to God: ‘Thou hast prepared light and the sun.” The words of the 136th Psalm are a commentary on the whole passage, teaching us, moreover, the infinite love of God in this part of His creation, so that we cannot enjoy the brightness of sun, or moon, or star, without feeling that ‘ His mercy endureth for ever.’ Everlasting mercy is written on these great lights
of the firmament. And as truly as they tell His love, so truly do they ‘declare His glory’ (Ps. xix. 1).
and the sun bursts forth in its strength. But let us more particularly mark the uses here assigned to these * luminaries.
1. The first use is to divide between the day and between the night.. Here again the process of division comes in, the sun and moon being the instruments for effecting it. This division is not arbitrary or useless. Man’s health and comfort require it. The wellbeing of all the various tribes of being, living or lifeless, requires this. Without it, the present condition of creation would be undermined, and creation ere long destroyed. Without it there could be no order, no regularity. When day and night are confounded, then man suffers; for no law of creation can be violated without suffering or evil following. But while man neglects this regularity of division at the call either of pleasure or business, God keeps up His silent protest in the heavens against him. He prevents that disorder from becoming general by the fixture of the heavenly orbs, whose inexorable law of revolution is always bringing back order and regularity, restraining the folly and disorderliness of man.
2. To be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years. — (1.) Signs; that is, tokens, by means of which God points to something not before the eye, past, present, or to come, as the rainbow after the flood, or as the Sabbath, which was to be a ‘sign.’ These heavenly bodies are specially to be used as ‘signs’ in the latter day (Luke xxi. 25; Acts i, 19). (2.) Seasons; that is, set times, not only the seasons of the year, but festivals and solemn days; all the recurring periods of man’s time, great or small (Isa.
Ixyi. 23; 1 Chron. xxiii. 31; Ps. civ. 19). Thus God has committed the keeping of man’s time to the unintelligent, nay, the inanimate creation. The sun and moon keep time for man; he cannot do it for himself; and the regularity of the world as to ¢ime must be entrusted to creatures without mind or life. Much as man can do, he cannot keep or measure his time without their aid. He can cohstruct an instrument for this, or he can let the sun or moon do it for him; but without some such appliances he soon loses all count of time.” Thus, at every turn man’s helplessness comes out, and he is made to feel his littleness as well as his greatness; his dependence on the inanimate creation as well as his superiority to it.
3. Zo give light. — Several times over this is stated, as if it were their prime and special object, to which the others were subordinate. They are man’s servants — his torchbearers, appointed for this service by God.’ They shine, not for themselves, but for Him. It is towards Him that each ray is bending, as if doing homage to its King. Yet man in his folly has worshipped the light as if it were God! The master has bowed down to the servant: Oh, folly and stupidity beyond conception! Man alone
1 Ts not this the special reference in the 8th Psalm, when David exclaims, ‘What is man, that Thou art mindful?’ etc. It is not merely to contrast the magnificence of the starry arch with the meanness of man, as is generally supposed. It is rather to ask, What is man, that Thou shouldst make such provision for his comfort and wellbeing as these skies do furnish? What is man, that Thou shouldst light up so many sparkling orbs to give light to him? In reference to the stars being man’s servants, Theodoret has somewhere this idea, that they turn their back upon the heavens in order to give light to the earth — vairu didavras avpaya.
mistakes or forgets the end of his creation; other creatures, even the inanimate, fulfil their end!
4. Zo rule the day and night.. — Each has his royal throne assigned.. They sit like monarchs in the firmament, determining the bounds of day and night; that the light may not encroach upon the darkness, nor the darkness on the light, but each have its allotted share of time. They sit also there as if to regulate the movements of man, prescribing to him what these movements are to be during the day, and during the night, — saying to man each morning, Arise, and go forth to thy labour; and each evening, Return and rest. Thus these ‘powers that be (emblems of the princedoms of earth) are ordained of God.’ It is His purpose that they are fulfilling; it is by His law that they are moving, and revolving, and radiating, carrying healing and gladness as well as light along with them, — being to man ‘ the ministers of God for good.’
In all this we see again the impress of Jehovah’s sovereign will. It is that zwz/? that shines out in the day, or darkens in the night. It is that z72/ that is to be traced in the hours, and days, and weeks, and months, and years, and cycles, that give to earth and its inhabitant man, a chronology and a history. To all this God sets His seal.
1 As each of the six periods is measured from the evening to the morning, the oon must have appeared first. In that night when
-her face was first unveiled she began her less potent rule, and it
was not till morning that the sun burst forth. So it is first the
2 ‘ Rs E wa.: ° +) Church, fair as the moon,’ shining in and ruling this worid’s deep midnight, till the morning wanes and the long-hidden Sun of Righteousness goes forth ‘like a bridegroom out of his chamber,’
to take His place in the firmament, and with His bride, the Church, to rule the endless day.
Ay SS eee It was good. And again, He dates His work, ‘The evening was, and the morning was, day the fourth.?. Vers. 20-25. ‘ And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life (lit. let the waters make to creep the creeping thing, soul of life, i.e. that has life in it), and fowl that may
fly above the earth on the open firmament of heaven (lit. and let fowl
Sly upon or above the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens). 21. And God created great whales (lit. the great sea-monsters), and every living creature that moveth (or creépeth), which the waters brought Jorth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl (lit. every fowl of wing) after his (its) kind: and God saw that it was good. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the fowl multiply on the earth. 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature (lit. the soul of life) after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.’
We have seen the creation of vegetable life, we have now to mark that of animal life. We are now climbing upwards in the scale of being, yet each step is a distinct
1 It is interesting to notice the many applications made in Scripture of the heavenly bodies as emblems of the spiritual. (1.) God is a sun and shield (Ps, lxxxiv. 11). (2.) Christ is the Sun of Righteous- ‘-ness (Mal. iv. 2); the light of the world (John viii. 12); the morning star (Rev. ii. 16); the dispeller of the darkness (2 Sam. xxiii. 4). (3.) The Church is fair as the moon (Song vi. 10); clear as the sun (Song vi. 10); the moon under her feet (Rev. xii. 1); crowned with stars (z.); the saints are to shine as the stars (Dan. xii. 3); with different glories (I Cor. xv. 41); as the sun in his might (Judg. y. 31); as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matt. xiii. 43). (4.) Christ’s ministers are likened to stars (Rev. i. 16-20). (5.) Apostates are likened to wandering stars (Jude 13). (6.) It was a star that lighted the wise men (Matt. ii. 2), (7.) At the coming crisis of earth’s history, all these heavenly orbs are to be shaken and darkened for a season (Mark xiii, 25).
one. There is no confusion nor intermingling with each other. The rock does not gradually become a vegetable, and the vegetable gradually pass into an animal. No. There is entire separation in each class, and at every step - the fiat of the Creator must come in. They cannot, by. any innate power, or intermixture of species or development of latent power or capacity, create or produce each other. The stone remains the stone, however rough, and the gem remains the gem, however precious. The tree remains the tree, neither passing downwards into something less, nor upwards into something higher. The flower abides the flower, neither casting off its petals and shrinking into a clod, nor expanding its blossoms into the plumage of the dove or the eagle. On each, God has imprinted the law of its kind, which it cannot pass nor annul.
God first created, then He arranged, then He enlightened, then He divided, then He dothed, then He regulated time; now He proceeds to people the earth. Up to this time it might be fair and goodly, but it was unpeopled. No life was to be found on it. Now it was to be peopled by what are called ‘things having a soul of life,’ or living soul. The inanimate creation had been completed, the animate must now be proceeded with. In this the order of procedure is, first, the creatures bélonging to the sea; second, those belonging to the air; third, those belonging to the earth. This was the order in which these three parts or regions of creation were prepared, and so the same order is preserved when providing inhabitants for
them.
=
1. The creatures of the sea- — These we know are the
lowest in the scale of creation, so God begins with these. And all species which the sea contains He creates at once; from the great sea-monsters down to the meanest. reptile. God Himself gives us in the book of Job (chap. xli.) a description of Leviathan as a specimen of these (see also Ps. civ. 26). How mighty in power and manifold in wisdom must their Creator be!~ On every element He has representatives of His might and majesty. In the rugged caves of ocean there are creatures to glorify Him, so that the ‘dragons and all deeps’ are called on to praise Him (Ps. cxlviii. 7). And from the depth of ocean there comes up a hallelujah to Him ‘who alone doeth great wonders; for whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in heaven and in earth — zn ¢he seas and all deep places’ (Ps, cxxxv. 6). Nay, the voice which John heard ascribing blessing to the Lamb for ever, was from ‘such as are in the sea, and all that are in them’ (Rev. v. 13).
2. The creatures of the air. — We take the marginal reading as the true one, ‘let the fowl fly,’ that is, let the fowl be created, and let them fly in the firmament, there taking up their abode. Of these two, God has given His own description (Job xxxix. 13-26, 27), singling out specially the peacock, the ostrich, the hawk, and the eagle. Thus the air is vocal. It has a hallelujah of its own. The ‘flying fowl’ praise Him (Ps. cxlviii. 10); whether it be ‘the stork that knoweth her ‘appointed time’ (Jer. viii. 7), or the ‘sparrow alone upon the house-top’ (Ps. cii. 7), or ‘the raven of the valley’ (Prov. xxx. 17), or the eagle ‘stirring up her nest, and fluttering over her young’ (Deut. xxxii. rr), or the turtle making its voice to
be heard in the land (Song ii. 12), or the dove winging
its way to the wilderness (Ps. lxv. 6). This is creation’s harp (truer and sweeter than Memnon’s), which each sunrise awakens, ‘turning all the air to music.’ 3. The creatures of the earth — The beast, the cattle, the creeping thing; all that the earth now rears upon its bosom. Of these also God has given us His description (Job xxxix. 1-12, 19), proclaiming His wondrous works. Thus earth too has her hallelujah, for ‘beasts and all cattle’ (Ps. cxlviil. 10) are summoned to join in the chorus, that the diapason of creation may be complete. Thus sea, air, earth, are peopled, the three regions referred to in Ps. vilil., which is quoted by the apostle (Heb. ii.), as so specially containing man’s charter, and setting forth God’s purpose. The ‘soul of life’ has now been given; sentient beings have taken up their abode on earth; beings capable of suffering and rejoicing. It is in LIFE that God is now manifesting Himself. Hitherto it has been in order, in shape, in colour, in beauty; now it is in /zfe, — that which is nearest to His own nature, likest to Himself. The manifestation which it is His
purpose to make of Himself is becoming more and more complete.;
— —
He blesses them, and pronounces them ‘good.’ He pours into them all the blessing of which their nature is capable, and gives it to them in perpetuity. For when God blesses His creatures, He is looking forward into the far future, and securing to them all that that future stands in need of. And having blessed them,
He bids them multiply, as if He would point out that the blessing which He gives is an active and communicative blessing, to be spread abroad. And here we learn that the propagative powers of ‘creation are the direct impartation of God. They are not a mere natural property or physical law, but the special gift of God. His sovereign will, His authoritative command are here. Fruitfulness and barrenness, the power to increase, or the drying up of that power, are from His hand! (Ps. cxili. 9.) Hence it is that David gives vent to his joyful confidence, ‘O Jehovah, Thou preservest man and beast: how excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust in the shadow of Thy wings’ (Ps. xxxvi. 7). And hence also, after surveying the work of God’s hands, he thus concludes: ‘I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have any being. My meditation of Him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord’ (Ps. civ. 33, 34).
Vers. 26-31. ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air (lit. heaven), and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27. So (lit. and) God created man (lit. the man) in Lis own image: in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. 28, And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish (fill) the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth (lit. creepeth) upon the earth. 29. And God said, Behold, I have give you every herb bearing seed (lit. all grass seeding seed), which ts upor the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed (lit. seeding seed); to you it shall be for meat. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air (lit. heavens), and to every thing that crecpeth upon the earth, wherein there is life (lit. the soul of life), I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31. And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.’
The great temple of creation has now been reared and roofed in. It is perfect in its kind, — a glorious manifestation of its glorious Maker. But it wants a worshipper. It is at best but splendid desolation — a silent though wondrous city of the dead.
There must be a living inhabitant, and a living worshipper. God cannot rest in His work till this is done. And, accordingly, the completion of the work proceeds. But it is the most important part; and must be planned with care. The great idea has been in the divine mind from eternity, and is now to be executed; but in a way which manifests the profound interest which God took in what He was about to do. Hitherto it has been but the swift forth-going of a command; now there is a consultation, as if God were solemnly deliberating upon the great design. Hitherto it had been, ‘Let there be;’ now it is, ‘Let us make;’ — it is not a command to the elements, to bring forth what they contain; it is a work, spoken of as specially God’s own. The creature to be formed must come more directly from the divine hand than any other; and hence we often read elsewhere, ‘He made us, and not we ourselves.’
And with whom is this consultation held? ‘With whom took He counsel?’ Not with angels surely. But with Himself — Father, Son, and Spire The peculiar - form of expression is not made use of without a purpose.
And this is the more to be noted, because afterwards,
when each of the Three Persons had come out as it were into greater distinctness of manifestation, so that sometimes the Father speaks, and at other times the Son, and at other times the Spirit, this plural form of speech is not made use of. It is always I, not we. The same remarks apply to the use of the word our immediately after.
The being about whose formation this consultation was held, was he to whom the name of man was to be given, as we read, ‘ Fe called their name Adam (or man), in the day when they were created’ (chap. v. 2). The word signifies red, or ruddy, referring to the colour of his flesh, either as it appears under the skin, or as it is seen shining through the skin, forming the bright complexion of health; the token of perfect and vigorous manhood and womanhood. And hénce it is said of Christ, who in body as well as soul was the perfection of manhood, ‘He that sat.on it was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone’ (Rev. iv. 3). It is the same word used in the following passages: — 1 Sam. xvi. 12: ‘He was ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance;’ Song v. 10: ‘My beloved is white and ruddy,’ Lam. iv. 7: “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies 3° their polishing was of sapphire.’
This being is to be made ‘in our image, after our likeness’ (this is repeated in yer. 27). The use of both
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e 7 Cor eas a = Ss Sake — image and likeness is not a Bie A Its meaning ‘Let us make man in our image,’ in order that he ma resemble us, and so be our representative, the reflector of our image to others. The two words are used in Ex. xx. 4, ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything,’ that is, anything intended to resemble or represent anything whatever on earth. God’s — special characteristics may be summed up in these: intelligence, holiness, blessedness. Man therefore was to — be an intelligent, holy, blessed being; in these great features differing from and rising above all that had hitherto been created (see 1 Cor. x. 7; Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. ro). The idea of some, that the image of God consisted in his having dominion, is one resting on no Scripture, and is disproved by the passage before us, in which the, possession of dominion is described as the result of his having the image, and so could not be the image itself’ Man was to be God’s king, deceuse he was fitted to be so by being made in the image of God. 4
Then the gift of dominion follows. This kingship was directly from God. It was unlimited in so far as earth was concerned. All things were put under him, setting - before us at the outset the great truth that it was God’s purpose to rule the earth by a king, and that king not an angel, but a man (Heb. ii 6). The furtherexercise ef this dominion is afterwards expressed by ‘subduing the earth,’ bringing everything into submission ‘to his royal will, and into conformity with God’s plan and purpose. Not as if there was to be rests‘ance to man in any part of creation, requiring coercion, but merely such a kind of resistance
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as he was to have in cultivating Eden; such a kind of resistance as implied that creation stood waiting for the utterance of his will, and the forth-putting of his power.
Then there comes the blessing (ver. 28). God blessed them, that is, He poured into them all the goodness, and the life, and the joy that they could contain, and declared that such as they were just now, such they were to be in time to come. ‘This is the filling of the vessel, according to its measure, with the fulness of God. In virtue of this blessing, they were to be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth. And here, as we noticed formerly, is the true source of all power of propagation in man or beast, in herb or flower. The earth at first was ‘void,’ or empty, but now it was to be ‘filled’ (Ps. xxiv. r).
Then food is granted. All that the earth brings forth of herb and tree. It would seem by the statement of the 30th verse, that the beasts and fowl were restricted to the herb of the field, while to man was specially assigned the fruit of the tree. That man was restricted to the latter cannot be said; but the special food befitting his higher nature was the fruit of the tree. No 4/ was then taken for food; life did not need to be supported by death. Death was not then a necessary prerequisite to any creatures obtaining food for the body. ‘The lion did eat straw like the ox, as it did even afterwards, in the ark, during the year of confinement there. Such was the divine law, and such was the true condition of creation ere sin had disordered the earth.
Then, when all is finished, God looked round upon His handiwork, surveying all its parts. He gives His verdict
(RE Se a ee enna renner = = — — —
—‘very good.’ He is well pleased, and He tells us this. Such is His estimate of creation. It is all perfect, all according to His plan and mind, each of its parts ex- — hibiting the idea which He designed. And again He dates His work: ‘The evening was, and the morning was, day the sixth.’
And is this the six days’ work that we see around us? Yes; but how changed! It is not wholly ruined, for God has interrupted it in its fall, so that by its midway position it should point forward to restitution while it proclaims decay. But still it is not what God made it, and man is its destroyer! It is man that has made creation groan. It is man that is the undoer of what the great Maker had done.
And man himself, what is he now? The image of Elohim, where is it? Marred, faded, gone! A few fragments still remaining, a few torn leaves to show what has been the flower! We cannot recognise him as the same being. Man, ‘thou hast destroyed thyself!’ Compare thy present and thy former self, and be ashamed. Let the contrast between the first Adam and thyself humble thee profoundly; and let the contrast between the second Adam and thyself humble thee more profoundly still. The contrast, how sad! The ruin, how awful! And you did it!
Retrace your steps, get back the lost image; get it 1
back in God’s way. Thy connection with the first Adam is thy undoing; nothing but connection with the Second can be thy salvation. ‘Put on Christ;’ let every lineament of the earthly Adam be erased; let each feature of
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By/Adam. be engievea upon thee. Aim high n pride, as man did, and fell. To have the image z0d is one thing, and it is right and blessed; to ‘be.
od’ is another, and it is awfully presumptuous, — it is os
of perfection, and restoration, and dominion is coming; but it has not yet arrived. Live looking for it; live as men who believe it; walk worthy of it. It will then be seen what a God of glory our God is, and what essedness there is in being knit to the second Adam, who shall then be manifested as the head of creation and