Tuesday, August 13, 2013

EMMDEV 2013-08-13 [In the beginning...] Orderly

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day. Genesis1:3-5

Did you notice? Sun, moon and stars are only created on the fourth day, but there are days before then "there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day." Although the component for morning and evening (the sun) is not yet created, God has the concepts firmly in mind.

There is an orderliness about the creation account:
- A rythmic cycle of days,
- God, the constant in the equation, who speaks it all into being
- The span of seven days indicating that there was a plan
- The emphasis of seven symbolising completeness
- The repetition of "God saw that it was (very) good" vv.10,12,18,25,31
- The rest on the Sabbath implying satisfaction and completeness.

Creation is not random, circumstantial or chaotic.
The picture that Gen 1 gives us is that God is firmly in charge, that God delights in His creation and that He is working with a plan.

Again, we are not getting hung up on the HOW in the sense of the methodology of creation, but we are more concerned in WHO created and that His divine and sovereign qualities are beautifully reflected in the account of creation. We see God's creativity, power and internal-integrity portrayed as orderliness.

Also woven into the orderliness of creation is DELIGHT.
God is enjoying His creation. It is good and it gives Him joy. (We'll look at this more tomorrow)

We are not here by mistake or accident.
We are the end result of a carefully thought through plan where the Creator made a world that was good....!

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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/