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CHAPTER 12

LET THE WITNESS ATTEST

On Creation and Days, Churches and Confusion:

see below at Section A

Introduction

In this Chapter, we shall consider the fact that in Isaiah 55:4 there is a Messianic reference to the coming Celestial King as COMMANDER, LEADER AND WITNESS.

At length, the two former aspects have been considered in this volume, Let God be God! Now it remains to apply the third, the WITNESS. Matthew 24:14 declares this:

"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."

John 3:11-13 has this exposition from the lips of Christ:

"Truly, truly I tell you,  We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and you do not believe, how will you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man has ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven."

HE delivers a WITNESS, the GOSPEL CONCERNING HIM is a WITNESS: and these attest. What then do they attest ? Christ attests by BEING GOD, the One who God is (John 14:9ff.). The Gospel attests through the Christ who as God did great things on earth in the form and figure of a man, what these things were, meant and how they apply (Philippians 2). BOTH of these are a witness, and the centre and core of the witness is CHRIST HIMSELF. Indeed His Father attested likewise, in the works done by Christ (John 14:9-11).

When you see God, you have found the ultimate, the finale, the commencement, before time was, who shall endure when our kind of time is a rind from the orange, and the tree bears eternal fruit. John the Baptist was a witness TO CHRIST (John 1:7-11):

"This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

How important was this exceedingly popular prophetic figure, John, the forerunner for the Lord Himself,  to whom 'all the world' turned in the adjacent region! yet at that,  his purpose was to be a WITNESS to THE WITNESS, the string of whose sandal he felt unworthy to loose! (Mark 1:7):

"There comes one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. Indeed have baptised you with water: but he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost."

Thus a witness to this Witness who in Himself declares who God is, WHO in being seen declares the nature of God, who in acting acts just as God does (John 5:19-23), who is addressed as "The God of me!" and God Himself (John 20:28, Psalm 45), is a fitting prelude to the work of witness. HOW did Jehovah declare Himself ? in the Son who has declared, shown, as it were unfolded, or led Him forth (John 1:18). Here then is such a witness as God brings definitively of Himself to mankind, so that He utters this marvellous word: "I am the way, the life and the truth."

AS HIMSELF, together with the Spirit (John 1:32), He bears witness of Himself, with the Father (cf. John 5:31), so that the works and the presence of the Father as in the baptism, as in the voice from heaven: these attest Him and work with Him (Matthew 3:17, John 12:28-30, 14:10).

He did not state that He resembled the truth, or was like it, or that the way was something He would show, or that the life was a thing in which He was versed: NO! I AM the way, the life and the truth. ONLY God is that (Isaiah 46:10, Psalm 102, Isaiah 45:19, 43:9-11, 48, 41:21ff.), and in this He has no competitors (cf. Psalm 89:6). No one else can compare, control, communicate the truth, over all, for all time, and being it, have it.

Here then is that witness, for it is He, the LORD who swore that to HIMSELF would every knee bow, and in HIM will all be justified of His people (Isaiah 45:23ff.), and that it is in looking to HIM that they are to be saved for there is NO OTHER SAVIOUR (Isaiah 43:10-11). That is why, when it is to CHRIST that every knee MUST bow, and it is HIM ALONE, and in Him that the name of Saviour is to be found, so that there is no other name (Acts 4:11-12), we realise at once, that this is God as man!

Two exclusives are ONE; two of the same UNIQUE function are ONE. If a surgeon's hands and these ALONE can work a work, then in finding two hands, we conclude, should they have this facility, they are HIS OWN TWO HANDS, and that he is one. While this is mere analogy, the principle is sure: each of two is uniquely ONE GOD. Hence each is of the Godhead, each personal, of the same nature (John 10:30, 5:19ff., Hebrews 1:3), each distinctive: one God in three persons is not an option, but a declarative necessity.

The point is inescapable, as is the fact that Christ is thus HIS OWN WITNESS as God, to God, the Son in this case pointing to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus the baptism in the three names, is a baptism not into flesh and God, but into God - Matthew 28:19, it is not blasphemous intrusion of man into the realm of God, or of salvation into the realm of a man as Saviour who is not God, but it is the very unique function of God vested in man whose name is placed next to His own, not in rank but in series.

The God who refuses to give His glory to another (Isaiah 42), certainly does not do so in this baptism, since all the names are His own! He does not contradict Himself but those who derogating Him, deny the definitive manifestation of Himself that He made, for who dare present God in the person of Himself, as the epitome of human seeking for God (John 14), except a madman, a blasphemer or the Saviour who as God, became man that man might as saved, come to God!
 

Thus in BOWING to Christ, they bow to God, and thus in this very act the prophecy is being fulfilled that it would be to the exclusive, unique God that this would occur (Isaiah 45:22-23), that to HIM would every knee bow, who alone is God, and to whom alone it is due. In view of His being so, even Christ, so is it asserted of Him as of God, who in asserting this bowing would be the case, did so in terms of His Godhead as distinct from all else, anyone else, anything else, alone glorious and eternal.

Indeed, the REASON given why they should look to Him, in Isaiah 45,  is this, that HE is GOD, and there is NO OTHER: that is why they should look to Him and be saved. It is in these monotheistic, alone-deity terms that He proceeds that He has sworn by HIMSELF that to HIM every knee will bow. His unique function, salvation, and His unique Being, God, these are those of a Sovereign over life, who has no equal, in terms of whose nature there are two results, one salvation by looking in faith (cf. John 6:40), and the other bowing, so that He is Lord and Saviour, God and Author (cf. (Isaiah 45:12), sole repository of such honour, since none other has what it takes to take what should acknowledge it, and in so doing, find Him.

It is NOT in others but in Him, that salvation is to be found, it is NOT in others but in Him, that deity alone is found, it is NOT in others but in Him that the chosen seed of Israel will be JUSTIFIED! These things are the site, the place, the function, the prerogative of GOD ONLY, and it is thus that in looking to CHRIST (John 6:40), in being justified by CHRIST (Romans 3:23ff.), it is in bowing to CHRIST (Philippians 2), that this is fulfilled.

Does a fulfilment of a unique prerogative occur when it is given to another! Is the sole majesty of the alone God gain fruition when it is found vested as to precise unique function, in another ? Is the challenge that it is He and He alone who does these things and is this, met by the emphatic stress that it is in another that it is all met! These things are absurd contradictions, and Christ who endured the contradictions of sinners is here given some posthumous insults to add; but since He is not only One who WAS dead but IS alive for ever (Revelation 1:18ff.), then it is with the living God that these detractors, violators and despisers meet. He is His own witness, and blessed are those who so attest Him (Luke 9:23-26).

That is why Thomas did not blaspheme in saying TO CHRIST, with whom He was in normal conversation, "My Lord and the God of me!" That is why Hebrews does not blaspheme when it asserts that to HIM, it is written, "YOUR THRONE O GOD!" (THE GOD, being the word used!). OF deity there is ONE, as Isaiah so categorically and frequently is given to declare, and of pretenders there are many, comically dismissed with an attendant gravity at their fiasco of pseudo-faith in themselves and their pretensions (Psalm 82), so that the divine irony scorches almost the paper on which this is written: gods are they ? We will see, for they will die like man!

As to God, who in heaven and earth has none even LIKE HIM (Psalm 89:6):  He, the word of God, was God and was with God. Attacks on Him are assaults on God, divestment of Christ as God are defilement of God's express image (and it is idolatry to worship images). This is war and it is war on God. To undertake it in His own name is not mere blasphemy (if it can ever be 'mere'), but plagiarism and a violation of nomenclature like that of signing someone else's name to a cheque. One trembles for such.

Naturally Christ Himself was worshipped since God is to be worshipped and NONE OTHER (Matthew 2:11, 14:33, 15:25, 28:17, Hebrews 1:6 - where the angels worship Him, Luke 24:51), in the last case, this occurring even after His removal to heaven. It is for this reason that confronted with His claim as ridiculous, that Abraham had rejoiced to "see My day", saying, You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham! Christ met it with a domain of reality which was staggering to those who wanted to stone Him for saying it. Let us look at this event (John 8:42-59).

Here the issue is whether it is possible for someone born into this world, yet before this, to have seen Abraham, who is not coincident in time in this world, indeed, for someone such to have known Abraham's feelings at His coming to this world. How could He know what Abraham was feeling, how know that Abraham, who many centuries before gone to heaven.

How then ? It was, Christ indicated, owing to the fact that He existed before Abraham, "Before Abraham was, I am". The issue is WHEN and WHERE He existed that He might know Abraham in such a way that He could detect a change of feeling on the part of Abraham at the realisation that NOW was the time for Him to come on His mission to earth. In answering that aspect, Christ not only asserted that He existed before Abraham did, but that the relationship which He had, and continued to have, to chronology had this feature, that it is not coming and going, but BEING. "I am." Thus He is asserting an ultra-chronological mode of existence, and an ante-Abrahamic being both. Naturally, He is also asserting what the NAME implies, for it is that of God as in Exodus 3:14, and that DEFINITIVELY of God, given by God for recognition of HIMSELF, to Moses!

Naturally, unbelievers considered this blasphemy, the attribution to oneself of divine status, or the derogation of divine status to something nearer to oneself, so they sought to stone Him. It was the same case as in John 10:30, where they actually STATED their ground for stoning, namely that He, being MAN, made Himself God. There was no trouble about making Himself mighty or some sort of superior person; it was as God that He was deemed to err. His meaning was so taken, and for this, statedly, He was to be stoned.

Christ's witness concerning Himself is devastatingly clear, and it is essential to salvation, for how would you BELIEVE Him, far less believe in Him, if you rejected His identity! Thus in SEEING the Son, you have salvation (John 6:40), and in identifying Him you see the Rock (Psalm 62:1-3), God Himself, on which the church is founded (Matthew 16:18), the Greek distinguishing petra, the basis of the Church, from little petros, Peter! (Cf. SMR pp. 98-99).

Contrasting the large and living rock from the stone to be founded upon Him, the identification of whom, so that one might be founded on HIM, is the stated basis of the Church, Christ quickly went into action to demolish the presumption of Peter who took it upon himself to charge Christ against the cross. Swiftly did this disciple learn the difference between petros and petra (Matthew 16:23), and that in the most categorical of terms! So to presume was actually a devilish thing!
 

Philip as in John 14:9ff., in not realising that in seeing Christ he had seen the Father, was asked in view of this,  if he had not known Christ in that long association! Yet knowing God and knowing Christ whom He had sent is statedly what is eternal life! (John 17:3). Realising His identity is crucial to the results, as faith in God is not faith in a vague, humanly created entity of the psyche, but in the God of creation, judgment and redemption, who knows His own mind, and whatever may be the confusion of men, knows who He is and to whom therefore man must come.

If there is one thing clear in the Bible almost above all others, along with the love of God, it is this, that the truth is paramount, unchanging and essential, and that God as God must be known in terms of His revelation of Himself, NOT in the revelations of the human psyche and its arrogating extravanganzas.

What then is to be said concerning Christ and knowing Him, realising Him ? It is an identification of faith (cf. Matthew 16:17), but it is an identification. It is an identification which results in appropriation, in taking Him by faith to oneself as the sacrifice for sin (John 6:50ff.), as Saviour who God ALONE is (Isaiah 43:10-11), but it is nevertheless an identification. Giving false identity papers to Christ is to assault heaven, defile the truth and to confront Christ.

Welcome as free, are those who desire this, to do it, in the face of the overpowering, all-surrounding evidence of the One who DID ALL that had to be done, to identify Himself in power, in word and in deed, to the most minute detail (cf. Matthew 26:52ff., John 5:25-44, Luke 24:25-26)! Yet not welcome as bound, are they to Him whom they reject (John 3:19,36). It is well to be warned concerning confrontation with the only One who ever showed the entire power of God, the entire fulfilment down to the date of death, of Scriptures of the Messiah, and the entire love that excelled all.

HE is His own witness, and those whom He appoints are His witness, for God has taken care of witness in Himself, the faithful witness (Revelation 1:5), Lord, appointing to others the function of mirroring this witness, not distorting it, like those curved mirrors which make such outlandish misrepresentations of what they seem to reflect! It is God as witness or man, and what is man that one should consider him in such a guise, when God has acted Himself. Faithful is He, and Faithful is His name (Revelation 19:11,13,16), the Word of God. When GOD's word is in action, let man follow and not lead! HE is the leader and in Witness the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. None is faithful as He, invariant, inerrant, invulnerable, able to destroy the power of death in justice (Romans 3:23ff.), dying the just for the unjust to bring us to God: His words are like fire, and His truth is His own.

Alas, however, this witness is as much baulked at as are the COMMANDER and the LEADER functions that the Lord uses toward mankind. How deviously how many have tried and do try to use His name for their inveterate enmity and hostility to GOD, who Christ is, God the Word, the Son, trying to demote Christ and in the process doing PRECISELY what the High Priest Caiaphas did, condemning the reality of God when He showed it en scène in the person of Christ, by divorcing this from God and following the tradition-made god of his own imagination. Caiaphas in this joined the craft of what were later to be the Jehovah's Witnesses and the sects that deny Christ, just as he joins the Liberals and those more modern cults which seek to make Christ a revolutionary, a man of social compassion or some other derogated personality moving in the mansions of man of this or that kind.

The anti-witness of Christ, the rejection of God's own coming AS GOD so that to HIM should every knee bow, this is as old as the coming of Christ, and will be as new as the coming of the anti-Christ, who has his own pretensions to being God, who thus will fulfil Christ's word concerning one coming in his own name! (John 14:30-31, II Thessalonians 2:4-10). Indeed, it is precisely an unwillingness to receive the truth which Paul here assigns as the reason for anyone being so deluded as to move in such humanistic terms, advancing man to the status of God, instead of seeing the glory of God in His humbling Himself to take the format of flesh.

Such a one, such a bogus pretender, without the testimony of God but with the mouth of arrogance, oh such a one as that they will believe and receive! this was Christ the Witness's testimony. As to Himself, alone authenticated, wholly attested, doing what the Bible of millenia has declared must be done by the Messiah, Him they would not believe (John 14:26-31). So it was stated, and because this is true, the world has spun itself like a top that topples, buzzing or humming, but not humble or helped.

When the God who is, is rejected, then the God-who-is-not, is worshipped by his devotees (as from the days of Deuteronomy 32:17-21), for this is the One who is, and in sending to the gallows or to the swamplands of perfidy in the heart, THIS SAME JESUS, all the sects and theologies who reject this, His deity, do just as did the Jews at the crucifixion> It is in this way or that, a rejection of the identity of God and an affirmation of their own ecclesiastical structure or self-doting thought. "They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God," He says, "they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols" - Deut. 32:21.  Small wonder then that Christ excoriated their cultural traditions by which they would nullify the word of God, and some even dare to imagine they were keeping what they so defiled.

As the Jew has suffered, nationally, so will these enemies of Christ, for this, though one weep for it, are just that, as Paul declared of other deviationists from this grand spectacle which only once adorned the universe, God as man (cf. Philippians 3:18). Seeking for their own god, whether in science or technology or space or themselves or their power or their ingenuity or their machinations or their philosophy or their fraudulent churches which reject the foundation, and stand in air, fit to fall, they acquire no special Gentile status as immune, but join Israel in its self-imposed exclusion (cf. Romans 11:18-22).

As to the designation of Paul, it is in this very next chapter, after reviewing the fact that the Person who is the Lord Jesus Christ was both in the form of God and held it nothing to be sought out that He should be equal with God (Philippians 2:6), therefore, but elected to become man and to serve as Saviour, that we find the contrast. In this Chapter 3, is the posting of those who are divergent from the truth, who evidently use His name in other ways, so as to be an issue, as "the enemies of Christ" (Philippians 3:18).

The major difference from other enemies of Christ is simply that the sects of this type are ORGANISED, like Hezbollah against the Jewish State's existence, and so in parallel here, against that of the actual Christ. In this, then, they resemble those who crucified Him, and His body being unavailable (they might not want it anyway), they defile and crucify His name (cf. Hebrews 10:26, where superficial spirituality that finds no base, is exposed).

On this, see Things Old and New Chs, 9, 10, Epilogue, Appendix.

How has CHRIST WITNESSED to the Godhead, of which as one of three PERSONS, He is, in power and performance, in purity and intractability to truth at any cost or price, in service in sacrifice even to the Cross, in raising the dead, in deadening the raising spirits of the vehement and the antagonistic (Matthew 23, 22, Luke 11:52-54), in outwitting His enemies not with guile but with godliness, building not with stone but with Spirit, fulfilling every last prophecy, even the date of His death as forecast (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), His resurrection so that ludicrous 'explanations' of His being unavailable for display or even for being found, were offered (Matthew 28:13ff.). Was His body stolen while they slept, the guards ? Is this the testimony of truth ? What OTHER witness would be believed who STATED that he was asleep when it happened ?

Yet the Lord performed His consolidation of His Church, His attestation of His eternal life, before all, even the scientifically persistent (John 20:20ff.), and meeting all tests caused His church to rocket into life, and to swamp an Empire which, like Israel, desired with passion to extinguish Him and His people, and slaughtered the Christians, only to have one Emperor in later time, declare himself ... a Christian!

This witness needs no woeful contradiction of man to fulfil it; He did not come to earth in order to have others acclaim who God is. It is HE who is the Christ, the One whose word is to be heard by any who are of His people (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18-19).

His word, work and the Bible which was completed at His command (John 14:26, I Corinthians 2:9ff., Revelation 22:19ff.), is its own attestation. Those who witness do not go back of Him, above Him, or beyond Him to say or show who Jehovah, the LORD is; for He has come and done it Himself. How puny those who with false prophecy that is not even fulfilled as with Jehovah's Witness and Seventh Day Adventism, changing the matter rather than admitting the fault, should unlike Him, whose word is truth and whose attestation is truth, dare to compare their witness with GOD HIMSELF as HIS OWN WITNESS. It is indeed not to them, but to Him that EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, to God Himself, Lord both of the living and of the dead:  "For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living," as Paul declares (Romans 14:9).

As to that, there is only one such Lord! nor is there any other God (Isaiah 44-45), whose ways are His own, His lordship undivided and undispersed, His honour and majesty unshared (cf. Isaiah 42:8). Of others, the Bible knows nothing, and as God says of such devices, "Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any," so that others seek to advance on the knowledge of God, and this is indeed what they do, and what constitutes the appalling blasphemy of all such action. Small wonder Hosea says of such things in his own day (Hosea 9:7), "the spiritual man is mad."

Such things are the work of patent delusion ... nothing! that is, except for the biblical  prediction of false prophets (Matthew 24:24), which covers the case.

Let us now look at some of the errant ways of wrong development today, and in this case, we will look at a divergence breaking out in the Presbyterian Church in America, in which (or a tributary), this author was an ordained Minister for over 30 years, before being led out of it because of its long sustained, patent and gross departure from Scripture's requirements. In this case, it is the creation matter which is in view.

Here we use a Chapter published some years ago, but it is revised, extended and applied to the point of this chapter. This is Section A below.

After that, a United Nations movement is noted, and this too is considered in the light of false witness. These are of naturally of very different kinds. Thus the former is a work showing by its methods the deviation from doctrine; and the latter is a movement showing by its subversion, using theological terminology for secular purposes, that it too is prophecy outside the gate! This is Section B below (Ch. 13).

Both of these together, the one more subtle, the other more gross, evidence at our own time, movements of some substance, affecting many lives, with many ramifications, against the LORD AS HIS OWN WITNESS.

It should be clear that when it comes to professing Christians, one by no means presumes to judge, but merely applies the word of God. If they err, they err; and when it is contrary to the teaching of scripture, and sustained over time and test, then one MUST leave, for it has ceased to honour the Lord where test applies, and ALL things MUST be tested (Romans 16:17, I Thessalonians 5:21). AVOID is then the word, and avoidance does not entail DEALING.

First, then, let us consider the creation activity in the PC in America as Section A, and then the UN activity as Section B.

Indeed, the former has now been extended, so that it is best to complete this chapter with this element; and then to give the second illustration of the need of biblical authenticity in life and thought, in the next chapter, Ch. 13.

 

SECTION A

See also The Pride of Life, the Prince of Life

and the Destiny of Man Ch. 1 and concerning Churches involved in various ways, see News 97 at this point.

 

Presently, we can admit that as recent creationists we are defending a very natural biblical account, at the cost of abandoning a very plausible scientific picture of an "old" cosmos.  But over the long term, this is not a tenable position.  In our opinion, old earth creationism combines a less natural textual reading with a much more plausible scientific version.  They have fewer "problems of science."  At the moment, this would seem to be the more rational position to adopt.

Recent creationism must develop better scientific accounts if it is to remain viable against old earth creationism.  On the other hand, the reading of Scripture (e.g., a real Flood, meaningful genealogies, and actual dividing of languages) is so natural that it seems worth saving.  Since we believe recent creation cosmologies are improving, we are encouraged to continue the effort.

Here is the old Presbyterian unwillingness to be clear, which has ruined its history in various places for almost a century. Its scholarship, once a dream of endeavour, now turns to philosophic options, as though the word of God were not in itself as clear as it says it is (Proverbs 8:8). If Paul could produce deep things to challenge, there is nothing of creation which is put as astonishing; and it is NEVER the Bible which is unclear. Instability in the expositors it is which is a chief thrust of the forces for divorces of the word from itself (II Peter 3:16).

Actually, as shown in such sites as

That Magnificent Rock Chs. 1, 7 E,  8,

in SMR Chs. 1,  2,  3,

in A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9,

in Stepping Out for Christ Chs.  2,  7,  8,  9, 10,

and Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming Chs.  4,  5,  6,

Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium  Ch. 13,

Joyful Jottings   3  -

the due use of scientific method leaves nothing to be desired in the way of clarity concerning creation. Indeed, logic positively shouts with joy in the presence of the word of God, not only as demonstrably so, but as impregnable in stability, and coherent in concept in the presence of the myths of the 20th century which developed into the mental manacles of the 21st.,  with their insoluble logical problems, born of their fallacious model  (cf. Celestial Harmony for the Terrestrial Host, The gods of naturalism have no go!).

The due approach to the text, as the justly famed author and Professor E.J. Young used to say, is to take it as it stands without regard for the special pleading of 'wisdom' from this world. That changes like a baby's nappy; the word of God never changes. Moreover, the more it is imposed on, whether by conservative philosophers or radical punters with thoughts, the less glory is done to Him who SAID IT, because it was RIGHT; and He who sent it because IT IS TRUE,  speaks it with CLARITY as He declares (Proverbs 8:8), He being the source of the very brightness of light. If sometimes a thing must be searched out, this is a test and a challenge, by no means insoluble; and does one not do this with one's own students at times, in order that they may the better understand and more deeply construe! Yet one does not leave in doubt, what one is about...

As to His word: some of it is harder than other parts; but there is never any excuse for delinquency with what is written, as though a wise supplement from current society were necessary. At present, the ludicrous character of the wisdom of society in the special area of creation is so vast as to make mockery its very name (cf. Aviary of Idolatry and Laughing Stock, with Wake Up World! ... Ch. 6); while the sobriety and scientific rigour, logical coherence and vigour found in what the Bible says, both in principle and in practice, makes any thought of a problem, hard to distinguish from cultural captivity, or mere lassitude (cf. TMR Ch. 1).
 
 

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There have been various attempts to resolve the dilemma of "solar days" without the sun.  One suggestion is that perhaps the light bearers were actually created on the first day and only "appointed" to their respective roles on the fourth day.  Those who pursue this line of argument usually propose that these heavenly bodies were hidden (from whom?) by some sort of cloud cover until the fourth day.  Except for the fact that this assumption contradicts the clear statement in verses 14-19, such a scenario would pose no difficulty^*1 to the Calendar-Day view, as it clearly does to those who posit "days" of eons in length.  An alternative view (dating back at least as far as Basil), that is much more consistent with that proposed above, is that the light of the first three days was light emanating from God Himself, just as the description of the final state indicates that God will be the light, not the sun or moon.  "And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb." (Rev 21:22)  Thus the Bible opens with God shedding His light upon the creation and closes with the same.

COMMENT: There are various errors in this. In part but with considerable amplification, we shall quote from SMR.

The chief point is simply that it is NOT a matter of the Lord having presented these luminaries and then appointed them to their roles on day 4, as if there is some DIFFICULTY. It is a FASHIONING or MAKING that is in the text, not a CREATING in verse 16. There is a PURPOSIVE creation, or a moulding of FUNCTIONALITY for the purpose, and it is this which is emphatically in view.

In verse 14, they are to BE in the firmament

with the purpose of dividing night from day,
for being signs and for seasons,
covering days and years.
 

They are also to give light on the earth (v. 15).

It is not our present purpose again in depth to review the length of days 1, 2 and 3 on the consideration, noted by Professor Gleason Archer in his A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, that the text may signify the sun disclosed, rather than created in the fourth day (op.cit. pp. 177-178): the results we found were, practically, not diverse in kind from the normal day conception we experience seven times per week.
 

The days might be different mechanically, if the mechanics were different; but their character and kind, we have reasoned (cf. SMR pp. 168-179, 190-197), is clear, even if they are to be treated with care and precision, where the motions of these bodies (sun and moon, conceivably, on one interpretation), might not then have operated. Days however without their mechanics, indeed without proto-mechanics designed but not yet fully operational would be like papier maché substitutes for furniture, mere verbal machinations deployed for effect, not in this eminently practical account, for meaning where words do not change like the seasons of the year, or the works of French fashion designers.

Biblical days are correlated, then, quite explicitly with our world and its inhabitants, and in the divine action, there is a certainty of sequence that relates closely to the condensed coverage in Genesis 2:4. Present is no sense of arresting process. On the contrary: there is a sense of immediacy, there is a sublime monergistic or sole-worker emphasis, staccato commands coming like light into darkness, plenary power dictating and action happening to match with despatch. There is the utmost correlation between the divine power, mind and result in a manner which intimately associates with the use of the verb 'bara', indicating as its basic position, what we call creation, as distinct from mere forming. Thus Colossians 1 uses a most emphatic Greek term, in indicating that Jesus Christ created all things. Interspersed in Genesis are the formative actions, with the different verb we have in verse 14,16, which may mean making, forming.

When one refers to the Creator, in such a function, one is in the vein of what His power performs, as it is deployed in executing what He has in mind. We ourselves use such terms similarly, such that in our 'creations', process is not to the point: the idea and its outcome are closely related, and the more powerful the mind that has the idea, and the more profound, the more intense and intimate is its correlation, in general, with the outcome; and the more entirely irrelevant to the contribution in what is depicted, is anything else. Creation is a derivation of the one who creates; and where it is to God that we refer, it is to infinitude of creative power. Forming or moulding is then in another domain, less intense, not in the least presupposing anything such as what 'creating' constitutes.

We have earlier reasoned that the days of Genesis 1 are of a kind which correlates not with ages but with our rotational days. In the case of days 2-3, where there is not necessarily the same rotational mechanisms at work, this is nevertheless the basic situation. We are speaking of the prima facie requirements of the text at this point. Day one, we reasoned, while not divorced from such a conception, held somewhat more richness of meaning, because of the institutional element, as distinct from the constitutional processes coming later; yet it also, in its monergistic irruption (Genesis 1:3), is not to be divorced from the character of the declaration.

The days of Genesis 1 are in line with the days we now have, once instituted, in their character. This fact correlates intensely with the monergism of method, the infinity of power of the Creator, and the terminology, so that anything further from patient, inventive process would be extraordinarily difficult to express. The presentation was first the institution of the platform, and then of the different parts upon it, all in the area of creation; this to be followed in each case by performance of the thing created. There is crisp, sovereign, undeterrable fluency combined with the eloquent dynamism of speech.

• Never was saying more clearly correlative to doing.


Thus, the intense emphasis on `spoke', and `was', is without doubt
an explicit indication
of the utterly irresistible (I should prefer even `resistless') power
and unhindered  performance,
untouchable divine majesty... a streamlined and no-obstruction work pattern and procedure,
the production from infinite power.

To deny such things is merely to distort the words provided, which are as radical in terms of utter power performing, without restraint from anything or anyone, of utter resolve at work with exalted and majestic specifications fully fulfilled, as one could wish. It is nothing to do with vague nugatory thoughts, elements of distilled possibility, structural analyses abstracted, or even logical constructions outside the camp of actuality^*1A. To imagine such sublimations would be like subliminal advertisements: ludicrous intrusions. Here there is neither money for it, nor good from it.

To continue: Archer, as noted,  states that the Hebrew in Genesis 1:14 may be rendered,

• "Let the luminaries in the firmament of heaven
  be for the purpose of separating between day and night,
  in order that they may be for signs, etc."
  
      (This professor with Laird Harris has produced

     The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament.)

Then verse 15 signifies their basic function as giving light (apart from being seasonal and signalising), once again, a verse on fire with purpose relative to BEING, verse 16 following with the performance, also stipulating purpose with specifics. IN verse 17, we find that

"God appointed them in the firmament of the heaven
to give light on the earth,
and to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness..."

WHY ? What is the point in so amazingly, so impactively precise and so strenuously brief a piece of writing, a very celebrity of terseness, in what could appear repetition ?

It is necessary for any view of the Bible which proceeds FROM plenary and immediate inspiration from God, as author to face this matter. If it were a mere matter of making and setting, while giving purpose, why not at least condense vv.15-18 ?

What however if the EMPHASIS and extensive specification coverage, be designed systematically to CLARIFY the situation, so that the DAY-DARKNESS alternation is now

 

	a) given a multiple CALLING (verse 14), in terms of purpose and celestial specifications;
	b) sequential with, but separated from the concept of the basic LIGHT GIVING function,
	c) made distinct from the IMPLEMENTATION ('and it was so') of the matter (verse 15), yet
	d)  embedded in context with verses 16-18!

These  last verses bear the responsibility of focussing interest on the precise WORK DONE IN FASHIONING THEM in the context of THESE 6 STATED PURPOSES, v. 16: while this with vv. 17-18 shows their being set in the framework of RULING, as the overall purpose. That, in turn,  in the amplitude of the constellation of stars as likewise formed, remains relevant to the point of decisive direction  knit with inimitable sovereignty! It is coded in majesty, styled in thrust,  incisive in imprint, flowing in thought, developmental in dynamic.

We move from vast but simple illuminative fluctuation to multi-purpose rule in the domain of light, nothing wasted all meaningful. Thus,  there is correlation with 1:1-3, differentiation, purposive definition and reflective oversight at the end, as of a work sought, wrought and now taught, clear, concise, particular, not to be confused with anything else, sui generis in the domain of forming and purpose for what is there.    

THEN there is comprehensibility. One can understand the addition of all in verses 16-18 if this be so. We are seeing the work done to implement the purposes, to get transition from the verse 1 situation with the 'create' verb, to this with the 'make or form' verb. It is not a mere parallel in this precise and brief account, to the "it was so", but has an explicative force, otherwise not present.
 

• Thus there is no separate verb in the reference to the stars,

so that the Berkeley Version renders verse 16:
 
• "God made the two great luminaries, the greater light for ruling the day and the lesser light

with the stars for ruling the night."

Equally, it could read, He fashioned them. Thus Harris, Archer and Waltke, in their Theological Word Book of the Old Testament, note that relative to the alternations of the Hebrew term arb specialising as 'create' and the one we now are considering, hc[ - 'to do' with all the similar options, this point concerning the latter, that it "may simply connote the act of fashioning the objects involved in the whole creative process."  On the other hand, they point out, the other term, arb, alternating in Genesis 1 with this one,  "carries the thought of the initiation of the object" The heaven and the earth are initially brought to our eyes, in terms of arb and we observe the forms, fashionings, formulations and insertions that are required.

In the vast tapestry of meaning available for hc[, we must choose what best fits the total and specific, the overall and the intimate context, with due regard for any contrasts and alternations, as just noted. Hence this translation of v . 16, as will appear yet more obviously in terms of the stress on purposes, in vv. 14-18, fits delicately and deftly.

• "God fashioned the two great luminaries, the greater light for ruling the day and the lesser light
with the stars for ruling the night."

In the next sequence, in verse  20, to follow this episode, the waters, already present, are in parallel to this, given a purpose: to abound with living creatures. In vv. 14-16, light and expanse already being noted as present, the former with the normal pulsation denotable, of darkness and light, the new purposes are presented with new action to that point.

Each of these three verses is saturated with purpose, forged with the verb to make,  form, fashion, or ordain, relating to that purpose, and the series is consecutive to this end. In translation, not only is each word, but each phrase, clause, intent, purpose and background to be considered. Collision of concepts or accretion of means unmentioned needs explanation; and where this is provided only by the translator, we are looking at something scarcely distinguishable from eisegesis.

When the translation is made without supplementary or contrary assumption, there is no apparent option. Day and night being terms used, and normalised, light being present in this domain, purpose being signified in this complex now past, the forging or forming must be seen relative to the purpose provided.

Fitting to consider too is the amazing majesty of it all: in v. 16, stars are added simply to the notation of the two significant heavenly bodies, sun and moon, "for ruling the night". The stars are merely part of the same sentence that has just been referring to the moon being formed. Each of the three has the same accusative prefix. Their parallel is intensive in the sentence.

The purpose of the moon being to rule the night, the sentence being one, it appears that the stars are here arraigned for the same purpose: ruling the night. Thus purpose embraces all three domains, sun, moon and stars, forming is the verb and ruling is the result: day and night. God does things, at His good pleasure, in scale, whether in the Exodus, the creation of space, or that of man!

This then in v, 16  is the simple narration of the fulfilment of purpose. This is the correlative of the movement from existence to purpose as the chief ingredient. For existence, it is so; for purpose, it is cited as fulfilled. That is all. Verses 17-18 further intensify the purpose and the setting in the expanse combination, as if to make it not only implausible but virtually incomprehensible if anyone should miss the transition of notation!

Here accordingly,  in v. 16, the PURPOSIVE element is strikingly presented, repeated in the sense of ruling, amplifying in the domain of stars. Without doubt this must be one of the most purposive, multiply purposeful three verses in the Bible: 14-16. 17-18 makes it a quintet!  Indeed, vv. 17-18 are quite explicit in showing this as a development from verses 3-5, there now being a RULING function, correlative to the new fashioning and formative work. Thus fashioning and the multiple purposes are jointly  proclaimed, then the action of establishing them is exhibited, and then their effective dominion in their purposed function is shown. That is the voice of the quintet choir.

Five verses are insisting, persisting, decisively, incisively and concisely, in the most minimal of coverages, rich in grandeur, on PURPOSE to the point that it is amazing. It states it in intention, in multiple performance accordingly, in retrospect. This disjunction and conjunction - diversity from what preceded and combination with its own formula and format - is as apparent as a cat beside an elephant. It is impossible to miss, or to negate; and what is never here present in Genesis 1, it is mere verbosity. This is the PURPOSE section.

Purpose and the fabrication of the means, the appointment, the performance, the setting in functional place, all are dominant. The point is merely amplified by the consideration that verse 15, in terms which do not stress the purpose, unlike the context, already has, "and it was so", before verse 16 comes to the light, with its focus on fashioning! Having met the basic alternation, we now find the precise configuration and removal of obscuration, the casting forth of the light in designated fields of operation, with the functional precision for the purpose, amplified and re-stated.

This is the purposive arena, and what is being constructed is the fulfilment of purpose, in the already existing domain of distinguishable night and light, day and night so-called, in an arena of terminological clarity. If the light had been relatively diffuse, there is no call to attempt to make the terminology appear similar. That, it would be presumption itself!

Thus,  the basic point is rampantly clear. DAY and NIGHT had already been ANNOUNCED in the ONE CONTEXT as OCCURRING BEFORE THIS ACTION OF VERSE 14, so that while the MEANS prima facie may have been missing and the thing direct and supernatural (i.e. light modulation without natural means), even though this whole account  is the expression of things natural derived from the Supernatural One, in their created form and formulation: yet the terminology is coherent with the normal usage of 'day' which flows onto our present system, as the account proceeds.

Accordingly, it would be a flat contradiction of  genre, meaning, deposition and descriptive procedure, if there were verbal mutation, terminological truancy: there is the phraseology used, and it does not alter in KIND, any more than the living creations later on. We are dealing with specifics as appointed and found, and their commencement. What it is that commences is the thing in view, in each case: KIND of day or KIND of animal, or image bearer.

Thus Poole in his biblical commentary of such just and due fame, notes of v. 14, the "lights", that these appear condensations of the first light, more effective and functional. This is precisely the testimony of the text: the processive, the progressive, here in verse 14, shown in precise, multiple and multiplied functions.

In view of this, and the ordinal nomenclature of each, with its bipartite, morning and evening character, definitive of the meaning of the term, not only is assault on this development erratic; indeed, the very concept is contrary to the entire nature of the divine declaration.

The Lord is not suggesting scenarios, nor is He giving new meaning to the terms of everyday use, emphasised by the WAY they are used, and that repetitively. On the contrary, He is simply, decisively and sequentially declaring in understandable terms what is what and how what is, came to be at His instance. He shows how, why and in what order it came, with what contiguous developments, as if it were a manual for scholars on the one hand, and a statement for the layman on the other.

Into early history, it therefore progresses without interruption, but rather with situation cementing links, so that precisely that same sense of development from what is at the outset instituted, continues into human history: in each case, whether matter or man, the thing in view being exhibited in its nature, and with the repercussions of it, under divine control.

The Lord is not teaching us how to become spiritual entrepreneurs, using the raw material of His word, but students of grace, preferring the divine original to the traditions, so suppressive, autonomous, obscure and varied, of men. It is as in Mark 7:7ff.. What is needed is to take what is given; not to fashion it like mini-creators, into something else!

The word of God is clear to the one who understands (Proverbs 8:8); and the way to understand, sublime and functional, because wholly dependent on the speech of God, is this: Take it as it comes. Don't try to marry it, but rather receive it. Don't make it a basis for having a parade of the children of your own brain, but allow it to TELL you. It is then that its own intrinsic light, attested, unmolested by vagrant imagination, makes it so clear. It is then that on all sides it resounds with other scriptures, displaying one unchanging perspective, at peace with itself, as so many theologians are not with the text!

Let us then return to the point of terminology in Genesis 1.

If the purpose is to be clear (as in Proverbs 8:8) and not contrived, wreathed and so forth, as there indicated of the wisdom of God, then the result is this: there is no slide in the usage of these terms.

Real darkness such as we know in KIND at least was the nature of the case before the lights were fashioned to be for the purposes as outlined in verses 15-16: aims which are multiple and permanent in type.

That darkness and light could have been separated enough, at least to be in the pattern and mould of day and night, is obvious, their modes penetrating in the successive ordering of things. Even if there were a vaporous tumult or movement in the newly made heaven above the earth, the heavens distinct above the earth, the light pulsing, the waters divided successively, until the relevant movement in vv. 14-18 completed the fashion and fashioning of it, indeed an ensemble being formulated and now formed into full operative efficiency:  this merely explains the better, the force of the purposes found in 14-18.

Genesis 1:1 starts the creation with the heavens and the earth, 1:2ff. proceeds with the better formation of the RELATIVELY inchoate in more precise shape and serviceability, and the population of life into the unbound resources thus formed, while Genesis 1:!4ff. proceeds with the heavenly side of things, the terrestrial by this time having been greatly advanced in form. In this, similarly to the case with the earth, the time has come for more express moulding with precision for the purposes here stated in such amazing detail, and so we come to the light of common day, its purposes clarified, its means refined.

Nor is it some species of effort to make it easier, in didactic or metaphorical steps: the purpose is at the outset clear. There is statedly to be light with alternation from evening to the day it produces. Then when the other matters are set rapidly in place, there is to be an abundance of purposive intensity regarding the light, and a work of vigour ensues in meeting purposes now in order for the light, so that the environment is shocked into recipiency.

All is now endued with eminent practicality, sequence is sated and the environment is functionally constructed, not waiting for absurd periods which do not allow the synthesis of living activities, or manipulation by some intrusive prating about imaginary purposes.

The divine purposes are stated with the utmost clarity, and in form, severity. The actions are sober and direct. It is no more a new form of literary expression than is any other chronology; it is merely in the grandeur of the scope that it surveys. This contrasts with a stylistic majesty of its own, with the simplicity and imperial character of the orders, and the notation of results and pruposes.

The actions read precisely like those of a Josiah; but this time it is not a nation, but the universe which is in view. All that is needed is faith to receive it; and humility not to reconstruct it. It is enough to construct the universe and say how; it is too much to do it again in verbal form, on the part of one of the creations, as in turning precise, monergistic, sequential prose in a stated program into some kind of abstracted innovation, set in a class by itself, to allow manipulation, and divided into what is there and what is not, but is added. So do traditions arise to defy what is written, whether in 2000 AD or 100 BC!

Further, it is profitable to note more on verse 16. The action here is a MOULDING one which would lead on to a PURPOSIVE specification: rather like making a car that moves in structure, but then later,  as a concentrated and applied act,  completing all the specifications so that the whole gamut of its operations is possible.

Indeed, the  stage is set for the heavens, not only verbally, but in parallel intimation with the earth.

Just as, following the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1, there was some kind of earth, an entity requiring action, so we are in simple parallel from the one set of directions, to expect some kind of heavens, also and likewise requiring action. Verses 14-16 supply this, when the rest is ready.

When therefore their turn comes for attention, at Genesis 1:14-18,  the inchoate state of the heavens is in its own turn, given moulding, and subjected to due forming to enable its full working order, just as was the earth, quite definitely present and  ready as recipient for fabrication, was wrought on in verses 6ff..

Just what purposes were in view for the earth were in part duly spelled out and executed in 1:1-13; and so now at 1:14, is it the parallel case for the heavens, they too operative but only in a rudimentary way.

As the earth has its rudiments and so was a base for action (1:2),  including light and its divine deployment (1:3-5); so is it with the heavens, already seen in operation in the specified light variation of 1:5, and now to be subjected to vigorous, sequential action as was the earth in 1:6ff..

The functional purposes clear, in both the domains stated in 1:1, namely the heavens and the earth. First there is the basic institution, with light, and its humanly normative fluctuation, set in the normal terminology for the same. Then each domain is focussed with detail and dynamic, in which the divine does not pause to dabble in needless detail, but in ample proportions, sets forth the immediate history of these foundlings, heaven and earth.

In the case of the earth, the movements of the divine on the creation are specified and collated. Then starting in verse 14, the divine attention is given to the astronomical aspect. Now we have the parallel in the processive, progressive work labelled, done and considered in review.

The simple fact is that Genesis 1:2 specifies that the earth WAS existence following verse 1, just as verse 14 takes up the celestial parallel. Forming in each case then proceeds. The text excludes any other option.

God created heaven  and earth, done: we proceed to the earth case, as a topic, and are shown the divine actions and reasons, and then to the heavens case, as a focus, and are shown the actions and reasons. In each case, what is said to have been created, was; in each case, what was done about what was there, follows.

Hence the heavens were there at verse 2's inception, like the earth;  and thus there is no excuse any plausible, even conceivable, for pretending they were not, and that the evening and morning were a divine exercise in rambling exegesis, a flit of thought or a fit of forgetfulness. Being there, their exercise in whatever initial state, as paralleled in that of the earth, morning and evening can flow readily enough, for God knows what He is doing, and those who wish to indicate He could not have put them in a state which could in His view indicate light and darkness are clearly more knowledgeable than God. Such is the way of entrance for those who, entranced with the sophisticated follies of unbelief, set their hats and direct their thoughts to the horror of combining man's ever evanescent thought with the clear depictions of the divine.

This is then the clear intimation of the text regarding the reality of day and night, and its ready formulation in those terms, without difficulty of any kind. There is no excuse or ground for departing from the text, whether one conceives of the light and darkness this way or that. It is the permission for departure as if some problem warranted it, which is wrong, awry, amiss and perilous. To actually sanction (splitting the infinitive reminds one of splitting from the doctrine of the Bible) things underivable from the text, is merely to add tradition to the text, and make a neo-Protestant Romanesque lunge. Let us be clear, the word of God is in authority and NOTHING else in doctrine. NO church has power to sanction may not be gained by good and necessary inference from the text; and in this, the stress of the Westminster Confession is just (Ch.  1, VI).

Setting out such things in the name of the church for church comfort, connivance or acceptance is a breach not merely of agreement, alien to the word and spirit of the Confession's teaching, but of condition of membership. Worse, it is to use a church as an pseudo-autonomous entity, and bring in offence, on the one hand, and decline on the other. Against such things, exhortation must be made, and if not accepted, it becomes necessary to leave.

We therefore must cleave to the days as they go, so when they come, in basic notion. In this way, the author is not induced, if it were possible, to retract or to add or to differentiate without saying so, in his use of terms. It is true some  thought does need to be given to the direct, miraculous, operations in days 1-3, including the institution at the first, as with regard to light; but it is also true that any real movement imported into that frame merely invents a novel feature, makes the account which is of ACTION AND RESULT to be divorced from its whole context, and passing by the specification of nature, becomes an incursive doctrine. "ADD NOT to His words lest He rebuke you and you become a liar," says Proverbs 30:6.

Sensitivity of conscience in any such domain is not merely permissible, but to be desired! From lack of the same, many churches have fallen into the mud, the thud scarcely noted as the delusive cultural approval of compromise resounds in the socially sated ear.

Indeed, in that way, the record would become not really an account but a combination of what it purports to be, a creation account, and what it neither purports to be nor presents at any demonstrable point: a series of partly explicated and partly submerged operations not noted, but operative nonetheless in the most basic of levels.

Such a diffuse concept contradicts the entire formulation and formula used throughout. Yet unfortunate as that appears, it is as nothing compared with the next step, where imagination gains no rein. It is then that we find, with these or such unwarranted preliminaries, the next and fateful step:  the clear, well-known and normal usage of day and night which in verse 15 is EXPRESSLY designated in terms of the WORK of the formation and fashioning of the luminaries, is to be set against some entirely different sort of thing, not merely miraculously brought about by intrusive supervention in the laid out scenario, not only without announcement of that fact, but with total transformation of type from what follows^*1B

Day becomes daze.

This begets a conception in which the same terminology in the same mini-context is to be attributed to NON-day and NON-night: the same vocabulary becoming stupefyingly mutant, and within a few words of each other. Day and night in the context of sun and moon AFTER day four, which is a virtual DEFINITION of the meaning, are now to be revised into an erratic concept, which junks these indications, before. Terminology becomes like an evolutionary dream, and clarity becomes an oddity at the will or taunt of the 'scholarship' which ignores the testimony continually made, in the text.

Who could pass such a paper at the most elementary of levels! Its slides are a slither and a wandering. Worse, to imagine that because God is great, He is not great on clarity in giving HISTORY, is merely a contradiction in terms, an evacuation of meaning, a nullification of phraseology, and of Proverbs 8:8. Moreover it comes close to lending insult to our Maker, as gratuitous as unguarded. It has, then,  nothing whatever to do with interpretation of the biblical text either in its immediate or in its overall aspects.

Clearly therefore it is necessary to see genuine light and darkness gradings diurnal in portion, before day four; and while it is not a priori  necessary to have these performed by the luminaries in precisely the present way: yet it is sufficient that they should loom and contribute something after this kind, although doubtless lacking in decisiveness just as the purpose of verse 14 had not yet been propounded and met. It could be argued that God could have turned OFF the light to create darkness, but this is to add to the text. The darkness-light progression is INSTITUTED, and proceeds as a specifically created thing, entity, duality, process following divine procedure antecedent to it, without alteration in kind, but with alternation of progress, as a thing in place, and working.

Darkness was. Day was. Day and darkness are both definable in terms at least in kind, of what we know as we find in the overall context. Though naturally the importation of more divine action than stated is unfortunate, its main danger is that it leads on as a precedent in principle. Like tripping on the sidewalk, it can lead to death by impact from a car when you are where you do not belong. It is, then,  what follows that is fatal in this arena. It is the discordant divisiveness of double dealing with 'day'.

Thus, if we are to invent, then as soon as terms are arbitrarily defined to mean what they do not mean in the context, because of some desire, we are merely inventing the word of God, and may as well make a new gospel, in principle while at it. It is NOT WISE so to abuse the text. However, to reduce the term 'day' to a pair of discordant twins, this leaves the rest as mere fibrillation by comparison!

Let us then differentiate yet more completely. Thus, even if  it were to be imagined that the darkness and light were supernaturally made to vary without the means in the first 3 days, it still remains that they were there. They happened. That is not in itself a DIFFICULTY initially. It is only difficult to the point that  the Report INSISTS that the luminaries be not said to be there; and even then, it is so only to the point that this involves a completely gratuitous, stylistically obfuscatory intrusion into what is required by the text, and an alienation from the tenor of cause and effect duly following from supernatural invention, being outlined before our watching eyes. Only to that point!

Perhaps the extreme error of the situation makes one take enormity as almost pleasantry, by COMPARISON with what must and does follow.

Even though, accordingly, it is not at the critical outset,  a FLAT contradiction of the dayspring indications, merely a truculent seeming metamorphosis into imagination without human exhibit, flat contradiction however is what it becomes in the light of the subsequent indications of day and night in their commencement specifications and functional code, as is the case with other commencements: plants, fish, flying things, cattle, man.

Therefore, by this time, the austere majesty of the text is humbled to the vision of the variable; its account of origins, which it claims to be, is made something else. The scaffolding of man is added to the word of God, and the imaginations of flesh become the focus. The word of God, nevertheless, remains. Humiliation brings no alteration, and all, in the end, all that is humbled, is the hapless and puny panzers of man.

The blitzkrieg brings fury, but no light.
 

 Energy for the Erratic is Not Parallel with Grounds for such Liberties

Let us survey the scene, then. The Hebrew, Let luminaries be in the heavens  for the purpose of separating … (Archer's rendering, op.cit.) is purposively introduced, and completely harmonisable with the concept that the creation of the heavens and the earth included the cosmologically requisite elements, which in verse 14 are given a fashioning towards their precise specifications, one and all, as multiply announced in v. 15. The progressive institution mode is thus continued.

Their formation for the purpose stated in verse 16, is then merely summarising. Created at the point of stating creation in v. 1, they are formed for a purpose in vv. 14-16; nor is there is the slightest contradiction of the text in so saying, but in fact this provides the simplest of readings of it in conjunction with what went before; while it equally provides grounds for the special features of the text as noted above. It thus reads coherently and in an integrity of fluency:

Hence this PCA excuse for delving with considerable approval, at a formal teaching level, into various figurative and imaginative substitutes for the clear account of things in terms of terminology which is expressly set in the astronomical realm, with stated purpose such as we see, is without ground or verification. It is mere textual intrusion. It is regrettably a case of setting at nought, or making vain, or making of no account the word of God through your traditions, as Christ put it (Mark 7:7).

Indeed, one has the advantage that rarely before has the sheer effrontery of the matter of tradition (outside Roman Catholicism) appeared as much as in this case. Here the creation lab book  is stated in practical and simple terms, and yet it seems they have such trouble that all the worlds of philosophy have to be entreated into it, lest it should be clear, lest they should understand and proceed with wisdom!
 

The facts ...

The facts are these: heaven and earth created; formations and formulations added; light and darkness from day one, so named, and purpose-making functionalities made apparent with their specifications stated and fully operative, in day four. The Hebrew admits of either view at this point - making in toto or forming for the purpose on day four; but the emphasis is without doubt on specialised purpose, which is the entire framework of this day and on any formation relative to it, letting the heavenly aspect now receive attention, after its initial specification, just as earlier in the Chapter, the earthly formings were noted. This is the happy order of progression, both for each, and from the one to the other in one of the most orderly discourses one could find.

This together with the fact that verbally, this is a matter of formation and the original is creation as noted, and the terminological ‘problem’ for those who want a darkness and light in the context of day and night to mean something radically different from what it means when it is used some words later - an eisegesis extraordinaire, an inventive attention, a mutilation obstructive and invasive, what does it imply ? It means that there is in the end no liberty at all. Specifications for light and darkness, day and night are provided. Imagined by some, to have been different though the same terms were used, they are nevertheless developed formed as is the continual mode in the chapter after the expression of creation:  and the purposive emphasis which directs and indeed alone explains the otherwise repetitive character of the text in verses 14-16, matches the text in its clarity and pith.

Thus, the earth is not taken as requiring a new statement in v. 2, but is there for action after v. 1; and so with the heavens, after v. 1, when their turn comes, they too are there for action, the forming as specified, with the vastly directive purposive content provided, almost in case anyone should forget so soon, the duality and the complementarity of proceedings, heaven and earth created, then earth's modes, then those of the heavens, till all is fully formed and ready.

Problems invented mean text dissented, terms made mutant mean text disputed, structure ignored means stricture implied. It is a hideous assault.

That is, as far as day is concerned,
uniformity of basic concept remains,
and pad of performance origination
institutes such known items from the first in an account via creation,
like the rocket pad before it takes off;
and difficulty is as unclear as the cloudy heavens in the beginning when the waters were gathered.

They are not other in kind, in capacity, in coherence, in meaning, in time, in chronological notation, in system, in stuttering, in staggering, in revision minor or major. In the end, it seems the liberals have made some latter-day captives after all, with some afraid to adhere to the text, apparently lest someone be offended: but with scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees in modern garb, and social Herodians, what does it matter ? Some will bring up straw men; it is only a matter of a match and they are gone.

What however has no match is the clarity and force, the power and the endurance, the indefeasibility and the joyous factuality of the word of God.  Snivelling sleight of hand is irrelevant to its majesty; clarity comes with reverence for its integrity. This is a reward: adhere to it, and it sings with harmony and grandeur, accuracy and adequacy. Leave it one joy, and as with a medical prescription, you are quickly displaying nothing so much as your own ignorance, in daring to dabble in the divine (for the mouth of God is … divine, its utterance clad with divine competence), and inherit a host of evils.

There is one great and flaring exception to that direct simplicity. This, however, is not an exegetical option but an energetic work of the flesh, thrust into the text like a tornado into a community.

This, it is to move from what is written to some construction at odds with the stated fact that this is the history of the creation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 2:1-4). It is presented as history; it is stated that THUS it was done. On the other view, it is NOT done thus, the terms do NOT mean what they are used to mean in the very context without intermission, so that they are charged with mutation, and the purposive thrust in v.14-15, being bypassed in thrust,  is turned in effect, into initial creation without warrant. Some would even go further and junk the whole precisely defined 'day' in verses 4ff., altogether, allegorise them, or accord to their definitive repetitiveness, a systematic hiatus.  It almost seems that anything is acceptable so long as it is not deducible from the text.

If you can do such things, you can do anything. We can turn parables into literal works, literal works into parables, either into anything at the liberty and command of the reader: if such can be done, then writers are left mere midgets in the hungry maw of the concepts promoted for the readership in such approaches as that of the Report. Definitions depart. It is in such cases, that one readily finds allegories enter with Origen. Originality becomes man's; longsuffering comes to the Author. If this be the case for authors, why write at all !

Indeed, when God is back of the writing, it is more than unwise: it is invasive and cumbrous, to say no more, so to intrude into His word, who is perfection, and to manufacture structural imaginations without textual warrant of any kind, to alter definitions, to invent grounds other than those given, with enormous emphasis and total explicatory power. To do this in the face of clarity and cohesion, in stated purposive precincts is an enormity which to suffer, makes the gigantesque the minuscule.

• It is indeed intolerable to have
   
• this area and arena presented
• as ground, therefore, for the usage of various fictional, arbitrary, variable, intrusive IDEAS about what MIGHT be meant,
• about what parable, parody, pre-fabrication of structure from the mind of man, the reader, is to find accepted as sound and reasonable:
   
• when there is no slightest ground for moving from the concept of consistent use of terminology,
• clear use in terms of stated purpose of the narrative and the light,
• and the fact that the creation’s history has been given.

If it were possible to turn from such parameters, in innocence, as if they were mere figments and the imagination of man was paramount, then no text could be ‘safe’ from the ‘inventions’ which alas Israel was all too prone to make in dealing with things divine, in its own time likewise (Psalm 99:8). Of this, we find it written: HE the Lord, took vengeance on their inventions. In fact this sort of instability leads on to whatever downfall may be in view, unless revival comes; it is like eating too much fat.

It is, alas,  presumptuous and it can lead to pride and parody in short time. It is not that those who say some of these things are of necessity heretics and so outside the faith; it is that they are departing from the text and such PRINCIPLES of departure as these, allow heresy in short order. No longer does the word of God RULE. It is a basis for thought, no more. It is moreover a departure from Biblical truth, which, however much one seeks to allay its significance, since it requires thought, yet is here not a case of intrinsic difficulty, but one of CREATING difficulty by justifying an additive framework (and once you start, there is no end).

It blatantly contradicts the divine specifications about His speech in Proverbs 8:8. It takes things into its own hands. It is as if it were intrinsically a hard thing to understand; whereas hard only if anything at all, it is to understand the various confusing, or confused, variable and attenuated concepts, now meaning this, now that, now moving further now not so far, that are adduced, induced and produced, propounded and compounded in this PC in America Committee Report on Creation.

If it were a philosophical treatise, or liberal excursion FROM the text, it could contain interest for those who follow those modes; but as an option viewed for formal teaching in the church, it is appalling. It invites evil; it does not do what a Presbytery well might, provide pastoral delicacy for each according as there is need and it is able, in seeking to bring fidelity to the Bible. Then private views gradually forming might be understood and quietly proceed. Instead, it formally OPENS the DOOR to vague erraticism, while making erroneous criticism of what the text does teach in one of the most  emphatically directive, systematic and chronologically precise depictions imaginable! Such action is principial error, not pastoral grace; and the thing is a great grief.

It is really rather ludicrous so that to keep, as it were, a straight face is a work of  self-discipline. Indeed, from a slightly different aspect, this is to reject categorically, as unacceptable because of imaginary difficulties, what is the only solution in kind, to the meaning of the Bible in this arena. It alone requires no attenuation, addition or departure either from biblical usage in ordinal numbers, or consistency of terminology.

Ignoring this culturally disdained but factually accurate position, oddities are sanctioned by the church, or by the one in question here. What is it that this is, or how might it be characterised ?

It is to make novel ideas not in the least deducible from the text, to be acceptable teaching, and not to be content with what is either directly stated or is demonstrable by good and necessary inference (the Westminster Confession's just and apt depiction of interpretation). Thirdly, it is to bring disrepute on the word of God by having a body called a 'church', exhibit either uncertain ambivalence on uncertain ideas relative to the word of God, as if it were itself a creation of some diffidence, or else to adduce ideas not deducible from the text, as if these were the meaning of the text, imaginations for the word of God. It is not a good exchange.

To take the last: In the analogy of a day the actual world was created, but it was not actually created in this way, for it was the analogy of a system, and it was not actually systematised in the way stated! How much more vain could be made, the word of God, in this new creation, alas not of a new heavens and a new earth, of a new tradition of man, culturally manufactured and thrust in with all the old disregard for reverence where the mouth of God has spoken.

What more nonsensical than this patronising pomp of inert phraseology! If a name could be manufactured to meet it, could it be neo-liberalism, that liberal attitude to the word of God which suppressing what is there, introduces what is not, to the applause of various cultural pundits or principles! The addition: you do not SAY what you are doing; you just do it.

Could one endure in fellowship with such things ? Not organically, for the PRINCIPLE of departure inventively from the word of God is an intrinsic defect too profound for safety. If such things are to be TAUGHT, then one would need to depart (Romans 16:17^*2). One could not consider that Biblical discipline was being kept when such things are allowed as FORMAL POSSIBILITIES FOR THE ELDERSHIP OF THE CHURCH, and FORMAL PRESENTATIONS BY THE CHURCH.

They can by no means being shown by good and necessary inference to be what the scripture declares, and their formal authorisation represents a breach of covenant, an outlandish innovation, a movement on the part of the PCA into a realm wholly diverse from that envisaged in the system of doctrine in the Westminster Confession, to its very heart. Continuance in it could be gained only by sacrificing the elemental provision that one adheres ONLY in official mode and authority, to what is declared in or deducible from the Bible. Proverbs 30:6 arises like thunder. Whatever the thunder of covenant-breaking man, one prefers this to the displeasure of disregarding the fear of God, whose holiness is felicity and whose word, without admixture or addition, subtraction or qualification, is truth.
 

A case of putting off the day ...  or procrastination ?

For years now the PC in America has allowed the sad statement, first rejected by a Presbytery but favourably over-ruled by the Assembly,  not differentiating clearly between Genesis and poetry. This was virtually inconceivable laxity.

Not for one hour, says Paul! (Galatians 2:5).

For years, said this Church!

Now its Committee appointed for the purpose has presented its appeal on vacuous grounds for variety, such as is now being formalised into acceptance. In such a milieu one would not dare to tread. In this, the word no longer rules, and when this occurs, where shall the righteous flee ?  Assuredly, one must regretfully reflect, not wisely into such doors as these. If it does not rule in one place, what is the rule of the Ruler ?

It is adding to the word of God to add these interpretations which, in the laity, might be allowed with all the liberty in the world, while they ponder; but in those called to teach and to impart, not at all should such things be, lest those who should be encouraged, be subverted, and subversion moving on the waters of such principles, strike reefs without limit or cease. Instead, for years, the folly concerning Genesis as poetic was permitted! (Cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 9, The Biblical Workman Ch. 7, TMR Appendix.)

When the Biblical  doctrine of separation is similarly contravened, however (as attested of the PC in America, in Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium, Ch. 3, p. 44), it is clear that a church which takes the commands and the concepts of the Bible, at least in its teaching arena, more strictly, is needed. This is the case, for liberty FROM the word and BEYOND the word is not the one which is to be sought; but rather LIBERTY WITHIN the word! In Australia, we do not need such additions as these.

It is not wise to have fellowship where this proceeds unabated; for even if a church body is simply departing from the basics of the faith, in such a case as this, it is still the teaching that the word of God is to be honoured and received or the believer is to depart. Re-invention of  Genesis 1 in man's terms of addition to the statements, definitions and structure of the text, is not an option; and where some poetical Genesis 1 is in view, after years, the defilement precludes persistence.

Where the foundations are destroyed, where shall the righteous flee! (Psalm 11). It is to the Lord and His word, and to continue in them, that one flees. That is where one has begun, there by His grace, where one continues^*2.

Watchmen must warn, but must also heed their own warning! (Ezekiel 33). Failure to observe this has caused untold failure, as if continuing in a corrupt firm were an option for the sake of the partners, when the very continuation is a toleration which the law, to take the parallel, might not appreciate in an honest man! What you are bound to is God or man; and where man departs, you have no option to become a rebellious watchman yourself!

We need the discipline of the word, in the word,  from the word, and nothing added. In this, the realm of 'science' merely catches up, and has been doing quite a job of it in the last 50 years, as more and more of the simplistic substitutes for scientific method of many of its exponents, wrought by the philosophically passionate majority, are unveiled. The mechanism phase, the chance and wandering phase, the irrationalist phase come and go, and nothing changes except their popularity over time, and as to this, it not only happens but has to happen as first the one, and then the next, and so on, is shown ludicrous (cf. SMR Chs. 1, 2, 3, Little Things Ch. 5, Earth Spasm, Ch. 1, Secular Myths and  Sacred Truth  Ch. 7, Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch. 13, News 100, Stepping Out ... Ch. 9, Ancient Words ... Chs.  9,  13).

In high contrast, the biblical statement is constantly verified in ways which would be amazing were it not for the fact of God, which such pseudo-science, yielding now here, now there to philosophy's vagrancies, ignores. That, it is like ignoring the ground on which you stand, which in word at least, is airy, but not apt.

In this way,  religious, agnostic and irrational propositions come like insurgents into science, and these invaders have become terminally ill, while confusion in the most explicit terms has resulted in some of the disciplines concerned.  It has its comic side indeed (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-3, 8, 9 ), and its feeling of intrigue (cf. Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13).

With such we do not wish to walk or work, and indeed dare not (Romans 16:17, Isaiah 8:20), nor to be conjoined in the comradeship of pilgrimage, though it is not for us to condemn such institutions, but merely the teaching (II Timothy 4:2, Proverbs 24:11), and to keep the commandments: for the fear of God is clean and enduring, not craven but delighted. It is as when one contemplates a warming, blazing and energised fire, embraced by the wonder with which it is imbued. Reverential adoration in practical dress is to Him whose it is, and majesty, purity seven times sure, is the character of His word.

Before such immutability of truth, the concept that SCIENCE itself presents some difficulty is as ludicrous as blind. It is SCIENCE in its philosophic clothes which is in perplexity amid comic muddles, and  mutations in virtual multitudes. It is the Bible which does not move. Not any one of the multitudes of its own words moves.

The difficulty of the Report being an invented oddity from roving imagination or confusion, itself an invasive source of difficulties, contrary to the text and its structure, has one all but humorous feature. Its own words indicate that the result would be easy (interpretation) if the text were read with straightforward simplicity. This at least are verified. Unfortunately they add contra-textual fallacies to invent difficulty; but their initial acknowledgement, when these are subtracted, being obtuse, and invented, leaves their initial thought correct. It IS easy.

Harmony of the biblical verses is immense, intense and cohesive in structure, definition and detail, succinctly clear, decisive in presentation, abhorring addition as is fit for the word of God (cf. Proverbs 30:6). Read as it is, it gives reality as it is, with sublime and sovereign directness, without the webs of complexity woven only by the human mind.

There are then no difficulties, but those of disfaith (q.v.), proudly sporting the manacles of philosophic invasion, or 'faith' fidgeting in confusion. Even this might be difficult to explain, were it not both so common over the ages, and so clear from prophecy that it would come to be (Deuteronomy 32, II Timothy 3:5 with I Timothy 6:16, II Peter 2:1).

As to the concern with time,  we shall consider this further, but at the more prosaic level of dating, an extensive review of this topic^*3 in TMR Ch. 7 E and associated references there found, reveals that there is no problem with the young earth concept, the bulk of simple, straightforward attestations of relevance being crisp, clear and remarkable; that the radiometric assumptions which have sometimes seemed other, are in fact grossly presumptuous in kind, unreliable in performance, being merely proof by assuming what is to be proved, in the forms of antecedent and processive criteria, and then applying this. The assessment of the movements of the velocity of light in particular has now moved to new dimensions of enquiry, and underlying assumptions of uniformity here are merely erratic.

In sum, what is direct, is for a young earth; while what is radiometric for large ages, is falsified by begging the question in a point now revealed as not even susceptible to that^*4. One has found upon multi-partite review, that one COULD NOT rationally believe otherwise except by forsaking reason. A time of thousands of years sits like a crown on the undenuded mountains of the earth, the contents of the oceans, the supernovas of the heavens, the cooling of the globe, the magnetic manifestations of its past, as also the surface of the moon and the quaint self-contradictions of geology on any other basis. It is just a matter of examining what is there, in terms of scientific method, and following it, allowing cohesion, consensus and NO rule by assumption.

While this is merely peripheral to questions of interpreting the text of Genesis 1, it is best to remove illicit and delusive concepts and presuppositions from the arena, while we are at it, since so few seem able or willing or both, to consider what is written, rather than what is smitten by the invasive pre-conceptions of marauding man (cf. Mark 7:7ff.).

3.  A FURTHER ASPECT OF THE DIVERGENCE
FROM THE TEXT AND THE ISSUE

 
Now before we turn to point 3, the historical aspect as noted in the PC in America Report, let us add here some further aspects of the presentation, as found above. We find some peripheral material that in thoroughness it might be well to expose.

Thus it is in the PC of America report, indicated "that the light of the first three days was light emanating from God Himself, just as the description of the final state indicates that God will be the light, not the sun or moon.  'And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.' (Rev 21:22)  Thus the Bible opens with God shedding His light upon the creation and closes with the same."

Such a view, whoever may or may not have held it, in no way is tantamount to turning the day notation kept throughout Genesis, into something undefined and different. Let us however look at the concept, which taken by itself is wholly different in divergence from the aeon concept.

As presented in the Report, however, this "light emanating from God Himself" is ambiguous. If it is meant to suggest non-created light, we note merely that this is a record of creation, using the terminology of norm, to inform. In the book of Revelation, this creation is past as a process, even the new heavens and the new earth having been created (cf. Isaiah 65). Here, moreover, the emphasis is "face to face" with God, not on the topic of created media.

Thus instead of this unity of uncreated light and uncreated light (on such an interpretation of Genesis with Revelation), from first to last, we come in fact to a diversity:
 

1) uncreated light being brought into being (a strange concept for the 'uncreated' indeed to inhere in what is expressly said to have been in the realm of the 'created' in Genesis 1:1; but let us say, being brought into application where it was not so before - Let there be light!).

Quite simply, since this is CREATION, it is not fitting for an inventory including uncreated light.
 

2) uncreated light BEING, which is far more fitting! but still contrary, since creation is not akin to what is uncreated, whether by irrational contradiction, or irrelevant insertion.

If on the other hand, the concept is created light without using a luminary or light resource from the newly invented 'heavens' adequate for the day and night variation,  something material in its nature, then we are being told to add to the word of God and to postulate a light source not stated, when we are shortly acquainted with light sources which ARE available. What makes such a postulate far more amazing is this, that on such a basis, LIGHT is pronounced, DAY AND NIGHT (opposite in order) are announced, and then light sources are announced, whereas this philosophy of man would have us insert into the text a light source of some other kind, kept secret in the very midst of what is proclaimed, named and specified, while vast operations on water and cloud proceed, which, being done, in fact allow light to assume its normal purposive functions. Such is the beautiful logic of the text.

To say no more, this is scarcely an adornment to any theory! It tends to allegorise, or spiritualise a record of what God did in bringing to pass that specific entity called creation, to add, to dispense, to proceed with a certain knowledgeable, insertive  assertion.

Further, if it is meant, this light, in the earlier verses of Genesis 1, to be a created light, then the unannounced method of correlating  with 'day' and 'night' in a manner of presentation, a style which is emphasising the sequence from creation throughout the record, would be misleading. Terms and settings indicative of one thing, would be used to be indicative of another. Before such an insertion could be tolerated for one moment, in terms of competence in communication, one would have to annul the stylistic portent, predominance and procedure, and to bring in a mystic strangeness, and a collision of concepts.

This can be done, often is done, one fears, for example in political speeches; however to import it into the word of God is intractably contrary to the perfection of diction implied. In any case, to butcher and push, both  for expository purposes, is actually to introduce an addition from one's own mind; and when the text requires nothing added, then this is what should be added! This then is what is to be done, and the terms are to be interpreted consistently, the explanations consistently with the terms, and the purposes consistently with the actions, whether CREATION or FORMATION relative to purpose, or even OPERATION according to purpose.

In must be stressed in this case, that since the waters under the heaven were first in need of a spacious expanse (1:7-8), and then of a distancing from land, nothing could be more obvious than the degree of obscuration at first total of course in the watery complex, and then vastly affected by enormous water movements. In verse 14, this question of degree is clarified and the instruments appear, in literary as in astronomical sequence, with their purpose to match their appearance, while its modulation is stringently, multiply and emphatically announced to cover the need in function, as formerly in formation. Things are cleared up, both atmospherically, hence enabling luminary and illumination purposes to proceed, and structurally, the grounds of the afore-stated alternation and action, brought to light with the light itself.

Thus created light potentiated for its purposes comes into full primal force at the commencement of creation, just as uncreated light comes in Revelation, into full functional force in the new creation, relative to man, where means give way to immediacy, so making the DEVELOPMENT from the creation to its consummation.

Thus the parallel made, by the PC in America document, falls in its own terms, and in the nature of movement from creation back to immediate presence before the Creator, which otherwise is merely dimmed and damaged with a spiritual obscuration.

The contrast, not the parallel, is both important and imperative. It is the essence of the culmination to have it so!

The comedy, which is another feature in this aspect of the report just noted, and linked above, comes in the little aside - 'hidden from whom'. The idea is to be satirical against those who consider that the manifestation of what had been hidden by water, of necessity, is now announced together with the purposes which such manifestation of light, in its orderly procedure and stated means, implies.

This sort of comedy, when as here it is a red herring, is most revealing about the nature of the presentation. It has with propaganda this in common, that it is irrelevant, that it is ad hominem (that is, it tries to bring an assault on the presenter which would disqualify or embarrass), and that it is absurd.

It is, in this arbitrary seeming Church report to bolster this new philosophical deviation from the orderly development and presentation of the text, here is a case of ignoratio elench, a bypassing of the point at issue without seeming to do so, a commendable form of propaganda for those who approve such things.

The fact that the light sources, till announced,  are unavailable for all the purposes structurally and functionally assigned to them, and that is so of necessity in the interim after "Let there be light", even though they be present continually in primordial operation (e.g. in verses 4-5), is to be seen in the context. Thus, this is so when at first there was literally no terrestrial space which would enable visibility FROM the earth,  to provide for the growing awareness of how our earth and its human functionality and astral features came to be:  this is the point. It is not to some non-present human viewer that the report is given, but to human viewers caused to see how their own situation developed, so that what was obscure is now clear, and what could not at first operate in the assigned features, did then in form as it does now operate. Thus is the text light and the perspective it imparts visibility.

Such irrelevances as this in the Report, which mocks the idea of anything being hidden (‘from whom’) are an excellent testimony to the devious character of such gross distortion of the text as this programme pursued, wittingly or otherwise, and hopefully the latter. It misses the ENTIRE point of the program. God did, and now reveals to the eye of faith what the act divine wrought.

The space having been created, as noted in Genesis 1, the stretched out expanse between the waters of sea and cloud, and the earth doubly detached, first from mere liquidity, with clearing skies, and then from overall liquidity, with clearing land, these solar and astral bodies with their roles in space and for earth, and the nature of these roles, the formation and the information, are dually and intimately disclosed.

In this way you see an excellent example of neo-evangelicalism, which tends always to depart from what is written, and with the special feature of strong affirmation of it, constitute the modern day traditionalism with affirmation, that is so rife in Romanism, was so rife in Pharisaism, and is always a buttress for those who want to have FORM of godliness, whatever may happen to the text itself! In so doing, of course, there is a fulfilment, a verification of the prophetic stipulation of II Timothy 3:1-5.

What else is indicative of such a trend, even where some measure of orthodoxy, is at times
maintained ?

It is in this way that female elders become increasingly tolerated in such settings, for fellowship, ordination or both; that separation as a divine directive concerning false teaching,  is separated from (as occurred in the PC in America when one of those DIRECTED to withdraw the denomination from what in the Assembly's opinion was a polluted ecumenical