The Attributes of God’s Greatness: God the Creator, Part 5

Father, thank you so much for the morning. Thank you for these men you’ve brought here and we ask that you would help us once again to speak clearly about you, precisely. Please help us to understand what you’ve revealed in your word about you and about the creation week, especially how you created, designed us, what you created us for. Thank you again for your revelation. Thank you again for your Holy Spirit. Thank you for uniting us to Christ. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.

 We are going to, Lord willing, finish, day, the days of creation today. Next time we come back together 11th and 18th, it may take one, may take two, sessions to talk about the implications of creation week for, for, our apologetic understanding; for thinking about the world that we live in; the interaction with the world, and why this is so significant to have this as a, a, base of understanding.

It’s, it’s, it’s, very and I know you recognize this, but it’s very important, as we have spent a good amount of time on theology proper. It’s so important for us to have our reality grounded in the Being of God. The unchanging, simple, that is non-composite, but simple, unchanging, perfect, eternal, infinite, Being of God, that sets the foundation upon which we rest.

 It really is the ground of all of our assurance, and the source of all of our hope, and joy; he’s our life. And so if we set our understanding, form our, the foundation of our understanding, in the Being of God and what he has done, what he has accomplished, he just sets the course for our entire life, and our entire, every, every bit of knowledge that we want to build, is going to come out of the Being of God, okay. So that’s why we’re spending that time here.

 We are continuing, and hopefully, so we’re going to finish, as I say, creation week; probably finish the year with talking about some of the implications of this. And then, when we come back in January, we will finish up theology proper with the communicable attributes of God like goodness, and, and, holiness, and righteousness, and those kind of things, that we then manifest and reflect. Some of that we’re going to touch on today. But we’ll finish that up and then we’ll be done with theology proper. We’ll start moving on.

 What we’re gonna, what we’re gonna talk about this morning in, in, the special creation of mankind is, it’s not a thorough anthropology, but it is, it is, enough to get us started. Okay. So date, last time we got into day six of creation, we, we, talked about the creation of land animals, special creation of mankind, and we saw that we cu, observe what we could of God’s creative work. Stopped short of recognizing what the special creation of mankind reveals about God.

 So we’re going to go back to day six. Let’s just read all of day six there. If I can get a reader actually to read starting in Genesis 1:24. Read to the end of the chapter and then skip to 2. Yeah, go 2, 4 to 7. Okay. So Chuck will read it. Genesis 1:24 to 31. And then chapter 2 verses 4 to 7.  

Audience: “And God said. ‘Let the earth bring forth a living creature after his kind-cattle and creeping thing.” Let me get the right version here. Well, not the right version, but yeah, a different version. Okay, “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds-livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have domain 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, the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God bless them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have the dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that’ moves the earth, ‘moves on the earth.’

“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have 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 there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” And then 4 through.

Travis: Yeah. Chapter 2, verses 4 to 7.

Audience: 2 to 7. “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that 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 a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground-then the Lord formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the” bread “of life.”

Travis: Breath.

Audience: “And man became a living creature.”

Travis: Good, so “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Not right, not the bread of life.

Audience: What did I say, bread.

Travis: Bread of breath.

Audience: Breath of life.

Travis: Yeah. He just builds your nostrils with bread.

Audience: That would be plug it up.

Travis: Yeah, it’s not good. But breath of life is okay.

Audience: And then verse 8.

Travis: No, just, just, up to verse 7.

Audience: oh, okay. Got it. Breath of life.

Travis: Yeah. So notice, notice, when we were in day six, in chapter 1, kind of the overview, there’s verse 24, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” So the earth is getting the command, and it’s bringing forth the living creatures. So they’re coming from, well, the dust to the ground. When you get to verse 26, 27, there’s no mention of how he did it. Just God said, let us do this. So God did it. Verse 27. We go to chapter 2, verses 4 to 7, and it says that in verse seven, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground-breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Okay. So we, we, talked about this last time and we just made some observations asking the question, what did God do? What did he create? What did he accomplish on this part of day six; the second part of day six? And then we want to ask, what do we learn about God from what he did? Okay. What do we learn? What do we observe? How do we reflect on this?

 So just to review, because we did get through this first part, what’d God do, actually by observing the text. We said, first of all, God decreed, okay. He pronounced it to be so. He decreed his will and 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. No other creature. Not the earth. The earth is not the image of God. Mankind is. Okay everything. Okay, I’ll, that’s an implication. I’ll stop there.

 But mankind set apart. He also decreed the purpose of mankind. He decreed the purpose to have dominion over all the creatures of the earth. So God decreed, then God acted. That’s what we see there. He created mankind in his own image. And we read from Kyle and Delitzsch, last time, to talk about the plural number, about, you know, plurality; “Let us make man in our image.” We do see that that’s, that is a plural of majesty, but it is a plural that allows for the doctrine of the Trinity to be developed over the progress of revelation.

 We, also, read from Kyle and Delitzsch on the image of God in mankind and what that was about, that that’s about reflecting God’s glory in his communicable attributes. Okay. It’s an image that’s been tarnished because of sin, but it is an image of God nonetheless. And is the reason why we have any kind of connection with unbelievers, people who do not know, who have not been regenerated. We’re still able to communicate with them, because they are created in the image of God.

 So we saw God decreed. He acted. Talked about the plurality of number in the Godhead. We talked about the image of God. God created mankind by animating the, the, formed or shaped dust of the ground with the breath of life. That’s chapter 2 verses 4 to 7. So after God decreed, after God acted, he blessed mankind. That’s what we observed.

 He blessed him with procreation. He blessed him with the ability to reproduce, multiply, fill the earth. He decreed, acted, and then blessed mankind with the responsibility to subdue the earth and with the responsibility of exercising dominion over the living creatures of the earth.

 So we have got decreeing, acting, blessing, and then providing for mankind. That is, he designated the vegetation for sustaining mankind, and for the birds, and the living creatures of the earth. At the very end there, verse 31, he looked over his creative work and he commended his work, not just as good, but as very good.

 Several pronouncements in the text, chapter one of good. That’s the Hebrew word ṭôḇ and it’s verses 4,10,12,18,21,25. All that’s good. But after the special creation of mankind, God saw it was ṭôḇ mᵊ’ōḏ. Very good. You may have seen these ṭôḇ mᵊ’ōḏ tattoos that people put on their on their skin: I am very good. So that’s what they’re saying. I’m not encouraging it. I’m just saying, so superlatively good, very good. Okay.

 So with that is a bit of a review. Hopefully your brains are warming up just a little bit. You got coffee flowing. Reflect on that. Reflect on what God did here in creating mankind. What do we learn about God? What do we learn about ourselves? But we’ll learn about God from how he created us on day six. Comments?

Audience: Decreed, acted, blessed, provided. Is that, is that the summary of the. Because I wasn’t here last time.

Travis: Yeah. I’m, I’m actually probably clearer this week than I was last time. So.

Audience: Okay, it’s a good thing I missed then, okay.

Travis: What’s that? You didn’t miss anything. Don’t worry about it. I was a molten mess. Yes. So after reaffirming that, now what do you reflect on? Yeah. Nic?

Audience: So just on that last, the, the, very good part, it reinforces what James said, “that every good and perfect gift comes from the father” and then all the anything sinful and evil came from man, originated from man or Satan.

Travis: All right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay good. So everything good comes from God. Just, just, just real quick. Everything good comes from God. Anything bad is coming from sin entering into the world, whether through Satan, whether through mankind. Right? Good.

Audience: All throughout the Bible there’s this underlying current of, of, sinful man and holy God. There is no undercurrent here. There, there, is merely very good. We, we, only have this one side of things. It’s conspicuous in its absence that, that there is no conflict and it’s going to be short lived. We all know.

 We know what happens next. So it’ll be short lived, but still it’s this is such a peaceful part of Scripture to read. It’s, it’s, so majestic and yet at the very end you see very good. It just, it’s like you take a breath and there’s just so much peace in it. It’s amazing.

Travis:  Yeah. Yeah. So the goodness of God is, is, our peace. Going back to your comment too, Nic, you, you, mentioned sometime back when we, when we, mentioned that word ‘good’ you use, you use; what did you say that indicated? That God did what, with that, by using the word good?

Audience: Made the first value judgment.

Travis: Made the first value judgment. Now what is this ‘very good,’ what is that?

Audience: Purpose. Decree, degree, degrees of.

Travis: There is good and there’s very good. Now there’s a distinction between good, right. Okay, so. We, we, make distinctions between good, better, and best. God’s making a distinction here between good and very good. There are value judgments and there are distinctions within value judgments. That’s important. Really important.

 You ever, you ever hear of any of, you know, like hyper fundamentalist type of people that make everything an issue? Everything is a level ten doctrinal issue. How you wear your hair. How women wear their clothes, you know, skirts all the way down, the thing. Everything. If you, if you compromise on one thing, you’re all of a sudden out of the circle. That’s not biblical. All right. There’s a, I’ll come back to it in a second, but I saw it, just real quick. I saw it was Joe.

Audience: Two things. That one, I thought that since he created them on the sixth day, he kind of set them up to have faith that God had created those things without being able to see it.

Travis: What a great comment.

Audience: They were supposed to have faith that God did that and that his person has been created him as a person. And like you said, when we were doing the person part, he couldn’t have created a person if God wasn’t, had person in him, personality.

Travis: Didn’t have personality, which is personality is known in distinction from other persons, right? It’s what’s reflected and, and, observed by other persons. And so there’s a plurality in the Godhead of persons, which creates, it’s the foundation for our personality that can be known and seen by others.

 Yeah, great comment and I love that first comment too. I hadn’t written that down. That’s really good, that by what he did in the first five days and before, and even into this half of the sixth day, all that was done without mankind observing it. Therefore, man has to take God’s word for it. Good. Creates, creates the opportunity for faith. Yeah, Daniel.

Audience: So if this is pre-fall and there’s no sin yet in creation, why, why is there a distinction between good and very good, rather than it just all being perfect? Like why isn’t it at the very top echelon of goodness from the very beginning.

Travis: Good. Very good. Yeah it’s, and I have, I have, an immediate answer, but I want to let you guys, what do you guys think? Struggle with that. What, what, is it that about this pronouncement of very good that; what is God making a point about? I saw Scott’s hand first.

Audience: I think it’s because he’s, he’s, saying that man has, he’s providing the part where he says man has dominion over all the earth, and [he] it means he’s specializing man over all the earth.

Travis: Yes, that’s right. That’s right. Apart from mankind being there, it’s good, but it’s not superlatively, so until man arrives.

Audience: And the other part of very good is we’re now creating God’s image, which the other animals were not. So it automatically elevates God’s creation of man.

Travis: Okay, so it elevates God’s creation of man. What was the first part of what you said? I missed, I was trying to hold on to that and then I got..

Audience: Image bearers.

Travis: Image bearers. Okay, for what purpose? Take a, take a look at verse 28 and see, the God said, to the God bless them. He said to them, and what did he say?

Audience: Be fruitful.

Travis: Be Fruitful.

Audience: Multiply.

Travis: Multiply.

Audience: Fill the earth, subdue it.

Travis: Fill the earth.

Audience: Subdue it.

Travis: Subdue. Have dominion over everything. Okay. So over the earth, over all the animals, everything else. What, what is God doing? What does God want? What does he intend by the proliferation of mankind?

Audience: Administration of the earth.

Travis: Okay. Administration of the earth. For what point and purpose?

 Audience: To reflect his image.

 Travis: Yes, reflect His image.

Audience: Image spread everywhere.

Travis: So it seems to us as we’re seeing here. As Paul summarizes, everything is to the glory of God. He wants his glory known and spread throughout the entire earth. Covering the planet. Is his glory covering the planet with everything he made besides mankind.

     Yeah, but there’s no interpreter of it. There’s no, there’s no man to be there to see, observe, communicate, spread, teach, explain. There’s no man to be able to, you know, animals don’t reflect, and reason, and create, and they don’t do that. They don’t, they don’t draw pictures of sunsets, and animals, and landscapes, and everything else. They don’t do that. We do. And that shows that we have the capacity for recognizing the glory of God in a way that none of the other creatures do.

 So that’s why there’s a superlative goodness in placing us here over everything, and in planning for us to proliferate, and spread over the entire planet, so that we can be interpreters and worshipers, so we can give God his due, his due glory and honor. Okay, so I saw another hand go up before yours. Maybe it was Gary’s. Maybe was it yours? Okay, Nic.

Audience: Well, just to add to that, too. I was thinking about Ephesians, I think it’s 4, or maybe end of 3. Where he’s talking about the church being filled up with all the fullness of God. And I think that’s something, [that can only be] that can’t be done in an individual creature made in the name of God. It has to be done in a church, in a, in a body.

 And I think the, what you see more of the image of God coming out, in what he put into man when he put the image of God in them, and when you see them interacting with each other, and working together towards an end, and organizing, and thinking together. And you know, so I think; oh, and that’s, and that’s only possible with Christ indwelling us, which was always the, the, goal, you know. And that’s not something that you see here. So it’s not in its fullest sense very good or perfect.

Travis: Good, good, good, good comment. Any other comments? Yeah, David.

Audience: Just about the image of God in man, even after it’s tarnished. I guess I’ve sort of been, somewhat, recently impressed by how much order, and beauty, and goodness, in that regard that even, even, unregenerated man can still accomplish in the world. You know, kind of image of mankind spreading out and creating this order.

 The order that God created, you know, spreading that throughout, throughout, the world. You know, I’ve seen it just from working at Aims, you know, seeing how there’s all this planning and, and, careful consideration, and then these beautiful buildings are erected and there’s this beauty and order that. And, you know, very, very few of the people involved in those projects are Christians.

 And looking back over the course of human history and see civilizations do that, you know, and, and, works of art and you know, all this, all this stuff. And just to see that though the image of God is tarnished, it’s not completely lost. You know, I kind of grew up or was kind of saved into thinking that, you know, theologically, like all total depravity, you know, under manages, this, this unreasoning animal beast, right.

 And you just say that sometimes men are like that, but the image is still, still, there and still operating even in people who are, who, you know, are, are, willingly antithetically resistant to that image working in them. Oh, there in, in, Joshua. The Lord is explaining why, to Joshua, why he doesn’t just drive all, all of the Canaanites, everybody out at once.

 Like, we’re going to do it progressively, because if, if, I just went and just killed everybody, then the beast would come and take over.  So we’re going to leave the these wicked nations that I, that I hate and I want to kill. We’re gonna leave them, so they can keep down the beast population.  

Travis: And, and create cities for you and homes and all you have to do is just move in, you know, just throw away all the, all the artwork on the wall and then, you know, you go and move in. That’s right. Yeah. God does things in an orderly, systematic way. And, and, it’s reflected, that order systematic thinking, that planning, that purposing, that doing, building, erecting, all that and, and, you’re right.

 You, you’re talking about Aims College. And you know I think of every single one of you, every single one of you with different jobs, different skill sets in, in, everything you do. If you if, if, I get into your world, I start to see this entire world unpack of everything that you’re involved in. Everything that goes into your life, and your thinking, and all the organization, the cooperation in your world.

 It’s a, it’s a, world of information, a world of knowledge, a world of expertise, that any one of us is lost in your world, if you’re not a part of that, right. So it’s incredible to see all these microcosms of knowledge and understanding, in, on the whole planet, which is a reflection of the image and glory of God in mankind.

 And we just do it. We just do it. Whether or not people know God or not, they just do it. They can’t help but do it. We can’t help but think, and reflect, and interpret. Because of the presence of sin, they suppress the truth. They suppress what that’s supposed to lead them to. It’s supposed to lead them to worship of the Creator and, and, reflecting his glory, and their worship, and their praise, and their thanks, and their honoring him. But even apart from that, they still reflect the image of their, the glory of their creator. It’s good. Yeah. Ren.

Audience: So in a culture of tolerance, unity and acceptance, value judgment is really out of the window, I think because, you know, there is in music, really, there’s no long way difference between Bach and Britney Spears.

There was a time when, you know, you say, oh, wow and ah. But there’s no difference even for me in writing my dissertation, I was told not to use the word, better, because you’re, you know, imposing a value judgment. So that’s the culture believing. But I think God has really told us, you know, to meditate on things that are excellent, you know. And value judgment is not necessarily judgmental, but exercising sound judgment. And that is absolutely lacking in today’s culture. I think.

Travis: That’s right and, and, it’s interesting that though they try to eschew judgment, value judgments, so they say no, that’s a no, no. They do it all the time.

Audience: All the time.

Travis:  They do it all the time. So, so next time, you know, in your liberal setting, you know, where they say, hey, tolerating everything, just there is no value judgment, say great, let’s talk about Christian, my Christian beliefs, my Christian faith. I want to talk to you about Jesus Christ. You know, all of a sudden they’re going to make a value judgment.

 Let’s talk about, let’s talk about purity, let’s talk about dignity by Britney Spears, Spears not wearing what Britney Spears, Spears wears. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about how she could be dignified, and pure, and holy. Oh, you hypocrite. You know, just all that kind of stuff is gonna come out. They make value judgments all the time. They talk about should and ought. They use those words all the time. They can’t help it. Jorge, you had your hand up.

Audience: Just got to my attention on verse 26, that consider and “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image.’” So you know he’s talking about. What’s he talking about?

Travis: Intra-trinitarian. Yeah. He’s talking about thought that’s, that’s a, that’s an intra-trinitarian conversation. A decree that happened in the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, that, that they made this plan. Yeah. Decreed this. Yeah.

Audience: So, so like Jesus Christ was already like how he was when he came here.

Travis: He, he, was not in body. In a body. Bodies had not yet been created when that was said. So Jesus is not in body. He’s not come through the womb of the Virgin Mary, but he is in his pre, what we call a preincarnate state. So pure spirit, just as God is pure spirit. But still a distinction in the persons of the Trinity, though complete equality, but distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit; three personalities, one God.

 Yeah. It’s a, blows the mind. If you, if you, spend too much time on it, your, your, brain starts eking out your ears. But it is, that’s true and, and, we see, actually, we see showing up in the Old Testament these, these, preincarnate, what we call Christophanies. And, and, the, a lot of times it’s the reference to the Angel of the Lord.

 The Angel of the Lord appeared and spoke and you can see that there’s worship given to the Angel of the Lord, which he doesn’t turn away. He doesn’t say no, stop worshipping me, because he’s showing up and he’s coming in a bodily form so that people can see and interact with. You know, he shows up to Abraham that way, as the Angel of the Lord.

 If you go into the New Testament revelation, when the Apostle John sees an angel and he tries to bow down, and worship, and he says, oh don’t do that, I’m just a creature like you, so don’t worship: Worship God. But the Angel Lord, when he shows up in the Old Testament, he receives worship, he receives prayer. So, but yeah, so Christ here, he’s not. He’s been decreed to be Christ, but he has not become Christ incarnate. Yeah, In the flesh. Yeah. Good.

Audience: I was just going to go back to some of the things we’ve been talking about. So, we have the pinnacle of creation. We have man in perfection doing all that he’s gonna do, naming animals, all the things like that, to the glory of God, with, without even conscious reflection of that, that’s just, he is like that. What I see after the fall is devolvement, and I see that like here you’re talking about Aims; man still has the image of God and does these things.

     When we were in Petra, you know, here’s this rock city and instead of just digging holes out of the wall to protect them from the weather, they actually go in and they do a geometric thing, and it’s perfectly square. They build these incredible artistic things outside their, their, homes that are just purely for decoration, because man is like that, versus an animal or something like that.

Travis: Yeah, an animal that just burrows into the earth, you know, you try to go in that and it’s nothing really remarkably beautiful about it. Petra though, no, no animals are doing that.

Audience: But what I was going to say too, is though as, as, the culture, as a culture gets further away from the value judgments of good and very good and things like that, as they get to where they can’t distinguish wicked from an evil, from, from, holy or good, we devolve and men become more like animals. They do less and less of the image bearing stuff and, I think, you see that around you all the time. I mean this is a value judgment.

 But I walk into some place like Walmart and sometimes I go, where in the world am I. You know, I, I’m serious. There’s a, there’s devolvement that’s going on. I shop at Walmart, so I’m not talking. I’m just saying that there’s something there that has been lost. The image of God is, is, being lost and defaced, because men have moved so far towards wickedness. ISIS. Yeah. ISIS. Yeah, incredible.

Travis: Yeah. I was reading the other day in my book, I’m kind of making my way through, called The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, a really, really, good history of the world, and it’s talking about the Muslims during the Muslim times 800-900. In, in, that time they’re going up into the, the, step regions in like Ukraine, and Russia, and, that kind of place, and they’re seeing these nomadic peoples who they described, the Muslims described, coming out of this very highly accomplished culture.

 They, they, they, have Muslim, they have philosophy, and mathematics, and learning, translation, that massive culture going on in Muslim cities. And they, they, they, have an opportunity to go and spread Islam, and so, or evangelize, and so they take it up into the step regions, and see these nomads are kind of wandering around, and they describe them as like animals.

 You know the, the, the, women, kind of like, pulling of their, their, clothing open and scratching, and really on inappropriate places right in front of people. And the Muslims are hiding their faces and saying, oh this is terrible.

 They have a recognition that, that’s not good. Muslims are not Christians. They’re not believers. They don’t know the true God and yet they can still recognize, that is not good. And yet these nomadic peoples everything’s, they’re, they’re, like animals, like you said. Yeah it’s a great observation. Were there other things.

 So Bret, we actually mentioned you earlier, Bret Hastings wrote us; and I had something that he, he, mentioned you in specific, in your, your, something you said. I’ll have to have you read it a little bit later, but welcome, good to have you in most. So let me, let me, read a couple things and that I’ve written down, and you know, you can interact if you’d like.

 What, what, do we learn about God from day six? Learn about us. God created the three categories of land animals and before pronouncing the blessing, as he did upon the water and air creatures like in verse 22, the verse 22, God bless them said “be fruitful and multiply.” So, before he did that with the beasts, he interrupted his pronouncement of blessing to decree the creation of mankind. He’s anticipating here the special creation of mankind something totally unique.

 The earth brought forth creatures and beasts. God formed mankind breathed into his nostrils of breath of life, breath of life. And this makes mankind distinct from all other created life. Man is therefore not merely an advanced animal, but the special creation of God: The final creature. The final creature; his final act is mankind, special creation of God.

 Mankind is the crowning achievement of creation and, ‘he,’ mankind is bestowed with the honor of bearing the glory of the Creator, the image of God, and the privilege of ruling his creation. And without that, I mean everything else has been set up. Everything else has been, you know, forming and filling. Everything has been pointing toward the pinnacle of mankind; the special creation of God. In order that he might be fully glorified.

 God made man to be unmistakably set apart from the rest of creation and from all other creatures in several ways. He’s created, as we said, in the image and likeness of God. He’s created with the ability to exercise dominion over all other creatures. He’s blessed by God with commands, communicated by words. He’s commanded by God to fill the earth with God’s glory, that is, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion.

 And he, then he’s provisioned by God with instructions communicated by words, instructing them as to what they and the animals are to eat for food. So again, back to the pattern, Chuck; God’s decree, God’s action, God’s blessing, God’s commandment, God’s provision. His decree, action, blessing, commandment, provision. Two things to note here; first, what God sovereignly decrees, he effectively brings to pass. Okay, this is important. What God sovereignly decrees, he effectively brings to pass.

 There’s a book that John Owen wrote called, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ, and he’s defending, limited atonement. He’s defending the particular redemption, but against all those people who say that, you know, God. Christ died for all mankind. So all the sins of every person, with whoever lived without exception, has been paid for in the death of Christ. And John Owen is saying, no, that’s not what the Bible teaches. He’s right.

He makes a defense of that to say God sent Christ to die for the elect to take their sins, not everybody, but their sins upon himself. God decreed that, and his argument is right here. What God sovereignly decrees, he effectively brings to pass, and he is not thwarted in that.

 So, if God sent Christ to die for the sins of all mankind without exception, that would mean that God has failed in his, in what he attempted to do, to pay for the sins of those people who actually, spend, end up in eternity in hell. That John Owen says cannot be.

 God doesn’t decree something, then fail to bring it to pass. And what this should do for us as Christians, and what we should communicate to our families and to other people is great assurance, particularly with regard to the salvation of God’s elect, or anything God sets about to do. What he sovereignly decrees, he effectively, powerfully, without question brings to pass.

 Second thing to note here about God’s decree, action, blessing, command, and provision. There are some things that God decrees and brings to pass, and many things actually, which he accomplishes through ‘means,’ that is, through us. So he intends to not just decree and handle it himself; many things he does. Well, he handles it himself, but sometimes he inserts us, ‘means.’ So filling the earth with his glory, he chose to bring us into that task. He chose us to, to, employ, he chose to employ us in the task.

 I’ll save that comment. So any, any, comments so far, just on those things? Yes, Chuck.

Audience: I think I got this wrong, but I noted here what God sovereignly decrees, he effectively brings to pass. This should give us great assurance. I’m sorry, one more thing. Backup. Sorry. Everything else has been in the setup, pointing to the creation of mankind that God might be glorified. Man is the instrument of his glorification. But that’s not, I mean the heavens declare the glory of God too, right? Okay, so, so, what? What makes man special? Could you just kind of elaborate on that then?

Travis: What makes man special? He is created in the image of God.

Audience: In the act of glorifying God.

Travis: Because, because, apart from mankind being there, the heavens declaring the glory of God to whom?

Audience: Okay.

Travis: Okay. So God is bringing about his own glory by us being able to interpret, reflect, talk about, you know. And in fact if you go to Rom, if you take that thought from Psalm 19, take it into Romans one. All of creation, everything God did in creation, the heavens declaring everything provisioned for us in creation, we are to, because of that, honor God as God and give thanks to him. Nobody, nothing else in creation can do that. No animal bows down before, you know, tearing into that meal, bows down and says thank you Lord for this food.

 Reminds me of a joke. Missionary out in Africa. He’s running through the, running through the, the, the, what do they call that? The Serengeti?

Audience: Serengeti.

Travis: Being chased by a lion. Remember that?

Audience: No, no, no.

Travis: Okay, so he’s running through the Serengeti. And I didn’t know if you knew the joke already, then I don’t want to say it.

Audience: No, haven’t heard it.

Travis: Just so you know. You’re going to see right now. You’re going to see right now, I can’t tell jokes. So he’s running through the Serengeti. He’s being chased by a lion and he’s stumbling and he, I mean, he’s, he’s, not making progress in getting away from this lion. The li, he finally falls over a log, fallen log and he turns around and there’s the lion on top of him. And the missionary, like a good missionary, prays, oh God, make this lion a Christian. So the lion immediately drops down to his knees, puts his paws together, and says, I thank Thee God for this meal that I’m about to consume. That’s the joke.

Audience: All laughing.

Travis: Lions don’t do that. So that’s what makes it funny. But we, we, know that instinctively that there’s nothing else in creation that can give glory to God. There’s nothing else in creation that can honor him as God or give thanks. So Scott first and then Gary.

Audience: You know, I just think it’s really amazing. I don’t know if we’re talking about the breath of life or not, but I just think it’s really amazing that, that God sets it up to where we are fully dependent on him, even to the smallest thing of a breath.

 And when we, every time we take a breath, it provides kind of a, you feel kind of at ease when you take a deep breath, and you, you know, inhale, exhale. That’s why we, we, say take it to calm down, or when you’re stressed, or something, and it kind of shows your dependency on God. And it’s everything comes from him that is good and, comfort, comfortable.

Travis: Good. So what is that part of the nervous system called that, it does it’s work without you even thinking about it.

Audience: Autonomic.

Travis:  Autonomic nervous system. Right? So you, you, don’t even think about your breath, your, your, diaphragm just the pressure of

Audience: You shouldn’t have to.

Travis: You shouldn’t have to.

Audience: I didn’t think about everyone one.. Along those same lines, if I could comment, in my, my, class on the fearfully and wonderfully made, it, it’s every single week is one more new thing where we’re coming to the point of where, every single thing God created, he created for his glory. Every atom, every molecule. Now, no one knows, like you just said, no one or nothing he knows of God’s glory except for us.

 But he created, I mean, I don’t care if it’s time, I don’t care if it’s an atom, I don’t care if it’s, every single thing, it can be used and it will be used to glorify God. And our bodies are one of those things.

Travis: One of those things. And even if you get down to something very simple like a breath we take.

Audience: Which is complex, by the way.

Travis: Right. If you, if you, go in and, and, apply Gary Brotherton’s mind to it, all of a sudden we all understand. Whoa.

Audience: Your mind turned to mush, but

Travis: Huh?

Audience: You apply my mind to somethings it just turns to mush.

Travis: Well, you and me both, brother, but I mean on, on, the scientific things, you, you’re so very helpful in, in, helping us to see God’s glory in all that. That’s really good. Let me come back to you, Ren. I want to get Gary over there.

Audience: I was just, Scott brought up the breath of life, and that’s what hit me to God breathed in him, no other part of the creation, did he take that personal interest in breathing. Is there something special to be indicated by him breathing in the breath of life to us compared to the other animals? And Gary has his hand up.

Travis: Go ahead, Gary.

Audience: I knew, it’s Genesis 6. I’ll find it here. It has to do with the.

Travis: Here you find it. Let Ren make his comment. Ren make your comment and then.

Audience: Well and anytime you are stressed out and anxious. We all go to Philippians “and be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” What is amazing is that “and the peace of God that surpasses all comprehension will, guard,” two vital parts of your body, “guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.” Just, it’s just amazing how, you know, those two very, very vital parts of the, you know, body, God talks about, that he will keep those calm, you know.

Travis: That’s right. That’s right. Yes, Joe.

Audience: And it’s “all Scriptures God breathe” too. So that’s another good breath of God on it. Like, like, Brad said.

Travis: Yeah, it’s, Paul coined the word there, theopneustos. So new, Numa, is the word for, it can be breath, wind, spirit. So there’s something conveyed, I think, in putting a spiritual being, you know, immaterial part of us in, in, that breath of life that he gives us; which is distinct from the animals, because the, it, it is called the breath of life about the animals and Solomon.

Solomon, references that, that, you know, the making no distinction between beasts and men when they die, that the breath of God leaves them. And, and, so there, he is talking about that animating principle. But there is something distinct with God forming us out of, [the breath of the], out of the dust of the ground and then breathing into us the breath of life. There’s something intimate indicated there, like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which is I guess just suscitation, not resuscitation. Gary, you found it.

Audience: It says, real quickly, it says in the in 6 Genesis 6, verse 3, “the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days will be 120 years.’” So there’s this spirit slash flesh interaction and then God says, I’m going to take that away. I’m going to wipe out man from the earth because, you know, but keep in mind there have been 1500 years between Adam and Noah.

 And, finally, he said, I’ve had enough. But that it shows the patience of God. At the same time, there is this interaction between God’s spirit and us that’s there, and it’s reiterated there in Genesis six, and I kind of jumped to his.

Travis: Yeah, his,  rûaḥ, you know, is the, the, word there. But it’s the same concept; Spirit, wind/spirit, wind breath. Same, same concept.

Audience: Like what Joseph, God, “all Scriptures God breathed.”

Travis: Yeah. So that’s right. Good. So, am I missing a hand? I think. I think.

Audience: I think you got both of them.

Travis: I got both of them. Here we go. So I was going to say, so I talked about that pattern of God’s decree, action, blessing, commandment, provision. And I talked about what God sovereignly decrees he brings to pass, first.

 The second thing, there’s something that God’s decrees and brings to pass. A lot of things that he involves means, ‘us’, you know, he involves us in bringing it to pass. And then, but I, I, do want to mention one more thing, a third thing that, and whatever God commands us to do, he provides for. He doesn’t expect us to come up with what he doesn’t provide.

 Where, as they say, where God guides, God provides. So his command, he’s not, he’s not, you know, like the Deist version, winding up the, the, world and letting it go and leaving us to figure it out ourselves. Everything is here. Everything we need is here in the theopneustos, in the God breathed word of God.

 Okay. So another thing. God created mankind in his own image and he dignified him with the right responsibility of ruling. Delegated authority to him to exercise dominion over the earth, and, yet, keep it in mind, he drew mankind out of the dust. This manner of creating mankind confers upon him a great dignity and honor, but it also keeps us humble.

 This is what Calvin said. This is Calvin, John Calvin on, this how God formed man, “He now explains what he had” omitted before er, er, “had before omitted in the creation of man, that his body was taken out of the earth. He had said that he was formed after the image of God. This is incomparably the highest nobility, and lest men should use it as an occasion of pride, their first origin is placed immediately before them. Whence they may learn that this advantage was adventitious. For Moses relates that man had been in the beginning dust of the earth.

“Let foolish men now go and boast of the excellency of their nature concerning other animals, that had been before said, ‘Let the earth produce every living creature.’ But on the other hand, the body of Adam is formed of clay, and destitute of sense, to the end, that no one should exalt beyond measure in his flesh. He must be excessively stupid, who does not, hence learn humility. That which is” after such a subtle way of saying…

Audience: That’s a value judgement.

Travis: It sure is. “That which is afterwards added from another quarter, lays us under just so much obligation to God. Nevertheless, he at the same time designed to distinguish man by some mark of excellence from brute animals, but these arose out of the earth in a moment. But the peculiar dignity of man is shown in this, that he was gradually formed. For,” why did God not, “why did not God command him immediately to spring alive out of the earth, unless that by a special privilege he might outshine all the creatures which the earth produced.”

“So again we learn by the way we’re made, that in our flesh is no good thing. In our flesh is nothing to boast over. We are animated dust. What is great about us, is God. What is great about us is God. The manner of creating mankind, teaches us whatever is great in us, we’re just animated dust.

“We’re on the same level as the animal kingdom. What’s great about us is the life of God. In and of ourselves, we’re nothing, but if the life of God is in us and we are fulfilling the purpose for which he created us, we are imagers of God.”

 So this is kind of going back to David’s observation, Lee’s observation walking into Walmart. And, you know, but you can see it everywhere. You can see it in the, the, fact that some want to say there is no distinction between Bach and Britney Spears, you know, that’s, that’s, ridiculous. And, and, we do make value judgments and we do say, there’s some things that are more bringing glory to God and other things that are not.

 But we’re reminded. We’re reminded that we’re the, the, more we are imaging God, the more we are, we are, more we are conforming to the purpose for which he designed us and made us. The more dignity. The less we’re doing that, the more we’re turning away from that, doing our own thing, chasing our own lusts, and desires, and all that other stuff. And not mindful of what we’re created for, the more we’re like the animals. So we’re kind of going one direction or other in our lives and our thinking.

 I’m reminded of Psalm 8, Psalm of David. “Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You’ve set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you’ve set in place, what is man that you’re mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

“Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You’ve given him dominion over the works of your hands; you put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beast of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along” the sea, “the paths of the Seas. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

 You think David was reflecting maybe on creation week when he wrote that? Probably sitting in the, in the, fields watching sheep. Yeah, Scott and then Chuck.

Audience: What does that mean when he says you, you’ve made man a little lower than the heavenly beings? Because, that, weren’t we like…

Travis: The pinnacle of this creation?

Audience: I thought we were like above the head, like the angels.

Travis: Yes, we are. We are in the sense of reflecting, you know, reflecting his glory, imaging God. And yet power, might, little lower than the angels.

Audience: Oh okay, thanks. Just, the choir will be singing that Psalm here in a few weeks.

 Travis: Really

Audience: Psalm 8.

Travis: That is cool. That’s cool. And now we’re better informed to rejoice and give glory and thanks to God. It’s awesome. So back to our observations in Genesis 1, just to finish this up. But God recorded the occasion of, here in Genesis 1:31, he recorded the occasion of divine observation, reflection, and satisfaction in what he made. He communicates his own judgment, his own satisfaction, his own reflection on it.

 He made a distinction in value judgments, as we said, between good, tob, and very good, tob mod. And this helps us remember there are distinctions between good, better, and best. Not all matters are of equal weight, of equal importance and though that, but still we need to remember that even matters of lesser weight and lesser importance are not unimportant. Okay.

 So we make distinctions between first, second, third, order doctrines, right. So gospel doctrines are first order doctrines. You get gospel doctrines wrong. We’re not on the same page. We [can] are not in fellowship right.

 So, so, the Mormons with their gospel and us, we’re not the same. Those are first order doctrines. Other second or, you know, other tiered doctrines like baptism, modes of baptism, are we still brothers with Presbyterians, who say who want to baptize babies. We are. We are because we share those first order doctrines in common.

 Baptism though, we do believe and we disag, qualification for membership of this church to believe and be a believer in believers Baptism, because we, we, count it not a gospel issue and yet it is very important, very important, in reflecting on the understanding of the gospel, right.

 So it’s not unimportant, Jesus said to the Pharisees in condemning them in Matthew 23, he said, “you tithe,” you know, “a tenth of the mint and the cumin, the dill, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law:” the, the, “justice and mercy. You should have done these without neglecting the former.” So he, he, affirms both, but he says there are things of different levels of importance, and that’s set up right here, as God makes a distinction between good and very good: Tob, Tob mod, you know. So we need to also follow the same pattern in our thinking.

Audience: That’s really true. To also sin, because I hear it so often and it drives me crazy that everybody says all sins are the same and you go, no, they’re not.

Travis: No, they are not. Yeah and that’s right.

Audience: Goes back to how far we’ve moved from the image of God, when we indulge in certain sins. It’s, it takes levels of hardened conscience to get to that point.

Travis: Right. That’s come up a lot in the whole homosexual debate and everything to say, you know, yeah, you’re going to see, your, your, Bible tells, your God says to stone homosexuals and calls it an abomination. And yet it’s an abomination to sew two types of fabrics together. So are you wearing polyester and cotton? You know, they’re, they’re, just, yeah, I mean, of course they’re going to make arguments like that.

 But we can’t make arguments like that. We need to understand, we need to understand that there are varying levels of sin and varying consequences of sin. It’s not all the same. And in one sense, any sin is a sin against an internal being and therefore same in, in, consequent, internal, in a spiritual consequence. You know, it doesn’t matter if you try to break the windshield at this part, this part, this part, it’s going to shatter the entire thing.

 So once you’ve transgressed the law of God, you’ve transgressed it all. And yet, there are some things of greater consequence and greater weight. Yeah. Thanks.
God, another thing we observe here is God named in, in, the creation week, he named just a few things. Light he called day. Darkness he called night. Expanse he called heaven. Dry land he called earth. Gathered water he called seas. And then he called man, Man. He left the rest of the created order for Adam to name, right; having established a pattern for Adam.

 This goes back to what Joe said. Adam is looking back on things that happened before he ever was, before he’s ever in existence, and he has to learn a pattern from God on how to do things. And then God sets him up, disciples him, you could say, he sets him up to follow his pattern, to do what he did, and he sets him to work in doing that very first thing; even before he created Eve. Go name the animals. He has the pattern, because he sees God naming things. He sees him looking at things and then giving it a name. Something to call it. Yeah.

Audience: I find it very interesting that he named them all before the fall. He had Adam name, because Adam could name them without, like with a clear mind and, with not, with no sin clouding his mind, yet. So that, and that’s one of these because I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think God, you know, had a part in naming them, because it was by Adam like, it was through, it the, God’s will, that Adam named them. And then you see throughout the whole Bible how God uses analogies with animals, and like the line of Judah, and stuff like that.

Travis: Yeah, that’s good. So these, these, this naming and these distinctions that are made in the categories that are created and everything are created before the fall. I think that’s a great, a really good point. Think about how we name things now; we call variation among species, we call it evolution. That’s a really messed up thing, isn’t it? You know, and that does set your mind in a different direction. And the battle over the homosexual debate was won and lost over definitions. Marriage, the whole marriage debate, that’s over definitions. Gender, it’s over definitions. If you allow them to set the definitions, they have framed the argument and won the argument.

 We need to go back to definitions that God set for us. We need to think God’s thoughts after him, use those categories and those definitions; move forward from there. It’s a good point, Scott. Thank you. Others? Let me, let me, not ask for any others. I’m just looking at the time. Let’s get into day seven. Can I get a reader for the first three verses of chapter 2? Yeah, Brett.

Audience: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all of host of heaven. On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. God bless the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Travis: Okay, So what did God do? Just real quick. What do you do? Just observe. Yeah, Scott.

Audience: He set an example.

Travis: Okay. He set an example. That’s more of an implication. It doesn’t say in verses 1 to 3 that, so God set an example. No. It says…

Audience: He made a day of rest.

Travis: Okay. So he made a day of rest. Okay good.

Audience: His work was finished.

Travis: His work was finished. He finished it. Kala in verse 1 the, the, verb kala is a, you don’t need to know this, but it’s a ‘Pual’ form, which is a, it’s to be completed; to, to, be finished in verse 1. But then in verse two it says on seventh day God finished. So it was God who completed or finished and that’s a ‘Piel’ form, an intensive form, that basically drawing attention to the subject and the action; done complete and he did it.

In the first part, it’s, it in and of itself, it’s drawing attention to the, the, fact that it’s completed, and it’s not completed by its own doing, its passive in, in, its involvement. It happened to it. It, it, came to a completion. Okay.

 In the, in the verse 1, heaven’s, earth, all the hosts, they were finished. It was finished for them. They came into a completed state. And it was God who did it in verse two. Okay. That’s what it says there. What else do you notice in these three verses? Yeah.

Audience: He rested and he blessed that day of rest and he made it holy.

Travis: Rested, blessed it, sanctified it.

Audience: Sanctified it. Yeah.

Travis: Good. Very good. And, and, he provided and he provided the reason for that, right. Going beyond, what was the reason? To, to, commemorate the day that he rested from work.

Audience: And it wasn’t finished until he rested, because it says that he finished it on that day.

Travis: Good.

Audience: Say that again, Brett. It wasn’t finished until he rested, because it says that he finished it on that day.

Travis: When you, when you read the word rest, we are to think, I think, in terms of rest, because we, we, deplete our energy and we need rest. God has, there is no depletion of energy in God and, there, there’s an endless supply to where nothing is harder or easier for him. It’s all just energy.

 So when it says God rested and it’s attributing the, the, attribute of resting to God, Sabat, is, is, basically a cessation from activity, cessation from divine activity. For us that’s for replenishment. For God, no replenishment. So as you already pointed out Scott, it is, it’s setting a pattern not for himself, but for us. Notice, what’s do you see something repeated?

Audience: Twice? Three times. Rest is repeated twice.

Travis: Okay. Rest is repeated twice. Good. Something else is repeated three times.

Audience: Work.

Travis: Yeah. It’s the phrase, his work that he had done, his work that he had done. “His work He had done.” It’s God’s work and he did it. And how, how else do I say this? It’s, so it’s not, it’s not the work of, of, matter, which is eternal. Just doing.

 It’s not mother nature. It’s not evolution did this and evolution directed this. There is no such thing as mother nature. There is no such thing as evolution directing anything. There is no such thing as matter, in and of itself, without intelligence, without will, without purpose, putting anything into motion. It’s his work that he had done; so all attributes of creation, to be of God.

Audience: That’s the same with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, too. Then you could say that, if Jesus did it and he’s not God, then he hasn’t done it.

Travis: Yeah, that’s right. If they say that Jesus is the first created being and then through Jesus, he created everything else. No, it’s God who did it. So it does, it nails it; and also nails it when it says that apart from him nothing that has been made has been made. And everything that has been made is in the category of a creative thing, or a thing that’s made or brought into existence, brought into existence by him. Scott.

Audience: So, so, with the Trinity thing, because he brings in the Trinity when he creates man, like the three persons, but then, is it; never mind. I don’t, I don’t know how to say it. Like ask this, but like because, like God create, created man but, then it was God is three person. I don’t know. It’s like you know.

Travis: We, we, share your, your, the fact that this is an incomprehensible thing. We share that.

Audience: But like technically are you saying that God created, he created everything before man, like, and then God like brought the other two in, and made, no it’s like all of them, but then this is really, I don’t know. Never mind, sorry.

Travis: But it’s starting to come out as you’re talking. No. No. God is one.

Audience: Right, but then he brought, he said us for the first time with man but, but, it’s always all three of them making it.

Travis: Nothing else in all of creation has personality. When he, he, draws that fact out. When he says that mankind is going to have personality, and reflect his glory, reflect his, his, image by, by, bringing that issue of personality to the forefront there. Yeah. It was always there from Genesis 1:1. It’s just no reason to bring it out. In fact, if you did bring it out earlier, you might attribute personality to the rocks, and the trees, as some of our pagan friends do.

Audience: Brings it to specifically a man.

Travis: That’s right. Good observation. It’s a good observation. It was hard to get it out, but it’s, that’s what, that’s the way this stuff is. It’s hard to get it out. It’s hard to, hard to, say it clearly because we’re dealing with realities that are so beyond our experience on the one hand and yet we are apprehending some of these things because they’re within our experience, as well. Yeah. It’s good okay. So let’s ask the question then, having said very quickly, very quickly, what did God due? What he accomplished on day seven? What is day seven, by the way, what day of the week is it?

Audience: Saturday.

Travis: Saturday, right? I, I, love the fact that the Jews, they were commanded to rest on Saturday and worship on Saturday. And then when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we celebrate that and, and, worship God in recognition of that resurrection day, which corresponds to Sunday, and it corresponds to day one on the day he said, “Let there be light.” I love that, I love that, that, that, parallel. Okay.

 So what do we learn about God from day seven? Let me read a couple comments that I have and then hear what you have to say and then we’ll wrap it up. Because if I read my comments, I get them out first, and then, and I can cut you off anytime.

 So, God did not design the earth to evolve; macro evolution. As we said, it was finished. It was completed verse 1. And God is the one who finished and completed, verse 2. So, thus the created world is the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them. So, the everything that he formed and filled, everything that’s been, the all the formation of it and all the filling of it, everything that’s in it, the host of them, all that started and finished by God in six days.

 Notice the thrice repeated phrase, “His work that He had done.” So, God observed his creative work on the seventh day, day six. “Behold, it was very good.” He blessed a day for mankind to do the same, to reflect on his work, to make the same observations, to make the same assessments, to enter into the same value judgments. That’s what God intends, okay, for us to do that on the seventh day.

For us to spend the seventh day, yeah, just reflecting on his glory. That’s why we gather together, to really think, even to think back through our own work week and say, what do we see there? What was good? What was very good? What was bad? Which I shouldn’t do anymore.

 What do we, what do we look back in our work week? How do we reflect on that? How do we reflect on God’s work in our work week? So we do that every day, every time we come together on the day that God has set apart for us. Okay. All right, so your observations. What do we learn about God from day seven? What would you like to, to, bring out? Nicholas.

Audience: I actually kind of have one that’s more on what he did, but it, you know, they always kind of blend both. He’s, it says that he rested from all his work on the seventh day, and I think later, later, parts of Scripture expand that a little bit and say that it includes all his decrees; the lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, everything about salvation. And then, I think, another one that comes to mind is in Hebrews, where he’s talking about us entering into God’s rest through faith.

Travis: Right. Yeah, in fact, so I, I, mentioned, I’ve read from Psalm 8 and that Psalm, come features in Hebrews, you know, “what is a man that you’ve made him a little lower then angels, and yet, and you put all things under his feet.” And the he, and the writer of the Hebrews reflects. And yet not all things are under his feet, are they? And yet we do see “Him who was made a little lower than the angels.” Jesus Christ, who for whom he has fulfilled all this for us.

 So when we see the creation out of order, us not able to subdue it and reflect God’s glory, there is one who has accomplished it. And if we’re found in him, then we fulfill our purpose in him. So that’s one of the things that the writer, the Hebrews says, and then also to your point, Hebrews 4:9 and 10 there. “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” This is, again, reflecting on the work of Christ. Okay, yeah. Chuck.

Audience: A couple things I noticed. First, he makes holiness and sanctification communicable, but only to mankind. No?

Travis: Yes.

Audience: Okay. So that’s, it’s, it’s, an attribute that’s communicable to us. He made it that way when he, when he, when he, when he, communicated holiness to the seventh day. He made it holy. Sanctified it.

Travis: Yes.

Audience: The, the, same thing I, I, was thinking is that what he starts he finishes and I was trying to look up the verse where he says, you know, that he will bring to completion our sanctification. So what he starts, he’s going to finish.

Travis: That’s right.

Audience: He’s not going to leave anything undone.

Travis: Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you shall complete it.”

 Audience: Thank you. That goes along with the he started and finished it.

Travis: He started and finish it.

Audience: He’s done.

Travis: Look at all those unfinished books we’ve started and haven’t finished it at home. Right?

Audience: Don’t go there.

Travis: Some books, some books are not worth it.

Audience: He has eternity. God’s not a task, like just a taskmaster. Taskmaster making you do that, he gives you a day of rest where he knows you need something.

Travis: Great. He’s not a taskmaster. And it’s interesting that you say that, because I want to, you go into the law and you see God’s mercy on even slaves owned by, owned by the Jews, owned by the Hebrews. He commands them, to observe a Sabbath, as well.

That you can’t take a Sabbath and say we’re the people of God, we’ll go and spend the Sabbath day resting, and then have your slaves work in the fields for you. No, he’s, we’re not to be tastmasters, be taskmasters, because he’s not a taskmaster. He’s, I mean, he’s bringing us into partnership.

Audience: Then all the world. Where all the world is like America. That’s, that’s, like America’s nickname is like, you know, always work, like busy, busy, go church, you know, like rest nothing. Just work. That dollar.

Travis: That’s right. Yes.

Audience: First place I went when we did, 2, Genesis 2, it says, “God finished his work.” That’s like, I think it’s a verse two. My first thought was, I went to John chapter 19, verse 30, when Jesus has received the sour wine, “He said it is finished and he bowed down his head.”

Travis: Finished it. That’s right. Good, tetelestai. Let me, let me ask a question here. I’m probably going to ask it too ambiguously where you’ll never get the answer. But let me try. What is, what, what happens in, what is not said in day seven, that is said in every, every, other day.

Audience: Evening and morning.

Travis: Morning and evening. There was evening and morning the first day, the second day, the third, sixth day. Seventh day, there’s no evening and morning. What’s that supposed to teach us?

Audience: To continue? In the book of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says, the rest is a continual state, and the goal of, of, salvation is to get us back into that state.

Travis: Good. Good. That’s exactly right.

Audience: I’m sorry, what?

Travis: Say, say, it loudly.

Audience: So in the book of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says that the seventh day is a continual state and that one of the goals of salvation is to restore us back into that state of, of, rest, of seventh day rest. Wow.

Travis: Yeah to end..

Audience: This temporary earth is, is, temporary, is built for seven days type of thing. And then, and then the, the, the seventh day is the, is the, eternal state. Is that what you’re saying?

Travis: No, it’s, it’s, basically saying that the, that the, seventh day here is a pattern or a type, of the kind of rest that we will enter into, in which is an eternal; which is an eternal condition. There’s a, there’s a, a, completion, a finishing, a satisfaction, and then a reflection upon all that’s been done. And so that’s the rest that we enter into in Christ that, that, we will enter into in full practical experience in the eternal state. Yeah.

Audience: That’s beautiful. So where, where, does it say that in Hebrews or what’s the..

Travis: Hebrews chapter 4. I mean, it kind of spans chapter 3 and 4. There’s an argument being made there, that Moses could not have brought people into the rest, and he’s pointing ahead to a future rest, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. So it gets into chapter four, and makes that, so “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts;” as they did in the wilderness, but, you know, there is a day called today.

Audience: There is a Sabbath rest.

Travis: Yeah, there is Sabbath rest for the people of God. That’s Hebrews 4:9 and 10. Yeah, Daniel.

Audience: You mentioned that this is a Saturday. How do we know that specifically? And then you may have mentioned this, but is that, would that be the case why we rest on Sunday?

Travis: Because of, so it is a Saturday, because that’s the, the, the, first day of the week is the Sunday and we kind of marched through in, the sixth, the seventh day that is the Sabbath. The Sabbath is what, the Sabbath day being the, you know, corresponding to the Saturday is what the Jews have practiced all through time and still practice.

 So the, the, reason, so that’s why we know we can reflect on that and, and, see that it’s not Tuesday or something. But the reason we now worship on, not the Sabbath, the seventh day, but the first day, is because Jesus was raised from the dead the first day of the week.

And then we see the early church in the New Testament and then beyond, all gathering, not on the Sabbath, to make a distinction and a break from the Old Testament Jewish community, that they worshiped on the first day of the week in, in, commemoration of the resurrection. That’s why. Yeah. So good question. Okay.

Just quickly, guys, I’m going to read some things from Keil and Delitzsch just to kind of round this out. Hopefully this is good for your reflection, meditation and then not confusing. So if it’s confusing, I apologize beforehand, but I think, I think it’ll help.

These words of verse 1, “The heavens and the earth finished all the host of them.” Words of verse 1, and introduced the completion of the work of creation, and give a greater definiteness to the announcement of verses two to three. “That on the seventh day God ended the work which he had made by ceasing to create and blessing the day and sanctifying it, the cessation is,” skipping ahead, “the cessation itself forms part of the completion of the work for this meaning. Or,” well, I won’t get into the Hebrew there, “as a human artificer completes his work just when he has brought it up to his ideal and ceases to work upon it.”

 So think of any, any, you know, a jewelry maker, a Potter, or anybody who’s making and fashioning something. So as he completes his work, just when he’s brought it up to his ideal, ceases to work upon it. “So in an infinitely higher sense, God completed the creation of the world with all its inhabitants, by ceasing to produce anything new and entering into the rest of His all sufficient-eternal Being, from which he had come forth, as it were, at,” at, “and in the creation of a world distinct from His own essence. Here ceasing to create is called resting in Exodus 20:11.”

It is the command of the Sabbath day. The fourth commandment “ceasing to create is called resting ( נוּח ) in Exodus 20:11 and being refreshed ( ינּפשׁ ) in Exodus 31:17. The rest, into which God entered after the creation was complete, had its own ‘reality in the reality of the work of creation, in contrast with which the preservation of the world, when once created, had the appearance of rest, though it’s really a continuous creation.’(Ziegler, p.27)

“This rest of the Creator was indeed ‘the consequence of His self-satisfaction in the now’ united, ‘united and harmonious, though manifold whole.’”

Okay. So this creation week, everything that he’s done, it’s just as like a jewelry maker makes a band and a, and a, I don’t know what you call that, but like the, the, the setting and then he puts the jewels in it and he clamps them over and he solders then, then he’s done. It wouldn’t be a complete ring without the diamond in it, right. So he’s, he’s, bringing everything together. And we need to think of the creation of the world with us as the diamond in the setting.

 All of it is, though is coming together as a complete whole. That’s what, that’s what, Keil and Delitzsch is saying here. So the, “The rest of the Creator was indeed ‘the consequence of His self-satisfaction in the now united and harmonious, though manifold whole;’ but this self-satisfaction of God in His creation, which we call His pleasure in His work, was also a spiritual power, which streamed forth as a blessing upon the creation itself, bringing it into the blessedness of the rest of God and filling it with His peace.”

 So I think some of you have described, you described it, the peace, the, the, rest of the exhale. The just the, the, satisfaction, the peace. “This constitutes the positive element in the completion which God gave to the work of creation, by blessing and sanctifying the seventh day, because on it He found rest from the work which he by making had created. The divine act of blessing was a real communication…”

 Now again, here’s where the communicative attributes of God come up. The, “the divine act of blessing was a real communication of powers of salvation, grace, and peace; and sanctifying was not merely declaring holy, but ‘communicating the attribute at the attribute of holy,’ ‘placing in a living relationship to relation to God, the Holy One, raising to a participation in the pure clear light of the holiness of God.’”

 And that’s a mouthful. But what, what, he’s saying is it’s in this act of declaring the Sabbath day holy that he is inserting a communicative attribute and in creating the opportunity, now that everything’s brought to completion and now that mankind is there, the communicative attributes of God can be known, in and through us, to, to, all people.

Okay. Does that make sense? Any just, real quickly, any thoughts or reflections on that? Or you want to listen to the rest of what he has to say?

Audience: Necessity of the seventh day?

Travis: Yes.

Audience: Cause without it, what have we, you know?

Travis: Without it, no communicative attributes coming forward. It’s not, not, not, conveying it, not communicating it, not giving us the pattern. Right.

Audience: Again, all things for his glory. That is just that seventh day is one of those things.

Travis: Right.

Audience: Yeah. Without it, we just have a bunch of stuff. Exactly.

Travis:  Yeah. That’s right.

Audience: Living stuff.

Travis: Okay, I’m going to skip this portion here and come to one more thing. “The truth it is that the Sabbath of God has no evening.” So we talked about this no evening, no morning. “And that the σαββατισμός,” the, the, Sabbath “to which the creature is to attain at the end of his course.”

This is talking about the eternal Sabbath. The, the, the, Sabbath rest, we enter into. It will be, it “will be bounded by no evening, but last forever;” But “we must not, without further ground, introduce this true and profound idea into the seventh creation-day.” This is why I’m saying, Brad, it’s only a type, you know it’s not. It’s not meant to do too much here.

 “We can only be warranted in adopting such an interpretation, and understanding by the concluding work of the of creation a period of endless duration, on the supposition that the six preceding days were so many periods in the world’s history, which embraced the time from the beginning of the creation to the final completion of its development, but as the sixth.”

 So he’s just basically saying it’s not intended to communicate that this is like the seventh day is like in this big long duration and we’re not to see an evening setting on it. He’s not, he’s not saying that all the previous days with these big long periods of time, as some theistic evolutionists will say, big long periods of time. And look at the seventh day. Now we’re in the seventh day and it continues on because there’s no evening, no morning. That’s what God’s saying here. No, that’s not what’s going on.

 “As the sixth creation-days, according to the words of the text, were earthly days of ordinary duration, we must understand that the seventh in the same way;” and then all of them, “and that all the more, because in every passage, in which it is mentioned as the foundation of the theocratic Sabbath, is regarded as an ordinary day.(Exodus 20:11; Exodus 31:17).

 “We must conclude, therefore, that on the seventh day, on which God rested from His work, the world also, with all its inhabitants, attained to the sacred rest of God; that this rest of God were made a rest and sabbatical festival for His creatures, especially for man; and that this day of rest of the”, created, “new created world, which the forefathers of our race observed in” paradised, “paradise.

 “As long as they continued in a state of innocence and lived in blessed peace with their God and Creator, was the beginning and type of the rest to which the creation, after it had fallen from fellowship with God through the sin of man, received a promise that it should once more be restored through redemption at its final consummation.”

 That is just summarizing what we have already said, that this is a type and a pattern. We know because this was written post fall, that Moses, all the children of Israel, us, we don’t feel rested. We don’t, we don’t see this beauty, this perfection. You described it Gary, as like this peace, this great peace, this wonderful unity, and harmony, and joy. And we, we, lament the loss of that.

 And the fact that we lament, it points to the fact that it must be restored. And that’s where we look to it being all restored in Christ. “We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the glorious redemption of the sons of God.” Right, Romans 8. That’s what this is revealing for us. Any final comments or questions? Yeah, Dave.

Audience: I went back and looked in Hebrews 4 and in the context the author is referring to Canaan as the rest and said that the people talking about the Israelites and the wilderness, they failed to enter Gods rest because of their disobedience. And then he goes back and refers to the seventh day as God resting.

 So that’s kind of showing that it is a type, you know, talking about that spiritual state and that’s like then, kind of what Brett was referencing earlier in Philippians 4 that, that, that, peace beyond comprehension is promised to us if we obey the Lord and return to him.

Travis: Yeah. Good. Can’t be great. Thank you very much. Good others. Yeah. Scott.

Audience: I’m still a little confused on what Daniel asked you about the..

Travis:  Seventh day, six and seventh day or seventh day and first day, I mean.

Audience: He kind of, I don’t understand because he specified the seventh day to be holy, so he made that day holy and not technically Sunday. So I’m not like real clear.

Travis:  Well either you are a budding Seventh Day Adventist or yeah, but this is, this is, the question of, a question of continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments and what happens in the transition between the Old and the New. And so it’s a, it’s more than we can get into now, but just, we can discuss it. I can, I can show you where they, the, the, the, old is set aside, abrogated, and the, the, rest the, you know, this, this Sabbath rest as a type is able to be commemorated and, and, recognized by us on the first day.

Audience: God intended for the first day then.

Travis: Ultimately in Christ. Yes, and there is a break, there is a discontinuity between the Old and the New.

Audience:  So you, if you did Seventh Day Adventist, they would literally tell you that they are correct. Oh yeah. They would say that we are disobeying that, that..

Travis: That creation mandate.

Audience: Honor the Sabbath day. It sounds like by Old Testament standards, that would be accurate. But according to New Testament and, kind of as Nick was just sharing with me privately, that basically by the apostles that’s starting to recognize and celebrate it on the first day of the week, as a commemoration of Christ resurrection.

Travis: Right.

Audience: That, that’s then, when it started to move to the Sunday.

Travis: That’s right. It’s the Apostolic pattern that we’re recognizing and following and the apostles of Christ have the authority of Christ delegated to them and so it’s Christ we’re obeying in this. Not, not, it’s not our own like we’re just making a decision and coming up with well, we really like that day better.

 It’s not that, and, and, it’s interesting too that, you know, God isn’t, you go into Colossians; anyway, this is a much bigger. The, the, command of, of, the, the fourth commandment of observing the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. Every other command in the, in the, ten commandments is repeated and reiterated in the new Testiment of that one. That one is not.

 So it is here a type, it becomes a type of the promised land. It becomes a type of the eternal state. And so it is not, we’re not to get wrapped up in the day itself. As Colossians says, we’re not, you know, got hung up in new moons and Sabbath days and all that stuff. We’re with that, that’s, that’s, looking at a, a, type and a shadow. But the reality is in Christ.

 So there’s a lot to unpack there about the, the, fact that it is switched from the seventh day to the first day. But that’s what we observe in Christ in the church.

Audience: I answer in many ways, they’re Judaizers.

Travis: They’re Judaizers.

Audience: They grab hold of not just the day, but the Old Testament food laws and things like that and try to bring them in and force those in the New Testament.

Travis: That’s right. There’s a lot of freight being carried on the that seventh day. They try to hold you to that, but that’s just the beginning. Once they, once they, get you to see their argument with regard to; well we need to be worship, it’s wrong to worship on Sunday. We need to worship on Saturday because, look, here it is. Once you do that, yeah, there’s a whole lot more freight coming in on that train.

Audience: because it all comes from the same place. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t be somebody who thinks he ought to worship on Saturday.

Travis: That’s right.

Audience: It’s like the Old Covenant dietary laws and everything.

Travis: Dietary laws and everything. That’s why. That’s why it’s… What’s that?

Audience: That’s what testament means, is covenant.

Travis: Yeah, that’s right.

Audience: Old Covenant. New Covenant.

Travis: That’s right.

Audience: And so if we focus on what that is, we’re focusing on the Old Covenant. Right.

Travis: Right. Good point. Yeah, I And so it’ll be interesting to me to see in the millennial kingdom, is it Saturday or Sunday? I, I, am curious about that because this law was given as a law to Israel, as a, as, it’s society in a box. It’s how they live civil ceremony or more. Everything is wrapped up in one thing that they observe. This makes them a people, no longer a slave, you know, tribes and all that and now a nation, you know, this is what made them a nation.

 We’re not meant to follow every national ordinance of Israel. That’s not what we’re meant to do. But it will be interesting to see in the millennial kingdom when there isn’t you know is an Ezekiel 40 to 48 and the temple is restored and there’s sacrifices.

 Commemorative sacrifices, pointing back, not pointing ahead all fulfilled in Christ with them having the, the, BBQ. You know they’re at the temple and having some lamb. Brett, you’ll probably be up there making some lamb on Sunday. But it is true that, it is true that in this church age, this church age, where we’re doing this on Sunday. And it’s different. It is different. There is a discontinuity. There is a..

Audience: But the church age is temporary. right.

Travis: Yeah. It started in Acts two and will end when Christ returns.

Audience: As even in the eternal state, it mentions Israel as a nation in distinction.

Travis: From the nash, from the nation’s, the rest of the nations. That’s right. That’s right.

Audience: Just as a general point on all this, as I’ve been, I’ve tried to explain some of the, the, whole Sabbath day stuff to Emily, because she’s, you know, she, she, wasn’t quite there in her thinking. And I was listening to what you were preaching, a while back on it.

Travis: I messed her up, huh?

Audience: I messed her up. But, but, in, in, working through that with her, one of the things I’ve emphasize, emphasized is, you know, she’s been concerned about getting legalistic and following all the Old Testament patterns. And I’m just saying, I’ve been trying to emphasize to her that the, when, when, we look back at the Old Testament, it’s for the purpose of, not following strictly the law that was given exclusively to Israel, as a legal thing, but to glean principles that we’re to apply and understand what exactly what’s Gods intent was for the day of rest and other things like that.

Travis: Right. That’s good. So and that, that, that, does speak to how we apply things and put things into practice. So we do need to principalize the text and boil it down to, what is the principle being communicated here. There are even commands even in New Testament, in New Testament epistles to the churches there, we’re not to follow, point by point. You know that’s, that’s a, that’s a misinterpretation; a misapplication of the text. Like a perfect example is the women head coverings issue in First Corinthians 11. You know, that meant something totally different in their day.

 So there is, we’re to boil down the principle and see, okay, now what is normative. Is normative the exact, you know, the thing that he said to the women there? If so, then we all need to have our wives wearing head coverings, doilies on their heads and stuff.

Audience: There are some churches that do that.

Travis: There are, Yeah. There are because they ignore that. They ignore that responsibility they have to boil down the principle and see what is God trying to say and communicate through this practice, this pattern in that society, and what are we supposed to do in our society. Wearing doilies on the heads does not indicate to anybody the glory of the Trinity. Okay. Not in our day. So okay, so off track. We’re way over time.

 Let me pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the time we’ve had this morning in helping us to wrap up the creation week. And we thank you for how you wrapped up the creation week, declaring it holy. We’re grateful for you, Father. We’re grateful for what we’ve learned. And we just asked that you would help us to put these principles into practice in our life. We love you. Thank you. In Jesus name. Amen.