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BULLETIN FORTY FIVE

GENESIS ONE TO THREE

What it is not, and What it is
 

What it is not

It is  NOT an excursion into philosophy.

It us bit a sharing of inspiration with another.

It is NOT a dalliance with meditation.

It is NOT a waffling of wandering ideas.

It is NOT an offering by an interested and interesting party.

It is not a psychological fantasy, but a theological exposure.

It is NOT at all in argumentative mode, any more than is a scientific account of an experiment,

or construction.

What it is

It is given in the name of God.

It is the first part of an extensive Book claiming God as its Author and acclaiming Him as Lord of life.

It is given, not as romance or roving, but a reticulation of carefully chosen words,
briefly, indeed in report mode, to cover the case of what is not God
coming from God,  in order to be by the outreach of creation.

It purports to  expose what happened when God, without additives, became God the creator
not only of the heavens, but of the earth.

It declaims that this is the account from the BEGINNING, and confirms in Ch. 2:1-4,
that it was in THIS way that the arrival of being and life outside God arrived.
It is punctilious in presentation. In its terms, it would be unthinkable that the origin
of non-God came about precisely in this way, and that by order,  fiat, directive, from God.

It admits neither possibility nor viewpoint. It is almost like a fact factory, but
intensively ordered.

It is as rugged as rock, and as factual in
orientation as a report on a new aeroplane, how it came to be, from inventor to aviator.
It is simply telling you what happened, since you are an interested party,
gifted with comprehension so that you are able to be informed.

It is bold, concise, authoritarian, yet with an innate majesty which knows nothing of
surmise or supposition. The thought of being wrong appears ridiculous in the light
of its unvarying set of series, characteristically unfolding not by internal dynamic, but by external direction.

It is as methodical in outline as any HOW TO manual for construction equipment, or
explaining how it came to be.

It has two major series,  earth fiats and astronomical ones, each with its relative series of sub-steps,
always by the God of creation.

It moves always in the realm of creating natural bodies, conditions,
and their  exposition. Thus in Genesis 1:2, we find the primordial light,
enough to distinguish itself from  darkness in a dual condition scenario;
but in 1:14ff., we find heavy emphasis on the precise nature of the light source,
as it is given  form to fit total purpose, its binary character:
the additives of the stars, the light and its engineering mode the topic.

It lists man as an end of series compartment,
stresses that it was not from any preceding creation or created materials,
and thus readies us for Ch. 2, where the personality creation is found,
moves on toe Ch. 2 where personal play moves from disloyal
fantasy at the devil's instance, to categorical severance from friendly relationship with God,
to meddling revolt in what is not understood, the trickster, man, being tricked.

This event, like the others, is simple, classically clear, immediately effective, in line with the chosen
time unit in view. This is designated to be days, and some of the ancients who read this Book of Genesis, found the idea of a whole 6 days rather longish,
preferring immediacy, but the naturalistic hybrid of trying to stretch it out
was a fiesta of unbelief, disadorning modern large-headed nonsense from philosophies and
religions gripping  some scientists, just as they gripped other vulnerable human beings, who
did not know God, or now begin to grasp what He is like.

What it does

The explanatory and descriptive work done in Genesis 1,
on the time unit with its normative day and evening,
totally confirming the record nature of the presentation, is a day.
It is one with evening and morning.
It is one in which day follows night, and routinely, night once more is followed by day;
and in keeping with the stringent clarity of the declaraton,
 the definition of day
is presented at the outset in distinctive form,
"one day." The rest, relying on the initial definition of day, come in ordinal form,
and closely followed order (Genesis 1:3-5ff.).
Thus "one day" is designated as what is constituted by the evening and morning,
at the outset of light fluctuation,
and the rest follow in KIND, the second day and so on.

That is what the thing is which happened, it is a day, and that is the first one.
Such is the model report.

Explanation in terms understood and applied is consistent,  clear, decisive and defining.
We KNOW some things, and here we are told from where they have come.

It is so  down to decisions  and the devil. It does not divagate at all; the  allegorical, poetic,
lyrical, imaginative and emotional could hardly be more distant, with very minor exception in kind.
The sequential, the use of terms as used now in discourse which sets it all up for meaningful inspection, is emphatic. There is a reference to the GENERATION of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 2:1-4).

God then rested, giving to man the archetypal anticipation for his own day by day activities
as his KIND progresses, again stressing continuity of timing unit, of its appellation and of its normative use.

Everything is practical, unpoetic, pragmatic or at least clearly
directive, with the room for wanton wandering somewhere about minus 2 billion.

Like mathematics in action, its purpose is to get the thing across without mystic, mystery,
meander or dubiety, to cover the case and leave man with no options
but to follow Adam and Eve or not.

The NOT part is developed at length, indeed to  Revelation!

The concept of  divine purpose is strong, and is explicit in 1:14-19, at the purely astronomical level, using terms which are both distinctive here, and accounted from in their format,
by the enhancement of light producing construction at 1:2,
to heavily specific means, with multiple purpose, examined analytically
with the utmost brevity.

The "the stars also" is a model of relevance.
Filled with might and vast as is that field,  for the purpose at hand, 
namely regulatory organisation of light source in response to various purposes,
it is given reduction  to current relevance. It does not even have its own verb in v. 14!

With this undoubted and undeniable emphasis on  light,  with so many words in an account so exceedingly brief as to make that very fact a thing of wonder, and the division so strong and repetitive in style, concerning the use of the numerical and sequential, the functional and diverse aspect element, there is then the multiplication of unit reference, in ordinals up to  7th..Further, there is the summary of the exposition, that it is THUS that the construction,
the creation, occurred: that is, precisely as denoted in Ch. 1.

THAT is how it all happened, and that is that. God then  ceased,
just as the writing of the DNA basics has ceased, and it decreases with time,
in wearing out,  as Isaiah 51:6, and Matthew 24:37 exhibit. So the prelude concludes,
at this  level.

How emphatic was the summary. It was not in some other way. It is not formulable
with some other conceptual  apparatus;
it is just as set down,  express, explicit, clear, comprehensible and comprehended.

That is just the beginning.

Then having referred to the inaugural deposition, in terms of generation, as one whole,
that of the heavens and the earth, the text  moves on in its highly systematic style,
to other generations, thus stresssing the parallel with heaven and earth
by divine power being generated, and new generations of mankind, doing so,
this time by power to institute, conferred upon man in terms of male and female.
 

Thus man being enabled by like power,
that to generate successive generations,
continues WITH the results of creation, according to the nature of those very things,
including himself. It is as if to say, This is what you've got; this is how you got it; this is
moreover where it came from: it was staccato, progressive, swift in time
in fiat by method. Now for how you use it, in your own conferred
power to generate your own type of (successive) generations,
according to your kind.

Here is the internal and intimate history,
Genesis 3 advises us, and here is the DEGENERATE slide morally,
from the first. Like the creation, it was not a lengthy process,
but unlike that, it was a downgrading, resulting from the misuse
of that formidable gift of freedom, towards the Creator.
 
Hence the generations of Adam or Noah appear, with the time-invariant use
of the same day-as-defined style throughout, the nature of the terms and the usage
having been both deposited and confirmed,
in such a way as to exclude the rational pursuit of  any alternative meaning.
Day as defined and in the usage adopted, continues in what is called history,
as man's choices and characteristics come into being.
 

The norms instituted are seamlessly composed with the events
of ordinary history, as a mere continuity,
man in measure aborting what is natural with strident aggressiveness,
and ignored penalties, till as later after Christ,
and moving to the present,
they could no longer be ignored, just as they can no longer be ignored.

Everything is generated, whether light, or day, or steps, or their time taken, or for the creation from the dust (and the given spirit) man. Sin too is generated.

It is all factual, fiat or frequentative, but still in the power of generation of the God
who both selected, defined and use His own terms in such a way that even to follow other lines,
is a work of joint-authorship, which becomes mere plagiarism,
so that man takes on God's statement with additives, 
verbal, conceptual or both, or his own.

That of course is rebellion,
and it is necessary to realise that imaginations about
who made what errors is not determinative
of the Bible meaning, but what is written. You sometimes see joint-authors noted
on a book cover; but this is not a legitimate custom when God is concerned,
and the imaginative additives have no validity, though custom love them,
and tradition may come near to worshipping them.

The cohesively and uniquely attested flood was an initial judgment.
It was terrestrial. The next is also celestial, and deals with human destiny,
just as Genesis dealt with human institution and characterisability,
in terms of accountability and his chosen deployments.
 

ITS OVERALL CHARACTER

Looking back to the initial display: this then is what God has to say about HIS account of the creation and sustenance of the  creation, man in it, but in part beyond it,
his historic cleavage, his generations,  and this in
the context of institution of universal generations of environmental and other divinely desired
additives to the  creative compilation (the curse no less, in its way, brilliant in composition like
the creation, but a counter to corruption .

No longer can man justifiably wonder where
he came from, why he came, and that develops throughout
the Bible of his Lord, whose he is. Like the land, he was made by God,
and it is to Him that it all belongs. Acting to the contrary, is both pretension and
pretentious.

What is the logic, system and power of his Supplier and supplies, and what God hates.
He is shown, even if so far only in introduction, but to  meet the case, the cost of sin,
its meaning, and its remedy.

What occurred with the same deft singularity of speech, uncontroversial, incapable of just
confusion as to terms and conditions, is seen as both prelude and binding of what man
must know, as now, himself, an out of bounds creation.

The whole is thus enscrolled as the Living God scrolls it,
making His own words as obvious as His creation and its operation.
The orientation fiesta, the introduction event,
the communication in God's own way
to what God has done,
where man without discursive metaphysics,
but in simple reality fits, and is unique,
its extensions giving fascinatingly numerous
and precise predictions making it impossible rationally
to mistake its Source, since to the jot and tittle,
they are fulfilled: it is presented in due course,
but its origins are the major work in Genesis,
its origins and their operations
with such consequences as constitute boundaries of generations,
and direction of destiny (cf. Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelium).

As to the distinguishing criterion of divine foreknowledge,
exhortation and fulfilled prediction,
in what generation has this been denser,
other than in the time when the Messiah was on earth,
than this one! (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9).

Thus one of the ingredients of Genesis, is this, that there is no change in the account of
beginnings and their meaning, and man as he comes nearer to the biblically defined times
(once again not illusory, mythical, modes of being, slants or any other ludicrous distortion),
is gifted with this testimony of divine foresight and control of the end as at the beginning.

It is
ALL what God has to say, HIS account to man, who is gifted with comprehension,
being made in the image of God.

HENCE it does not alter, and any alteration would be like cutting a nose or ear off a portrait!
It is as much a unity in unvarying terms,
as a painting from an artist; but as factual as a scientific statement of law.

Hence to play around in philosophic and  extraneous modes with the vocabulary as intensively
shown in the Bible, or the concepts, or the Christ, is nothing less than putting to question with
extreme effrontery, what God has to say.

It is HIS account.

It is ONE with the common mode of reference throughout,
and  ONE with events as they transpire, as predicted, and ONE in unitary integrity in
intense harmony throughout.

Of course, God may use any form of speech that He wishes; but like all good authors,
competent to convey accounts with clarity as to their nature (cf. Proverbs 8:8),
He makes it clear what is the mode in use, the terms of reference,
and the lie of the land which He made,
complicated by none, controlled by none.

You have to keep to the TEXT, not to the imagination, to follow Him.
But that is so in more than in the text, in life and in leading.

Let this persuade you every time;
and as you wait on the Lord, He  exposes His word marvellously.

The devil has his own trade, tirades and intrusion points, and is indeed a highly skilled artisan,
not just in words, but in sly, slighting, contriving, contrary,
confusing irrelevancies only occasionally
moving into direct confrontation, as that is his least dangerous mode,
where he is hopelessly  less effective. So things are tested in many ways.

He babbles insurrection and thankless futility, aroused at his destiny,
and many follow him as if anaesthetised.

But GOD DID SAY remains the simple fact,  and that liar has no power to imitate the power
of that word, while for all his evolutionary feast and fiesta of imaginative nonsense, he has to  start with nothing or some verbally hidden equivalent, or something, and the something has to be adequate, and  Genesis reveals at once what that is.  It is not a detractor; you need
the creation before you can detract! It is source of substance, mind, mentality, logic, love,
law and communication, of information and significance which is needed;
and in Genesis from the first, not only found, but dealing
with the foundering of richly endowed man.

Indeed, any religion which does not take account of
the meaning of sin and its results from the FIRST, cannot be true,
since the presence of sin is a problem at once, if man is there and remedy is not.
This, that of the Bible, covers all elements that
logic requires, in its ratification, and nothing else does^*1. There is no competition  logically (cf. SMR, TMR, Design and Destiny ...and *1 below.

NOTE

*1

See for example:

LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST

WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES

AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS

Bible or Blight, Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God

A Pair  of Volumes: Opus 128 and 129, of some 2.3 million words