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BULLETIN THIRTY FOUR

FIRST EDITIONS AND FIRST DAYS

New Year Separation from Fantasy and Enjoyment of Fact

"ONE DAY": Reason and Rest, Terrestrial, Celestial

How do some cherish a First Edition of some classic work. It  contains artistry, brilliant speech, enthusing phrasing, clarity of diction, scope of coverage, is a distinct creation. A thousand dollars for it ? Yes, they say, it is well worth it. When you come to the heavens and the earth, the topic of celestial, terrestrial, life, reason, revelation, demonstration, what of a first edition ?

But it is not just the book which covers it irrefutably over a thousand assaults, which stands as always, it is the universe itself, this world, this human heritage. What was the First Edition, indeed the First Day of it ? Where did it come from, how, by what adequate force and understanding, maker of diction (as in DNA) and operation to match it so that mankind actually works from generation to  generation, like a new Empire State building, remaking itself every 100 years, in case age should destroy its ingenuity.

We turn to the only book which with unique logic and force covers the case. Let us look.

Consider the famous three B word parade, three successive words beginning with the sound of our 'b' (their beth) in Hebrew, translated into English:

In the beginning, God created ...

It sounds like the Big Ben boom of the clock, impactive, solemn.

What did He create ? It was the heavens and the earth.
The next sentence is not telling us a sequence,
as grammatically it could have done, but presenting a new fact.

"And the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. "

That is in Genesis 1, and where better to look for the formidable facts of life and its subordinates, than at the manual of its making, than where the Rock of Reliance stands despite millenia of assault. What are these assaults upon it like ? it is like someone having a series of mosquitoes forever trying to penetrate, but failing, and their ilk suffering contempt as they are crushed. They have passed, but the Book remains, indicating not some poetic lyrics or philosophic portent, but an account of creation. It tells the terms we have, explains their  meaning, origin, status, and it meets the need.

What then is our meaning, status,  stature, point, purpose ? Look to your beginnings and find out.

First the whole basis is brought out. They were not always there. Nor was nothing which has no potential always there. It is powerless, without potential; or it would not be nothing but something with potential. Caput for it.

The basis and explanation which exposes all contemptible prevarication as people try futilely to make nothing,  somehow, become something, when it is mere flat contradiction in terms, and then account for exquisite technology, formation, information, preceded by conceptual formulation to render into direction, it is specified in Genesis 1-3. Here we are shown how action from the Adequate (inadequate by definition would not do it) operationally expressed, coherence of thought producing language inducing cohesion of reality. It is not stated to be a step by step infusion from what is not there, but by effusion of what is, has always been and will always be there, whatever the pompous and ponderous nonsense which starts USING logic, by shattering it, and THEN expecting one to listen to the disorderly results of a kind of combination of mischief and a malaria kind of wandering of the mind.

God has not wandered, nor has His technology, still vastly surpassing, naturally enough, our own. Such is life.

THE STEPS

But consider the steps. With a brevity almost of a program description in computing, on the part of one creating it among men, He first indicates the basis, the origin, the institution, the creation. The highest technology did not come from nowhere but from a superlative technologist, able not only to make humans, but programs in directions for generations to come, to enable their remaking every generation.

He speaks. He puts out Information for creation and control, as His speech is put into effect (like that of others in power in their own fields, to this day, each at his own  level). The divine, directive words of dynamic power did not arrive from the archives of confusion, or the sagas of illiteracy, let alone from a shuffling of what not only has no meaning, but no place for it, no  space, no time and no substance. In a word, the creation directives were sourced from eternal power and purpose, not scrambled from the absent.

Their  source always  present, having no place to  come from, apart from the deadly 'nothing', is eternal. It is time to grow up into rationality, because unreason is merely one ludicrous idol, which requires one to use it, to establish one's argument, and so is merely a way of acknowledging in argument, abject defeat. The world, despite laboratory torment prodding it, shows NO power to make itself, whether by eruptions from matter or from mysteries from mind, ours.

Forget about causes ? fine, then you sabotage logic, and yet use it for your case, committing suicide as an advocate, before advocating: not bright.

So DAY ONE comes, following the announcement that God created the heaven and the earth,  a proposition of the utmost singularity and clarity. Indeed, it uses the term "one day." Here is what is meant by the term day, its derivation in substance, its denotation from mind, starting with the darkness which then was given light to drink, which then rotated again to day. Here is the first definition of "day" in the day-night sequence which constitutes the thing, "One Day" , a definition which has no mobility, like the tongue of a chameleon, that animal of mutative action and stable basis.

It does not mean this in the initially defined beginning, and another as the account proceeds, as if we had here a mental block, a blockhead or a woeful compositor. The days go on through Noah and the rest. There is neither wavering nor wandering, ascension or descent. As it was in the beginning, so in the account there is constancy and consistency, as if the Lord is saying, I TOLD YOU WHAT IN CONTEXT and origination the term meant, why this bumbling about to change my meaning, construction and construction!

This being so, the terms coalesce with our own constant norm type type of operational vocabulary:  day-night, once instituted and constituted, now executed. Here is its type-base, heavenly origin and earthly character, originating designation and continuing meaning, made to operate and normal operation, as uf a screw, a unit for practice in this arena, were designated by an engineer, and remained the instruction unless scrapped for the removal to some other scene. This is no time for bungling into other imagined scenes for other times and works and projects. In THIS one, your universe in operation, your world in continuation, heed it: THIS is what the night-day unit is, has been, will be and is to be. Watch it, work with it, rest in its shadow every seventh day, and let us get on with it. The creation, says Genesis 2, is NOW FINISHED. We move on, the basis given and the consequences aggregating.

THIS says the Book, is the first of what is NOW called by God day, its state, status, origin, ground and place.

It starts with the darkness, and this with the light is one of the input ingredients to  come in its place in this six stage assessment of action. The darkness and the light are one unit, explaining, giving the sense, meaning, basis and type involved, and at the same time, the explanation THROUGH origination, of the phenomenon which we have. The creation burst is not defining what we do not have, but what we do have.
 

THE OFFICE OF INSTRUCTION

So explanation via origins proceeds, Accordingly,  into the initial formulation, information proceeds, that is, that correlated, system based, co-ordinated, disciplined type of presentation which is the name for what we continually receive in our heavily invested beings, from conversation, communication, propositions and proposals.

The Creation itself started the same way, by being made, by the language of thought, and where needed, by the co-ordination of assembly line practicalities, to enable the words, to operate beyond thought, beyond instruction, into the realm of construction. Indeed, as we read from "one day" defined in origination (Genesis 1:5), the terminology and the procedure in its twofold constructed type of darkness and light, as we proceed to the second day and so on.  we find it like a sculptor attacking the block transported to him, with vision victorious, and then standing back a little to gaze, touch, envisage, spectate, only to go back and do the next, each discriminating dealing leading to one step nearer the likeness of the finish, whatever he had in mind. Step by step we thus come till in Chapter 2, we find that THIS was the way of it, THUS it was made, AND finished. Proposed, purposed and projected, it is part of a divine program.

Some of the ancients seem to have wondered at it taking so long as a day, rather than being instantaneous or a matter of seconds, but it all has a purpose, extensive enough over enough time to be traceable, to let the mind follow, but with a speed staggering in terms of any human achievements, like a laboratory demonstration, so that you can see. Thus there was a well-adapted time unit and schedule. Like the three days which led from the crucifixion of Christ to the resurrection, the time unit is of exquisite importance, as very frequently in any battle or construction.

Now its shape and manner is made clearer yet. GOD did it and rested. He did it THIS way and rested. As we find in Exodus 20:8-11, THEREFORE man is work in this chronological sequence, 6 days labour and one day rest, signifying the unique introductory construction by the God who made man in His image, that is with direct capacity for comradeship and thought and speech and correlation at the personal, purposive and practical level.  So intensely important is it, that this staggeringly made being, with celestial connection and terrestrial abode, comply with this part of the intimacy, that you find this command bristling still as in Jeremiah 17.

Indeed there God speaks to the sinning city and tells this marvel: IF it will cease abusing its rest day, THEN instead of the richly deserved disaster about to come upon it, the Lord would cancel this into comfort and blessing. HOW could so much depend on so little ? The point is that IF they could turn into realistic relish, reasonable rest, then their hearts would need to be revived! Otherwise, in the same blunt defunct sense and setting, they would exactly as they pleased with the Sabbath, as normal for many and probably most. As then, so now with our own day of rest, still one in seven, but moved because the magnificence of Christ's sacrificial gift leaves the earlier creation as far less, so covering the same rest with the day of that resurrection to the glory of God.

You see a somewhat similar emphasis on the Day of Rest for man, per seven days, in Isaiah 56 and Ezekiel 20.

This all deals with divine construction, its sequence and timing, its defined parameters and the cohesion of concepts and code on all sides. It is a basic formulation, foundation, with basic information from empowered speech (think of some chief executive of a company SPEAKING what is to be done to the relevant minions  ... normally it then IS done, and no marvel in that!). It all has a basis and neither the one nor the other is an illusion, but an ALLUSION to reality.
 

FINISH NOT FARCE

Let us return to the initial thrust.

God indicates thus, then, the nature of the time-sequence in this divulgement. He defines the meaning of the chronological unit - with the assignation, "one day". It is not 6 months or years, or anything with any other factor of magnification. It is a matter of measure by the DAY, and God not only shows it from the first in terms of the normal dark-light process, but Himself gives it name. Various terms in  various languages today are not relevant for disputation; God was using base and sense language, origin and function communication, which any can interpret with the linguistics applicable in his day, which illustrates the same meaning in the setting. He calls it. You may reject it in ignorance, insist on some fabulous fantasy in rebellion; but He makes it clear by institution and content and naming.

But if - staggering though it might be, someone  looks for more, this too is there. Accordingly, in Genesis 2:1-4 we are instructed that THIS, the foregoing, is the WAY it was  done, instituted and indeed finished, not only the entirety, but the particular divine daily directives, each with one night of stopover before the next.

It was not in some other way, a lyric afternoon, or a collation of nothing-based forces, or multitudes of limited function particles coming from nothing and nowhere to do anything anyhow, as if time MEANT ability, agility, facility, realisation of potential, and space stood ready for service, its base in the clouds that were not at first there.

It was not a farce, comedy such as the modern myths love to inject illicitly and irrationally into their midst, using these to harangue students and assist their passing their courses. It was rational, and utterly otherwise therefore. It was a function of God, and as STATED, so it was. This implies that variation from this type-based, source indited, disclosure puts the wanderers into witless surmises, contradicting themselves in a mixture of vagueness and self-contradiction, in collision with God. THIS was the way, reason in revelation announces. NO it was not! comes the ignorant answer.

The disbelief basis ? There is none! but will is part of the creation, and to depart from the uniquely rational and indefeasible Catalogue of Creation, appeals to many like a jaunt. It is done in  vain, 

	whether by books written long after the Bible, or not systematically accounting for things, and with no evidence of divine provision from the first,  so that sin is covered from the first, when it so soon comes,
	or by plain irrationality based on nothing, or clashing contortions of all being one or one being all (all= one, or one = all), despite the manifest fact that there is no such one but the Maker, the rest being in disarray, confusion, profusion, contradictory terms and so forth

So it goes. Yet it does not go. Ignorance cannot overturn reality, nor irrationality the truth, which constantly confirms^*1 itself on every side, so that in the 240 volumes on the Web in this site, the utter rational failure of all competing accounts to cover the multitude of issues, in terms of comparison,  is covered candidly.

The catalogue of creation has however another volume, written on the heart.

THE OTHER BEGINNING

Consider then the First Day of the life reconnected to the Lord as in II Corinthians 5:14-21. It is in a way like having the electricity come back after days without it. Colour, shape, form, meaning, connections, correlations, dependencies, facilities, all come back into operation, visible, discernible, functional in a well laid-out totality.

NOW you have not a hollow but a holiness in the heart, not a query but an answer aligned and operative, this kind of day is defined alike with the old, chronologically, but its content is not in stars of multitudinous multitude, but lowly estate, but in knowledge and light and direction, for these do not walk in darkness but have the light of life (John 8:12). The kingdom of heaven is where their citizenship now lies, and they walk in the light, leaving all their cares with Him who cares for them, and finding their needs in Him whose pilgrimage procession is now increased by one more, you.

Instead of the creation of mind, it is now a matter of using a mind that concurs with its Maker, and finds promises and answers, not in some poetic realm, once again and as before, but in the actualities of life with matter the lowest level, then mind, then spirit, and thus man. Now it is no more the concurrence or disruption of bits of events spitting like a cat, squalling like a brat or or sprawling as if uninterested, uninvolved and preoccupied anyway (cf. Psalm 1!). Here is a "new creation" which is more than the old in this one marvellous respect, it involves not mere being, but adoption, not mere physical light but the light of understanding, not comprehensibility, but comprehension.

THE NEW YEAR BEGINNING

So two creations precede the new year: the universe and the saved soul, the one to last till its eventual dismissal (which not all scientists seem to realise is biblically indisputable as in II Peter 3, Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 23:35). After, to pass away does not mean to  stay, and to have no place left does not mean to have place left (Revelation 21:1). There are limits.

The seasons in their quaternary rotation show the years, a term God uses. Each year had in due course, as the norm proceeded, Summer and Winter and Autumn and Spring, to take the apt pairings. The New year too had its register with the advent and departure of Kings, and with each change of date there would be another life's opportunity, if faith were present. Some lapsed from superficiality to alienation (Mark 4:6^*2); some turned to aggravated folly with negligence mounting, some incubated wisdom in the fowl-yard of production, and were prolific. The year is a convenient point for review, change of direction, finding the Lord as an adopted child (Ephesians 1), recovering fruitful strategies, discarding the useless rubbish that came as mere wrapping, and ended as meaningless tatters.

Have a good year! but do not forget the Creator, Redeemer, the Adopting Agency or the Kingdom of Heaven (Philippians 3:20ff.). In freedom, power, point and love without tyranny, there is nothing like it. Scope for it for man began on that other DAY ONE, when God defined the terminology of "day" and let loose many thousands of these wonders in succession, before coming to pay for pardon for those whose day became at last a wonder of faith, and instituting the Lord's laboratory, history, till all is finished.

NOTES

*1

See SMR, TMR, What is the Wheat to the Chaff  ? Chs. 3  -  4, Secession from Presupposition Ch. 9 and index.

*2

Some in the parable of the sower, fell where it had no root, and when the sun came up in its trials on the way, it wiethered because of this. The seed us defined as the word of God. It can bring new joy for a season, but not finding its base, merely ends in the old ruin of unconverted scrappage.