Father, thank you for this morning. And so we get back into the groove, the routine of studying, you, theology as men. We thank you for the opportunity to do that. We thank you for all the men who’ve turned out. And we just ask the Lord that you would bless us by the, the, careful study and observation of your word, that we would come to know you as you really are. I pray that as we do know you, our hearts would rejoice with the knowledge of our Creator.
We thank you for giving us your word, revealing yourself, nailing our feet down in the origins that we find in Genesis One. We thank you so much for our salvation in Jesus Christ. We thank you for regenerating us by the Holy Spirit, giving us eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart that can respond to you.
We, we, pray, Father, that what we, what we, come to understand would not be kept as merely an academic or intellectual exercise, but it would stir our passion and devotion for you, that we would give ourselves holy to you; to, to, glorify you as we are created in your image and likeness, restore to that image through Christ.
We pray that you’d help us to be faithful witnesses, to live consistently with what we learn. We love you and thank you for, again, the time together. Just ask that you would use this time to sharpen our understanding and strengthen our devotion to you. In the name of Christ. Amen.
All right, so we’re going to meet another two weeks, October 28th. We’ll come back again. And we’re, we’re, going to, by God’s grace, wrap up Creation Week this morning. We’ve got a very late start. Things don’t look good, but I really, I really, do hope to wrap up Creation Week this morning, because the next time we come together, I’d like to talk about the implications of some of what we’re seeing in the Creation Week for Apologetics. Okay.
So yeah, just how it informs our, our, apologetics. We’ll look at Acts 17. So, and then in November, we’ll meet twice, November 11th and 18th, that’s two weeks in a row and then we’re off because of Thanksgiving, getting into Christmas season, and everything else. I want to give you time to your family. So really we just have this, this, morning and three more meetings for this, this, calendar year.
So we’re studying the doctrine of God the Creator. We’ve talked about God being immortal spirit, triune person, and how he’s a limitless creator. If you can think back to our last meeting on September 23rd, before the men’s conference, that was the day, remember, the world was supposed to end, and here we are low and behold.
But you’ll remember we’ve covered creation days one through four, creation days one through four. Let me get someone to read. Just start Genesis 1:1 and go through, well read; I was going to say read through verse 19. Yeah, read through verse 19. We’ll stop there and just remind you of some of the observations there, implications. So someone, can I get a reader. Josh. Genesis 1:1 through 19.
Audience: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
Travis: Okay. Let me just interrupt by, I’ll, I’ll just do this, so you read a little bit and I’ll interrupt. Okay. So you, you, see what he created on the first day: Light, separating the light from darkness. Calling light, day, darkness, night. We, we, said the God is the origin and source of everything that’s created; preexisted the created order, everything.
Everything in the universe that has come into being and I mean, come into being. God did not come into being. He is Being. He preexisted it and makes him self-sufficient, makes him independent. He’s absolutely free. He’s absolutely sovereign. He is apart from all limitations, existing without any limitation of time and space. He sets foundations before building on them, as we see, as we get going.
He created by speaking, we said, which indicates his intelligence and ability to communicate. There is a distinction also between the created order and the Creator because he spoke it into existence. Something, you know, creation didn’t emanate out of his Being like in the Gnostic world or other, other, worldviews. He made the first value judgment, calling the light good. He is the origin and source of light. That is to say he is the origin source of light and the luminaries like the sun and the stars are light bearers. Okay.
So he is the origin source of light. And also notice there is a by as he goes through and, and, names like he does with the day and night, he makes distinctions. So he sets forth antithesis, that which is, that which is this, and that which is not this, but it’s that. Okay. So he makes, he creates antithesis, which is a necessary precondition for rationality, for wisdom, and all the rest. Okay, Josh, day two.
Audience: “God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so then God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
Travis: Okay, so he decreed an expanse. He created an expanse. He separated waters above, waters below. And he named that space in-between. He named it sky, or he named the sky, the Rakia; he named it heaven. Now in the beginning he created the heavens and the earth. So we already have, a, an understanding of the heavens is the Shamayam, the, the, the, immaterial world, the immaterial heart, where the angels exist and all that.
But he named this sky, he named it Shamayam, which creates for us. He prepared us for analogical thinking, making an analogy between one thing and another. Okay, so again, all, to, for the purpose of his special creation of mankind. Go ahead.
Audience: “And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so.
“The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit, in which it is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was a good and there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.”
Travis: Okay. So he decreed the gathering of the waters. He gathered the water. He named the dry earth or the dry land earth, gathered water, seas. Decreed the creation and growth of vegetation and all that shows, and again the vegetation according to its kind.
So he creates here categories for logical thought, for organization and classification, and again points back to God being the basis for our rationality. He’s preparing us to reason. He’s preparing us to categorize, to make distinctions, to put something in one category and then another thing in another category, recognizing its differences and distinctions. When, let’s see. Okay, I’ll skip that point. Go ahead. Day four.
Audience: “God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens and give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God let them in. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.”
Travis: So we see in day four, he makes, you know, God, God had already created and said let there be light and there was light. So light is already in existence and yet now he’s creating luminaries, light bearing bodies. Okay. And we, we, pointed out that, that, term ‘rule,’ he made the greater, created the lights to rule. And it’s a word, memšālâ, that means exercise dominion or authority. So it establishes here a principle by what is in the heavens by what’s in the sky. A principle of governance or oversight.
And he established it in two luminaries ruling by, by, providing service to the earth. Light, warmth to the earth and environmental thrive and grow provide provision of energy to stimulate and sustain growth and we just talked about how that informs ruling here on the earth.
So when you see God creating man to rule and exercise dominion, we take our cues from what God already said about what rule and dominion should look like. Okay. So principle of delegated power. God delegating power. The energy of light, the ‘or’ delegated to the light bearers. The, ‘maor’, that’s first established in the heavenly bodies. And we gain instruction from that. Okay.
So go and go ahead and read day five, and then we’ll get into asking those two questions, we’re asking for every day. [what did] First, what did God create and accomplish? What’s actually written? And then, what do we understand or learn about God from that, that day, from what he did. Go ahead, Josh.
Audience: “And God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God bless them, saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning. The fifth day.”
Travis: All right, Cool. So what do you see? What did He do? What did He create? What did he accomplish on day five?
Audience: Sea creatures.
Travis: All right. Sea creatures. Lots of them. Yeah, lots of them. What else?
Audience: Birds. Birds.
Travis: Okay, okay. Sea creatures. Birds.
Audience: Anything that flies.
Travis: Anything that flies.
Audience: Well, I don’t know.
Travis: What about? What about Penguins and bats, or Kiwis.
Audience: I don’t know.
Travis: Flightless.
Audience: And Ostriches. Penguins is a sea creature, so that would work.
Audience: Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes. That’s after the curse.
Travis: Yeah, that’s some distortion of the curse, right there. No, they actually have a point though. There’s so anyway. Yes.
Audience: That sounds interesting how he puts living things on land and then above the land and then under the land, in a way. And so it’s like everywhere you look, you see life.
Travis: Okay, everywhere you look, you see life. And he starts in two of the three environments, right, Brett?
Audience: It’s cool how they say swarms. You know, because you ever watch those documentaries, it’s like there’s this big algae bloom and then all these micro plankton eat the algae. And then there’s so many plankton and there’s an overpopulation of plankton and then these sardines go and eat those. And then those sardines feed everything. And God just created things to swarm and feed all the bigger creatures. It’s a really cool video watching the whale just take apart a ball of sardines.
Travis: Yeah, and the sardines don’t have big enough brains to mind. They’re just food for some other.
Audience: Yeah. Yeah. They’re blessed with small brains.
Travis: They’re blessed with small brains. That’s right. There is a blessing.
Audience: Instantaneous proliferation. Yes. Yes. Just instantaneous, ecosystem; huge quantities of life. And, and, ecosystems. Yeah.
Travis: He didn’t, he didn’t create, like, like with Adam and Eve; one man, one woman, right. But he didn’t create two of every kind here. He creates swarms of them, just instantaneously, right. Keil and Delitzsch say this God designed. I, this is my words, God designed and motivated the creatures of the sea to swarm and move, okay, swarm and move.
And Keil and Delitzsch say this about that idea of “swarming without regard to size.” It refers “to those animals which congregate together in great numbers and move about among one another.” So think about the, the, fish, as you mentioned, you see, you see them moving and swarming together. You see the birds swarming and flying together. Can’t remember where we were driving, but have you ever seen that, as you’re driving sometimes. And these birds will just, they, they, move in like this mass, you know and they’re kind of flowing in and out of each other, but they’re swarming all together.
They’re, they’re, God designed them to like the swarm cool. Anything else. What else do you see? What do you do? Yeah, Joe.
Audience: Blessing. God’s blessing.
Travis: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s, that’s, a first, isn’t it? That’s, that’s something new. What does that mean? What do you see? What do you see in the blessing? What’s the blessing consists of?
Audience: Life. Multiply.
Travis: Okay, productivity. Blessings consists in productivity. Being able to reproduce, right, to multiply, be fruitful. That’s interesting. It’s also interesting that he pronounces a blessing upon the creatures that cannot understand the blessing. Right.
So again, well, we’ll come to that. Okay. Yeah, this is by, by, talking about the blessing upon the fish and the birds with procreation. And it’s not the just the ability to reproduce, but to do so abundantly. The creatures of the sea fill the waters, the birds multiply on the earth. And this is the principle of fecundity, fecundity, the fertility to produce an abundance of offspring.
Okay. So let’s ask the question then. What do we learn about God from this? What do we learn about him, about his design, about what he’s preparing? What he’s setting up? What do we learn about him? Yes.
Audience: He’s a life-giving spirit.
Travis: Okay. God is life giving spirit. That’s right. And abundantly life producing, right. Yeah, Scott,
Audience: He’s really, he really, really cares and loves what he created. Like the animals and the livestock because he blessed them. And then I also remember after the flood, he also made a covenant with the animals, promising that he wouldn’t destroy them.
Travis: Okay. So there’s a, there’s a provision and a caring in that.
Audience: Yeah, not just for us.
Travis: Yeah. Good. Joe.
Audience: He creates them without mistakes, immediately, and he doesn’t need to have like a first draft and then wipe that out and then create another one and then say this one doesn’t have a stomach and then create another line or something. But they all, like, they have all their organs and all are able to fly. And like humans, just their technology had been able to do some of that, like amazing things that birds can do with their wings. Just God just knows it immediately.
Travis: Good. Yeah, very good. He created them instantaneously and perfectly to fit their environment. Right. So birds don’t swim for long periods of time, well. Nor do fish fly, well, at least for long periods of time. Have you ever seen flying fish? It’s, it’s, it’s, for a short time. Yeah. I’ll come back to you, Adam. I saw a couple hands over here.
Audience: You have, when he creates fish, when he creates the birds, what you have it is, is this feeling and this sense that even though he did it perfectly, even, even, though he did it with this a great deal of fertility, that’s not enough. They are there for a higher purpose or they are there for another thing. I’m left at the end of day five going and then what? I’m just, I’m just waiting because I know okay, we got plants, we got sea, we got there’s something missing here and that’s what else is going to be upon the ground.
So there’s this, this, sense of awe and yet a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess you’d say. There’s, there’s, more to come. I don’t know what it is about. I’ve read it now three or four times. I don’t know what it is by day five, but I think it’s because there’s that one piece of the environment, that’s as it’s yet untouched.
Travis: Well, the fact that you’re a man and you haven’t found your work yet. Yeah, it’s coming. All right, Adam.
Audience: That’s what the God was creative. You know, he could have just been here’s a flat piece of earth, that’s it. But it’s creative. It’s different. It’s distinct. Everything has a character. Everything’s, you know, has a purpose as well. So it’s, could have been just black and white and robotic and, you know, been fine.
Travis: Yeah, there’s one kind of fish, that’s it. Enjoy tuna. But no, there’s all kinds of, great varieties of fish. One kind of bird. No, there’s great varieties of birds. Some to shoot at, some that will eat you. You know different, different, kinds of birds, carrion birds and all that. So but yeah great variety and all fit for their environment Okay. What? Yes Joe.
Audience: They’re dependent on each other. There’s like, they all the boy bird needs the girl bird to multiply.
Travis: Okay, careful this is being recorded.
Audience: Don’t start talking about bees.
Travis: They start depending on one another for that blessing. Yeah, for that blessing of, of, procreative, reproduct, productivity and all that. Yeah. Yeah, Brett.
Audience: The whole ecosystem thing. I mean, that’s a huge argument against evolution. Like, not only can we not create an ecosystem whatsoever, that I mean, that is self-sustaining. These ecosystems that he created are very throughout the planet and then there’s balance within that.
In fact like when we started planting trees in cities like you’d plant the Elm tree and then it because oh, it looks, it grows fast, blah blah, blah. Then you had too many Elms and then that lifted up infestation levels of the beetle that spread to the Dutch Elm Disease.
You know so you it’s just like we just can’t get it right no matter what we do and we’re still, we’re screwing this, this, system up like crazy. We still got oxygen to breathe and it’s pretty bulletproof. You know he made an amazing thing and he made it all instantaneously with different swarms. You can’t have one kind of tree. That’s one kind of tree doesn’t work.
Travis: Yeah. It’s, it’s, all interrelated and, and, yeah, interdependent, yeah, good life is interdependent. And also back to what Joe was saying, everything was created in, in, maturity to where it’s not missing certain parts. I mean, the woodpecker pecking, it cannot evolve. They can’t. You know, how, how, does a bird slamming its face into a tree develop the strength and the, you know, it’s just going to crush its skull every time and eventually die out. You know it’s not going to happen. It has to be happened. It happened instantaneously, so that it’s created for its environment and, and, you can go through all the created order and see how everything, nothing can take time to get there.
Audience: No there’s just no time. This is everything that depends on each other.
Travis: Exactly.
Audience: I was going to say add to what Brett was saying that there’s a resilience in the whole thing. There’s a, it’s like created for perpetuation that overcome some of the depredation of man as he comes in and interferes here or there or all the things, but it just keeps on perpetuating.
Travis: No matter what the kind of the those, you know kind of cult environmentalist type of people, no matter what they say, we’re not going to destroy the planet. God is, and he’s going to do it by fire. He’s really going to mess it up. But, but, us, we can’t. We really can’t hurt this planet.
Audience: I always wanted to say to them, well, if we evolved, we’re the latest, greatest, then let’s kill it off and see what comes back.
Travis: Yeah, exactly. But it’s, it’s, interesting how they’ll, they’ll, cry out with moral outrage. It’s such a thought. And you have to stop and ask. Wait a minute, wait a minute. In your worldview, where do you get the sense of moral outrage, if nothing’s right or wrong? If I’m the top of the, top of the in the food chain, why can’t I do that?
Audience: Just, just, to add to thinking about the scope of the many varieties like on this day, on this one day he created insects and, and, sea creatures that we’re still discovering. We’re still, we, we still haven’t discovered all of the sea creatures and insects that were created on this day and we find new ones every year. Just amazing.
Travis: Every time James Cameron does a new documentary we discover more, right. We’re going to take trips throws a bunch of millions of dollars on some deeper exploration thing and goes down and finds more stuff that we never saw before. Incredible the kinds of variety. Yeah, Scott.
Audience: Just points to his order. Like he, he, actually really cares for perfection and order. Everything.
Travis: Yeah, he’s put in order and boundaries too. So let me let me make just a couple comments here. Like the, the, plant Kingdom God set boundaries for fish and birds and that allows for again organization and classification like taxonomy. So due to uniformity and constancy of creating each according to its kind, we know that fish didn’t come out of birds or birds out of fish. They’re created according to their kinds. But unlike the plant kingdom, God set forth a different kind of propagation here, right?
So Calvin writes, “For here or there, the power of fructifying in the plant kingdom; the power of fructifying is in the plants, and that of germinating is in the seed. But here generation takes place.” Back to Joe’s point there’s a mommy and a daddy and they have to come together in order to bring it about, right? And God created all these creatures designed according to their environments, showing purpose that they could, God intended one to swim and one to fly.
God intended the creatures to thrive within environmental boundaries and according to creaturely limitations. Again, by looking at environmental boundaries and creaturely limitation, we see, we see how God intends things to thrive within boundary. Isn’t it interesting that we are the ones of all creation that wants to, I don’t mean this in a simple sense, but we want to transgress boundaries, don’t we? We want to go in the water and stay there for a long period of time. We want to go in the sky and fly there, don’t we?
What is it that makes us want to move out of our boundaries and our limitations? We want to burst out of this atmosphere and go to Mars. Where does that come from? Interesting, isn’t it?
God planned a super abundance of number. He planned dynamism of activity and movement, variety of kind. So great sea creatures, “the great Tanninim,” the, the, Keil and Delitzsch says, “that were Tanninim is literally long stretched.” It’s comes from the verb tenan which means to stretch. So these long stretched like whales, crocodiles, other sea monsters, all kinds of stuff in the ocean that are long and stretched out like that.
So all this variety, super abundance of number, dynamism of movement and activity, again it reflects what Adam was saying this reflects back on the kind of God that we have with the creativity and the, and the, immense fertility of his mind. I, I, don’t know how to put it, but the, the, his mind is incredible.
He, so this is dealing with the, as we said, the liquid and gas environments and he did this first before causing the solid environment of the earth to team with life. What do you think that’s about? He wants to cause the, the, liquid environment to team with life, the gas environment to team with life before he does the solid environment, then land environment. Why? I thought you guys might have an answer. No.
Audience: I’m thinking because he’s God and that’s what he wants to do.
Travis: But you’re a man and you’re created in the image of God. So you want to ask the question why? That’s what drives you as a scientist.
Audience: That’s true. It’s only one day, I mean, you know, the next day he took care of the land.
Travis: That’s not sufficient of the answer. Nicholas.
Audience: I was thinking maybe because of what Gary was saying earlier, how it kind of, it, but it’s like a cliffhanger in a sense. It gets you to go okay, what about the land? What’s, what’s, coming there, you know. I don’t know. I don’t know why that’s important.
Maybe because that’s where he’s going to put man and that’s like a big deal. That’s because that’s his, his, his crowning thing in, pinnacle of creation and, and, that’s where redemption is going to take place. Why did he make man and beasts on the same day?
Travis: Okay, another good question. But I’m asking the questions. Scott and we’ll come back to Bill.
Audience: He created the food for us.
Travis: Okay. So he created the food for us. So we have a place to go fishing, right, Mark?
Audience: That’s right. And where we can put your kayak.
Travis: And we can, we can, you know, snare some birds and have some food.
Audience: They existed before we could shoot.
Travis: Okay. But wait a minute. Before the fall, were we eating meat?
Audience: No. No barbeques.
Travis: So it’s not for our food, even though he did provide for.
Audience: Well, the plants are, because they were on day three. The plants were on day three. That’s what we’re eating. Yeah.
Travis: So he already created for our food provision. What are the animal, again, I’ve already mentioned it a couple times.
Audience: For, for, us to have something to do for work.
Travis: For us to have something to do. So with rules, exercising dominion authority. Okay, good. Just second. Lee, you’re gonna say.
Audience: I’m, I’m just gonna say that because they actually contribute to the fecundity. A bird eats a Blackberry, poops in another place and there’s another Blackberry Bush. And, you know, you have all this, that kind of thing and they’re, they’re, a part of all of that. Which will provide for man.
Travis: Okay, good. They’re part of what you, I think Brett what you were talking about is an interrelated ecosystem, you know, where, where, the whole, they, they make, they’re part of making the whole thing go together. They’re, they’re, part of making the whole thing work together. There’s something else, though, that I’m, I’m, kind of trying to drive out of but.
Audience: You mean the, the, land thing?
Travis: Wait, why? Why did he, why did he fill these other two environments, the liquid environment and the gas environment, before the land environment? Why? Why that first? So, Bill.
Audience: I’m not a scientist. I don’t play one on TV, but it seems like water is a necessary and the gas is a necessary creative element for the land. The land is not so for the water. So we’re getting back to this interrelated ecosystem thing, thing, again.
Travis: Okay, good. So yeah, I could. I can see that. That’s good. Mark.
Audience: My, my, mind went and it’s not right, my mind went back to what you said earlier, these contrasts that God has had since day one: Light and dark, you know, greater and lesser lights in the sky. Now you have sky and water, and then day six, you have hard substance, and water, and you have this contrasting again.
Travis: Okay. So, so, yeah these, these, contrast, antithesis, antithetical kind of thinking for us; categories, organization, and the principle of blessing, the principle of ruling all these things, preexisting mankind that we can look back and say what did God put in the greater order. We’re supposed to learn from that, how he wants us to do thus and such. This is kind of where I’m going. And again we can all probably chime in. So a couple different things. Scott and then Doug and then we’ll move on.
Audience: Isn’t there kind of a sense of too much to count too many varieties for you know anybody to really order ourselves or order in language and in both of those groups that he created on that day. So like even before, our main domain is, is, is, finished, there’s too much and it’s all in order already.
Travis: Interesting and what would have God to be, that’s a great point; what would God be doing by giving us too much to count.
Audience: Show that you’re special, but not that special.
Travis: I’m going to read a quote by Calvin that said precisely that. It’s exactly right. We’re special.
Audience: A lot of good jokes for that. We’re not that special.
Travis: Good job. Yeah, that’s an excellent point. Because it’s, it is, there is this, this incredible, this incredible productivity that gives us a sense of humility. That we, even though we are created to exercise dominion, and authority, and rule, it’s way beyond us.
Audience: Yeah, we’re not even close to.
Travis: It’s way beyond us. What does that, what does that do? If we’re given this responsibility and it’s way beyond us, then what does that do? Drives us to depend on God. Right. Right. Drive us back to Him. Good.
Audience: So this isn’t really a why, but it’s kind of a because he created the heavens and then filled it with the stars, and then created the waters above and the waters below in the heaven, and then filled those, and then the land was the last thing created. So then he’s going to fill it last, too.
Travis: Yeah. Okay. So back to this. What we see is the forming and the filling. You know the, there’s the structure and then there’s the let’s, let’s, fill it up right now. Good. Okay Scott. I said Doug and, then, oh sorry. But now because you’re related to me you get special preferential treatment.
Audience: Cause everything needs water to live. Yes.
Travis: Okay, Bill’s, Bill’s point is that the, the, water doesn’t need the land in order to, I guess it does need land to hold it up, doesn’t it?
Audience: Yeah. If the, if the, Earth were just water, it would kinda be a mess.
Travis: Kinda be without form and void, right?
Audience: Right. Who would boast being the first man building his house upon the water. Yeah, that wouldn’t work at all, would it. That’s why that makes that Parable make sense. That’s it. That’s why it’s there. You’d have to have a jet ski.
Travis: Okay, we’re off track. All right. So, all right, let’s see. So God, the nature, again, the nature of God’s blessing of the creatures of the water and the air is this that they become fruitful. They multiply. So he sets forth the principle blessing of, of, that fruitfulness. Productivity, multiplication are indications of divine blessing. Got to be careful, prosperity preachers don’t get a hold of this, right? Because they’ll make hay out of this. But, but, it is true that blessing, fruitfulness, productivity, multiplication, are all indications of divine blessing.
It’s interesting that he blessed the creatures of the water and the air, speaking to them at this point, what they could not understand; what they had no receptivity of, of mind, spirit in order to receive. So this shows that it’s not for their sake, but for ours. So he, God, is here by illustrating the principle of life and creativity for mankind and for the sake of, of, a subsequent command which comes in verse 28, “to be fruitful and multiply.”
We wouldn’t. How would we understand that command if we didn’t, say, look around and say, oh like this. Yes, like that, like the water, like the vegetate, or like the creatures of the water and air. Like vegetation, God created fish and birds after their kinds. And again, this provides categories for rationality. It enables men to reason through organization, classification. God intended mankind to observe, to classify, to study, to learn.
So God is the very precondition of scientific inquiry, and it’s, it’s, what he’s done and what he’s set up that we even pursue science at all. It’s, it, Okay.
Audience: Hallelujah.
Travis: Yes. So let’s go on to day six. Let’s go on to day six. We’ve got two more days. And day six, we’re going to divide into two parts, okay. So part one is verses 24 and 25. Let’s get a reader. Someone read those again. Go ahead Adam.
Audience: “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind- cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind.’ And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. And God that it was good.”
Travis: Okay, so mankind is coming, but let’s pause here. What did God create and accomplish, on this part one, of day six? What did he create?
Audience: Domestic animals.
Travis: What did you say? What’s that?
Audience: Land animals. Land animals.
Travis: Okay, and what do you see? How do you see the land animals broken up?
Audience: Two kinds. Eventually, you got livestock and then you’ve got creeping things.
Travis: I see three; livestock, creeping things, beasts of the earth. Okay, so three categories. Yeah, but, but the categories, right? Good. So he created according to categories. What else do you see? What did he do? Yeah, Joel.
Audience: Made them after their kinds.
Travis: After their kinds. So they’re going to, they’re going to reproduce, procreate within their boundaries. Okay, After their kinds. What else do we see before he created them?
Audience: He spoke.
Travis: Spoke. He decreed them. Okay, so he decreed. Then he created.
Audience: Oh, he says, let the earth bring forth. He says let the earth bring forth.
Travis: Good. All right.
Audience: And the other, other, times he just said, let the waters swarm.
Travis: Yes, it is good.
Audience: Let the earth bring forth.
Travis: So he’s bringing, bringing, them out. He command. And the command. The decree is the command is to the earth. And isn’t that interesting?
Audience: It is interesting because we’re also made of the dust of the earth, which is different than the earth. Probably a different word than is, what is used here. But we share that in common with the animals. Right.
Travis: Right. When he commanded the earth to bring forth the living creatures, it says the verb that’s used there is he made, ʿāśâ, not he created, bārā. That’s, that’s, that’s, an interesting distinction. So all, all, of them are created according their kinds. There’s three categories, the livestock, which is, bᵊhēmâ, which is behemoth. You’ve heard the term behemoth. That’s this.
These are the, according to one source, larger domesticated quadrupeds, okay. SO four, four, footed domesticatable animals. Then creeping things. The remeś, the, the, smaller land animals. They move without feet or feet that aren’t easily perceived by sight. So think of snakes or
Audience: Centipedes.
Travis: Centipedes, right. Millipedes. Then beasts of the earth. The these are like the wild animals. Okay, so the non-domesticatable animals. And he created them all according to their kind, to reproduce, generate within the category. What does this tell us about God?
Audience: That those are the three categories that he had in mind. And if they’re also going to have livestock or domesticable, someone in the future must be there to domesticate them. We’re left hanging, but there must be someone there to domesticate them. Clearly that can’t be done by creeping things or wild animals, right? So there’s still this, this, this one thing that’s left undone
Travis: Okay, so again this is revealed to Moses. Moses who in men, mankind who’ve been living a long time. And God gives them and tells them,[I] you know those categories, there are certain animals that you can get them to plow a field for you, and certain animals you can’t. I did that.
That’s what he’s showing here. So there’s certain animals with, within their nature, they will be tamed. They will be harnessed. They will be useful. And God is saying, I put that in their nature. And there are other ones, good luck, you know. When were the, the, dinosaurs created?
Audience: Day six. Day six.
Travis: Right here. Right?
Audience: Yeah. Well, at least the ones that weren’t in the water. Water dinosaurs. These are created on day five.
Travis: Scott.
Audience: I was just wondering, like, what, do you think he created animals specifically for like the curse or something? Because some of them, some of them like, like; Wasps, those have got to be from the curse, got to be.
Because like Lions their whole jaw structure is made for like cutting the meat, you know, like and then, and then, they have a tongue that’s designed to lick meat off of a bone, because they have these little bones inside the tongue that are hooks. So it’s like how, how, do they what.
Travis: I, I, do think, I do think that God created the, the, earth in anticipation of the fall, which is why we can digest meat. I, I, do. I think that God created that because the earth in that first form was not his final project. Christ is what he’s pointing to. Everything is, is, consummated in Christ. Everything points to Christ. And Adam was not meant to, sorry Adam, weren’t meant to fulfill the law perfectly, in and of yourself. It was, it was, pointing beyond Adam. Because Adam was going to, once his righteousness, his innocence was tested, it would break. Because God’s pointing to Christ.
Audience: So before the fall the lions are eating the.
Travis: No, I’m saying.
Audience: No, no, I’m just asking.
Travis: No, no I’m saying Death came after the fall. But I think, I think even before the fall, God anticipated the fall.
Audience: With, with, lions teeth and stuff. And so I’m, I’m not being oppressive. I’m just wondering.
Travis: Why are you?
Audience: Oh, just wondering, you know. That’s a question I’ve always had. Yeah, we wondered. There are swarming things, you know, they get eaten by the big things, right, or no?
Travis: I’m just saying before the fall, there was no death. There was no eating, one animal eating another animal, nothing like that. And it’s interesting, I’ve read some articles from like ICR, Institute for Creation Research, that talk about how the, the, the, other animals that are currently meat eaters could be plant eaters beforehand, using their, their, jaw structure to, I don’t know. I mean I’m no scientist, but crack coconuts or something and, you know, eat, you know, use the tongue to lick out the innards of the whatever. I don’t know.
I’m just saying that they have, God provided for that too. And we don’t know an earth without a fall. So how, how, he created, how he sustained life before the fall using just vegetation. so there is no death among animal kind. Death didn’t enter the world until sin. So Romans 5. So I just, I just want to emphasize that there is little lions eating, little, you know, lambs before the fall. Mark first and then Gary.
Audience: You know honestly, small E evolution, you know, micro evolution is acceptable in the Christian view because it, it, shows that God has DNA in our, in our, different kinds that will adapt to different environments. That’s, that’s, things we see in science and science has taken that too far, to capital E macro evolution where they can change species that violates Scripture.
But you can see that God he, he, DNA he programmed those lions to eat non flesh before and adaption that’s built into their DNA that God gave them. They’re able to eat flesh after. It’s, it’s a glory to God. It blew scientists mind when they saw DNA, because how do you get a program? You got to have a programmer, you know, and I believe that God preprogrammed us or those adaptions that came later.
Travis: Yeah, I agree. And I don’t like using the, I mean I’ll use it, you know, micro evolution, but I don’t like using their language. I’d rather use the word variation within species, because that’s what it is.
Audience: Adaptation.
Travis: Adaptation. Variation within species, right. Adaptation to environment. Variation within species to adapt to environment. Sure, I totally see that. Gary.
Audience: To your point of carnivores not eating animals.
Travis: I think he’s responding to your, what you’re saying.
Audience: All carnivores can eat plants, and all carnivores have the enzymes to digest what’s in the plant that they have to. Because when you eat an animal, those same substances are also there. However, plant eating animals, like a deer, that’s a, that’s an herbivore. They can’t eat animals. They, they, just don’t have the right enzymes for it.
A bear, on the other hand, is called an omnivore because he’s still very present. A bear will go eat a fish and a bear will go eat berries and honey, I mean they’re, they eat everything. They’re still adapted for both. So God made it that way. That’s just, that’s just how it is. It is.
A sex, there was frustration because the Tyrannosaurus Rex is having trouble eating wheat. yeah, cause he has little arms. His arm were made like that, but the arms, they never looked right. I could not believe those things.
Travis: He can grab fruit or something from a high tree. You’re not buying it.
Audience: No dude. Those little arms, that’s baloney.
Travis: So you think they got those little arms from like some another.
Audience: No, I’m sure I have not done the research on enough to to.
Travis: You haven’t done the research, but you’re going to be in the (indistinguishable)
Audience: It’s, it’s, my theory. Because the thing is, I mean, everything in creation makes sense and those little arms don’t make sense. And I, I’d like to see the 30 Tyrannosaurus Rexes that they have dug up and see where were the bones laying. Cause a lot of these things they, they, got them in these big piles of bones.
Travis: Haven’t you seen Jurassic park. Let’s move on. Go watch Jurassic Park, that’s the first one.
Audience: That really doesn’t make any sense. So they can eat cars and lawyers and such.
Travis: All right. So God created the platform, the environment to sustain the land creatures, the forming, the filling. And since he did that with, you know, as you said, the water and the air, it’s all pointing to, as Gary was saying, it’s all anticipating the special creation; special emphasis on the sixth day. And once again, like the plant kingdom, God has set boundaries for the animals. And that’s so man can organize and classify life forms. And again, you know, due to the uniformity of the constancy of nature, each according to its kind. Let me. Okay, let me, let me, do this first.
So I just, I just went online and I’m not a, I’m not a scientist or anything, but I just was looking at the taxonomy for dog breeds like Chihuahuas, German Shepherds. So the subspecies of dog breeds is Canis Lupus Familiaris. The species is Canis Lupus. Right?
Audience: Lupus is the species; Canis is the genus.
Travis: Okay, thank you. The genus is Canis, right? So it’s Lupus Familiaris and then Lupus. But I, I, was looking online and said Canis Lupus Familiaris, Canis, Lupus. Okay, Genus Canis. Family Canidae.
Audience: Canidae.
Travis: Canidae. Okay, so it’s like canine, right? Or something? Order Carnivora.
Audience: Carnivora, right.
Travis: Class
Audience: Mammalia.
Travis: Mammalia. Okay, I’m just giving Gary all the attention.
Audience: By the way. I would, I would fail that test. The biology. The biology. The filum. Arthropods for jointed legs.
Travis: I’ve got Chordata.
Audience: That’s a sub-filing. Yeah, Duh. Of course. Filing for another sub-filing for arthropod, then Chordata, that means we have the spinal cord going down our back.
Travis: Oh no kidding. And then Kingdom, Animalia. Okay. So your little Chihuahua and your big German Shepherd or your Great Dane, they are of the Lupus Mayeras. They’re the Lupus, Canis, Canidae, Carnivora, Mammalia, Chordata and Animalia. That’s pretty cool that we are able to go through all that classifications and put them in different categories. I think that’s really neat. And you can do that with any of the animals. Yes.
Audience: Yes, and to Mark’s point, if you were to go back to about 1850 or so, there’d be like 150 different species of, of dogs, of, of domesticated dogs. Now they’re well over 400, Because guess what, we’ve been busy breeding dogs for the past 200 years. And now whatever that society is, does a little dog shows every year. They’ve built these little, all that is a subspecies of dogs. But it’s all still DNA wise. You could, in theory, take a Doberman Pincer and cross it with a Chihuahua. Why? I don’t know why you would want to because.
Travis: Yeah, very, very small attack dog
Audience: Depends on which is the male and which is the female cause sometimes it’s just not gonna work.
Travis: Yeah, yeah. So like those labradoodles and all that kind of stuff. You start crossing over, but they can all fit into these different classifications.
Audience: They are still Canines. Canis Lupus Familiaris, Same species
Travis: Yeah. Pretty cool. Anyway. So again, all this demonstrates the order and the wisdom of God’s mind, because of which we are also able to think rationally. We’re able to put things in categories. That is, that is vital for logic. It’s vital for communication. It’s vital for understanding anything, is to be able to classify and put things in order. So, you know, like kids, little kids building with blocks, I mean, you’re watching it happen. You’re watching them do what they’re designed to do by classifying things.
Oh, you know, when I was a little, little kid, I’d line up all my Hot Wheels, you know, and I, I, wouldn’t want the really fancy looking race cars there with like their utility vehicles. I wanted them separate. Then I put the Army vehicles over here. Yeah, because they don’t go together. Because I just you’re doing that as a little kid.
That’s why my peas and my mashed potatoes are separate. But yeah, yeah, people have a word for the psychological term for me.
Audience: Yeah they do. So what.
Travis: So what? Got it. So God has, God has again revealed himself as a rational being in and through what he’s made. What he’s created. Now again since God made, let me, let me, ask this question. Why? Why do you think when it says let the earth bring forth living creatures, so these three classifications; the domesticated animals, non-domesticated animals, and creeping things; they come forth from the earth, right? What do we come forth from?
Audience: The dust of the earth.
Travis: Also the earth. Builds us out of the earth right? Why do you think there’s, why do you think God designed that similarity?
Audience: I don’t know. I don’t like it.
Travis: You don’t like it?
Audience: No.
Travis: Okay. Well, you know, you do like it, actually. You do like it every time you go to the doctor. You appreciate it, Scott.
Audience: Yeah, with your hinting at is interesting too. But it, it, does away with, especially the, the, tree hugging crowds saying that well everything was perfect until man came along. Well we were all part of the same day, creation and, and, similarities in biology allow people to categorize things and then help us, what, learn about health and things like that.
Travis: Yes. Good. Excellent. Good. Yeah. Paul.
Audience: I think Ecclesiastes hits on some of these themes where he, he, says, as one dies so dies the other; as even as the beast dies, so dies man. And you know I think it’s, it’s, it’s, a humbling thing. I read that, it’s, it’s, it’s, we’re tendencies towards pride and arrogance and that’s, that’s, pretty humbling really, to me.
Travis: That’s true. Yeah. So there’s a, there’s a, humility that’s in, that’s provoked within us, by seeing our similarities. But also back to what Scott was saying, by seeing similarities in the animal Kingdom, with us and the what they’re made out of, the fact that they have lungs and a circulatory system and everything, allows us to make comparison and contrast between us.
We’re able to do our studies on them and say, oh, I see when I put a bolt inside this, inside this animal, it doesn’t digest it well. I Wonder if men shouldn’t eat bolts too, you know. So making comparisons and contrasts by seeing the same kind of systems within. I don’t know. I don’t know. But by seeing the comparisons and contrasts between their systems and our systems, we can learn. We can do medicine. It provides for. And before the fall, no need to do medicine, right. No need to know. There’s no problems. It’s after the fall. God’s anticipating, preparing. I thought I saw, okay, so David.
Audience: Yeah, mine. I see, that’s a fact that we are our, our genesis out of the earth; [is] it puts us in sharp contrast with angels, as far as like maybe, I don’t, taxonomy of intelligent personal beings, that we’re not them. That’s all I wanted to say.
Travis: Okay yeah. Good. That’s that is true. There is a distinction between us and the angels because we, we are formed out of the earth. Let it, let me come over here and then I’ll go back over here.
Audience: We’re created using the same elements so that we’re not like Stardust, and then we can’t figure out like, like you said, like medicines and stuff like that; that we can’t, that we can get from the earth, that replenishes things that our body might be deficient of or.
Travis: Yeah, Okay, good. So vitamins that can provide us with what we lack or whatever. Again it’s anticipating the fall; what’s going to happen after the fall. Joel.
Audience: I think we can take it too far. To some, to the way they do and say that we’re just animals. We’re all, you know, we all just do what’s in our nature and we can’t be held responsible for what we do. There is a difference between us and the animal kingdom.
Travis: Right. Exactly and we’ll get to that difference in just a second. Let’s go Brett, come back here to, I saw hand over to Lee, I think it was you Scott, so Brett, Scott, Lee, then we can move on.
Audience: Actually, that’s it.
Travis: That’s it. Okay, Lee or no, Scott, then Lee.
Audience: Okay. I was just going to say, that like it’s interesting that you can’t like, that they couldn’t have eaten. They can only eat stuff that God puts boundaries for, and they can’t; trying to put this together, because if they ate some, if they ate others like bolts, you know, it wouldn’t hurt, right? But then they’re not made to, so they wouldn’t eat that stuff because. But then after fall.
Travis: It was a bad illustration.
Audience: Right, but after the fall, then God, you know then, then man started eating, pushing those boundaries, right.
Travis: Yeah. So like you when you were a kid ate a bolt.
Audience: So that’s where that randomness came from.
Travis: You put some weird things in your mouth, Scott. Let’s not go there.
Audience: That’s, that’s, makes sense now, the bolt.
Travis: Scott. Yes Lee.
Audience: I was just thinking of the classification and the anticipation of man. You got those animals which are domesticated or bulk and they make man productive and useful and he is part of his be fruitful and multiply, but also his governance and the rule, because they actually produce a lot of things.
But there’s the other classification that God set aside, like you’re not going to harness a rhinoceros and put an ox yoke on him and say let’s plow a field. He’s just not going to work for you.
Travis: Are you, like he says in Job, tells Job, go ahead and put a hook in Leviathan and see what happens. You know.
Audience: So you know, I just was thinking of the part, this part we can understand this makes man productive and useful, so he can cultivate the earth or the garden. But this part doesn’t do that. So, there’s got to be a reason, what that other parts for, beyond just our saying, isn’t that admirable to look at this magnificent animal.
Travis: Well yeah. And, and, in fact you know he, he, actually points to that in Job by saying, there are some creatures Job you cannot contain, you cannot harness. Know your place. If, if, if, if, Leviathan and Behemoth are too great for you, then what am I their creator, is what God is saying. Yeah okay Scott. One more time. One more real quick.
Audience: I’m just loving that we’re, we’re, proving to ourselves, anyway, that this is the word of God. It’s, it’s, not just anticipating the fall. It’s anticipating the order of science that man creates later, or in our own minds, we created later.
Popular history is always a tight little story and it claims that, well when before science came out and, and, and, the and, the and, and all, all, of this modern age and thinking. Man wasn’t thinking. Man was only religious, and dumb, and illiterate. We see, that in creation itself, we have categories, and this going to make man want to categorize and learn.
Travis: And they actually did. It’s the arrogance of the modern age that says no other age until us has done this. That’s not true. The Arabs, the Muslims did an incredible study in mathematics and everything. I mean, you go back to every civilization there’s a, we’ll get into it. Sir John Glubb wrote an article, By the Rise and Fall of Empires, and he just shows, you know, just gives the lies that, that we’re the most advanced.
I mean every society has done this kind of scientific categorization classification study. It’s part of the, the, rise and fall of empires where, where, during a certain period of their ascendancy, it creates like luxury of time that allows for intellectual development, and study, and poetry and all those kinds of things that you can’t do when you’re fighting wars all the time.
So in the war stage, and then the economic development, and settlement stage. and all that provides for an intellectual stage, which is again, what provides for the decadence and immorality to give and which causes the decline of empires, anyway. All that to say, that every society has done this and, and, we go back to, we’re going to use this term in apologetics on Sunday nights, ‘the preconditions of intelligibility,’ are only found in the God of Scripture, only found with him.
You try to find any other worldview, any other god, any other gods, any other system, they cannot provide what Christianity provides. What God provided in Christianity is the preconditions for intelligent, intelligent thought, for rationality, all that. That’s what we’re going to find. So we’re going to come to that again as we talk about implications next time.
Okay. So let’s, let’s, look at Part two. Let me get someone to read versus 26 to 31. Yes, I’m. I’m looking at my boundaries of time right now and trying to live within them. So go ahead.
Audience: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’
“And God said, ‘Behold, I’ve given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breadth of life, I’ve given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And it was evening and there was morning the sixth day.”
Travis: Would you please also read, just look to chapter two, verses four to seven. Just read those few verses to get a little focus in.
Audience: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the days of the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up -for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and the mist was going up from the land was watering the whole face of the ground- then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
Travis: Okay, so that just says how it was done, giving us a little more specificity. So what did God create or accomplish, part two in day six?
Audience: He created man.
Travis: Okay, he created man. What did he do before he created man?
Audience: Decreed, spoke, and said let us make man.
Travis: Okay, all right, good.
Audience: Let us make. Triune reference there, I Believe. Mines all in caps. Us. It’s plural.
Travis: Yes, we’ll come back to that. It is a plural there. Yeah. Us. We.
Audience: In our image.
Travis: Yeah. I’m going to read a section from Kiel and Delitzsch on that issue, but that’s important for us to clarify. Yeah, Scott.
Audience: He created a man, but he [didn’t he only], not only did he create a man, but he created them in his own image.
Travis: Okay. So he’s created. And it’s a difference between
Audience: Animals and man.
Travis: All the other creatures. Good. Adam.
Audience: Created their, their, role. Wrote the rule before you even actually created them. He said, hey, this is what you’re going to do, now I’m gonna create you. He said what the.
Unlike all other animals made male and female also. Noticed that. Creates rules, but he doesn’t say make male fish and female fish, male birds and female birds. It’s inferred because of the swarming and, and, so forth. Fruitful multiplication. But here it’s very specific. So there’s a relationship he wants to show is equal; the male to God, the female to God, equal before God.
Travis: Okay. So he’s anticipating.
Audience: He is.
Travis: Yeah. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Nicholas, first and then Scott.
Audience: In all the other ones he just speaks things into existence. And this one he, he, he’s also saying, he also says let such and such happen. In this one he’s saying, let us do such and such, like, there’s a more personal involvement here, and there’s also a discussion of what he’s going to do and why, before he actually does it.
Travis: Okay, good.
Audience: Two seven, really gives more clarity to that, to dust of the earth, breathes into the nostril the breath of life, so we have this, this, this very personal is this, this very intimate moment where life occurs, between God and man.
Travis: Yeah, interesting. What else? What else do you see? Yeah, Paul.
Audience: It’s amazing to me here he, he, connects this or this creative act to, to, himself. I mean, he, he, literally connects the, the, creation to the Creator. That is amazing to me.
Travis: It is.
Audience: There’s nothing like that in day one through five. It’s unique.
Travis: Nothing like that or, or, even up to this point on day six. Even up to this point on day six, there’s nothing like it. So all from day one through day six: A. Six Part one, nothing like this and then he does this. So he makes a distinction.
Audience: Finally, we get a, remember I said earlier, there seems to be something left undone. Finally, we have completeness. Like now there is nothing left undone. Genesis 2:7.
Travis: You feel more settled.
Audience: Completely settled after Genesis 2:7. He hasn’t had his nap yet. Yeah, in 27, It says, “God created man in His own image.” Is, is that the Hebrew word for create?
Travis: Where, in where?
Audience: In 27,
Travis: So let me look at that, and I know the first one ‘Let us make’ is ʿāśâ, and God said, and then, and then, the next one is bārā’. So both are used. The main
Audience: Bārā’ is create.
Travis: I’m not texting Devin.
Audience: Bārā’ is create and ʿāśâ is made.
Travis: Yeah. Scott.
Audience: He gave the first like job to man specifically, “have dominion over it and, and, subdue it.” And he it j, he just intended for man to, to, be able to have dominion over the earth and not for like birds or you know. That’s what my science teacher was saying, that she said that we, it was just by chance that we had that, that other creatures could have, you know, could have done it. She’s greatly misinformed. Because like something here.
Travis: So we might be in the bird cage.
Audience: Yeah. Would we still call it a bird cage?
Travis: Would we still call it a bird cage?
Audience: It would be pretty boring.
Travis: At least you’ll be able to read the funny papers.
Audience: We would be in cages, just saying, we’d be replacing them.
Travis: Lee.
Audience: What I was looking at, was anticipating what Scott was talking about. But this is the first instance where he speaks to his creation. He reasons with them, he says, “I have given you every plant in the field” and, and, so forth. So there’s a, there’s a, information going forth, a direct information of man, he didn’t say the tuna, you know, go out and find a female tuna and let’s get this thing done.
Travis: Yeah, yeah. There’s no, there’s no, capacity in any of the other creatures to have a rational thought and understanding comprehension of God speaking to them and communicate. Right. Good.
Audience: That’s the difference between instinct and yeah, command, I guess. I don’t know.
Travis: Yeah, that’s right, and, and, a relationship. So did I see another hand over there? No. Okay. What about over here? No. What? What else do you, do, any, anything else you want to say about what he did? Le, let me just say on the decree. He decreed the creation of mankind. He decreed that one kind of creature, that is mankind, would be set apart to be the image bearer of God.
One and contra-distinction to what your teacher is telling you; you know fish are not the special creation of God, neither are birds nor any other of the creatures. God said, man is. He also decreed the purpose of mankind. I think this is what Adam said, the purpose of mankind to have dominion over all the creatures of the earth. And He did this before he created mankind. That is revealing their purpose even before they come into existence.
Says that he created mankind by animating the formed or shaped dust of the ground with the breath of God. That’s, that’s, pretty important. He blessed mankind with procreation, the ability to reproduce, multiply, fill the earth. He, he, blessed mankind with the responsibility to subdue the earth, and he blessed mankind with the responsibility to exercise dominion over the living creatures of the earth. This is all a blessing that’s set apart and distinct from any of the other creatures in the world.
And again, going back to any of these teachers who say that we’re really no different, than just ask, well then what? What bird, [tell] show me a bird or show me an animal or some of the cattle that are sitting around doing science. You know, or, or, or, exercising some order of authority over man.
You know, show me a farm, where it’s like, you know, what Animal Farm, you know, it’s actually the human that are out plowing the fields. Show, show, me that. Just show me. You say it could have happened. But you’re just making that up. You’re just, you’re just disserting that point. You’re not actually using any real science. What you’re gonna actually observe.
So God designated the vegetation for the sustenance of mankind and for the birds, living creatures of the earth. And then he says at the very end, he looked over all his creative work. He commended his work as very good. He commended his own work. He made a value judgment on his own work. Okay.
I want to go back to this. Yeah, just a few minutes left. So we are going to have to punt till next time to get to day seven. But it’s important. So let me, let me, read a couple things here on the on the plural of number. Let’s see if I got this right.
This is Keil and Delitzsch, which says this. “The creation of man does not take place through the through a word addressed by God to the earth, but as the result of the divine decree. ‘We will make man in Our image, after our likeness,’ which proclaims at the very outset the distinction and preeminence of man above all the other creatures of the earth. The plural ‘We’ was regarded by the Fathers and earlier theologians almost unanimously as indicative of the Trinity:
“Modern commentators, on the contrary, regarded it either pluralis, mat, mat, majestatis;” which is plural of number, or for the plural of majesty. I mean that’s and that is legitimate to say or “as an address by God to Himself, the subject and object being identical; or as communicative, an address to the spirits or angels who stand around the Deity and constitute his counsel. The last is Philo’s explanation.”
But, and this is important to hear, “But although such passages as 1 Kings 22:19., following Psalm 89:8 and Daniel 10, show that God as King and Judge of the world, is surrounded by heavenly hosts, who stand around His throne and execute his commands, the last interpretation founders upon this rock;” That is it. It falters. It falls down it “either it assumes without sufficient scriptural authority and in fact in opposition to such distinct passages as [Genesis} chapter 2, verse 7, verse 22, Isaiah 40:13, and then 44:24. In opposition to those texts that the spirits took part in the creation of man. That is, the spirits did not take apart in the creation of man, so. “Or it reduces the plural to an empty phrase, inasmuch as God is made to summon the angels to cooperate in the creation of man, and then, instead of employing them, is represented as carrying out the work alone.”
So what would be the purpose is what he’s saying. “Moreover, this view is irreconcilable with the with the words ‘in Our image, after our likeness.’” If he’s talking to the angels, what’s he saying in, in, our image like? No, there’s a distinction there, “since man is created in the image of God alone, and not in the image of either the angels, or God and the angels. A likeness to the angels cannot be inferred from Hebrews 2:7, or from Luke 20 verse 36. Just as little ground is there for regarding the plural here and in other passages as reflective, and appeal to self; since the singular is employed in such cases as these, even where God himself is preparing for any particular work.”
So this goes back to God using the plural to, to, speak to of himself as subject and object. That’s ludicrous, Okay, just on the face of it. “No other explanation is left, therefore, than to regard it as pluralis magestatis,- an interpretation which comprehends in its deepest and most intensive form (God speaking of Himself and with Himself in the plural number, but with reference to the fullness of the divine powers and essences which He possesses)” this is “the truth that lies at the foundation of the Trinitarian view, namely, that the potency is concentrated in the absolute Divine being are something more than powers and attributes of God; that they are hypostasis, which in the further course of the revelation of God in His kingdom appeared with more and more”, distinctive, “distinctness as persons of the divine being.”
So that’s a long way of saying this, that this plural is not, in and of itself merely Trinitarian. It is allowing for Trinitarian plurality in number and persons in the, in the, divine Godhead, in the Godhead. But it is not, in and of itself just saying that. It is saying God is, is, a plural of majesty. It’s a plural of greatness, which then allows for the further progressive revelation of the Trinitarian of Persons in the Godhead. Does that make sense?
So if we only say it’s a plural of Trinity, I think it’s saying too little. It needs to say much more than that and, and, you know, certainly it is saying Trinitarian person, persons, but it’s allowing for that, in other words. Does that make sense?
Now let me read a portion here from Keil and Delitzsch on the image of God. “Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature. of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust of the earth, became a living soul.
“The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man.” Remember we talked about how the Trinity of Persons there are three persons and that allows us to have a concept of person. Then person interrelationship between persons that cannot be found in any other system, any other God. Allah is not a personal being, and so it does not provide the preconditions for personality that we find in, in, us. Only the Trinitarian God allows for that. Okay.
“So the image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, but not merely in the unity of self-consciousness” and the self “and self-determination, or the fact that man was created a consciously free Ego; for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence. This consists rather in the fact, that the man, endowed with free self-conscious personality possesses, in his spiritual as well as corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the holiness and blessedness of the divine life.
“This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin; and it is only through Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence (Hebrews 1:3), that our nature is transformed into the image of God again.( Colossians 3:10 and Ephesians 4:24).” We’re created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. That is to say, once sin entered into the world, that image was shattered. It was. It’s not shattered beyond recognition, but it is shattered and needs to be restored, and it can only be restored in Christ.
So as we’re dealing with unbelievers out there, yes, there is a vestige of the image of God, in them, which makes, which allows us to have conversations with them, to tell them of the God that they know, but suppress. And yet they do not, that they are not fully in the, in the, image of God, because they need to be created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness, by being in Christ. We are in Christ. That image is restored in us through him. Does that make sense?
Okay 8:30, oneish man. And let me pray and then we’ll come back next time and finish.
Father thank you for creating us in your image. Thank you, for you know, as Gary was talking about all the way through, just to, you know [we] we’re created and designed by you to anticipate, to, to, to, see the, what’s a vacant. What’s, what’s, needful. What’s, what you’re pointing us to, and we long to know and understand. And that’s, we’re designed by you to be like that and we thank you that we are not immutable like you, but we are mutable, we’re changeable, we’re, we’re, able to learn and grow in our understanding.
And because we know you the infinite God. We being finite, finite creatures, we have an eternity to know you, the infinite God continue to add daily to the knowledge that we have building upon it. What a joy it is to know you to anticipate eternity and, and, one day without sin, without the presence of sin, without weakness for us to know you forever.
We thank you for giving us this start, in creating us and, and, revealing to us how this all happened. We’re so grateful for what we’re learning and just ask that you would help all this to sink in, so that we can again give glory and praise and honor to you as you deserve. And teach others to do the same as we go out and evangelize and, and, defend the faith. We love you. We thank you for the time we’ve had this morning. Please use it to the glory of your name for the exaltation of Christ. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.