Theology Post 3.1

[Jason]

What is the importance of the creation story to theology, soteriology, and eschatology?

How do you relate this to practical day-to-day living for Christ?

What about doxology?

Let's try to keep this one on the importance of the topic and not on the days of creation, age of the earth. I want to discuss how this impacts our thinking and our lives.

Link to Theology Post 3

[xulon]

Hebrews 11:3 also links it with the very nature of faith. This is one of the verses which leads to v. 6: Without faith it is impossible to please him. For the one who comes to God must believe he is and he is the rewarder of those who seek him.

[Marv]

I've brought this up before, but this thread is exactly the place to mention it. There are surely many ways to unpack Gen 1 but this is the way I do. It is God's first introduction of Himself (in the text) and described His introduction of Himself (to the cosmos). I see it as the beginning of His covenant, literally the beginning of the covenant being made with the new nation of Israel under Moses. He is telling them, us, just who this is with whom we have to do. I trace seven themes. Four of who He is and three his works. All seven are traceable through the Bible and flesh out the salvation God provides, and all seven point to Christ.

1. He is Creator. This is the first relationship in which we know Him. At least this is the largest concentric circle, because we share the role of "creature" with all the universe. Being Creator, God has inherent rights: first to receive glory from His creation, recognition and approprite response to His divine excellence (a right we violate two chapters later). And He has the right of ownership. It is He who has made us and we are His. John tells us nothing was created without the Word. That that Word was incarnated and was rejected by His own creatures. By His work He brings about a New Creation in us who believe. Then a new creation of Heaven and Earth.

2. He is King. Because He speaks and it is done. One creature, at least decides to disregard His voice of authority. (That would be me.) The King acts to reestablish His rule. He establishes a nation and eventually a kingdom, Israel. The very institution of Israel's kingship becomes the vehicle in which the Son enters the world and becomes King of Kings. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Then the kingdom of this world becomes the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

3. He is judge. He sees and says it is good or it is not good. What is good is good because it reflects His character, i.e. it gives Him His due glory. Someone suggests that God being judge and our not being judge is somehow His holding out on us. So we see for ourselves what is good (for food, for becoming wise). And in becoming wise we become fools. So God appoints One Man to be judge of all the earth. And He is coming to judge the living and the dead.

4. He is father. Because He makes man "in his own image." He is making a people for Himself. Christ will later come to bring many sons to glory, he being the firstborn among many brethren. We will be His people and He will be our God. As father, He is also our provider. He established a bubble of perfect balance in a universe of chaos, a "habitat for humanity" where man can live. He is the Father of Lights from whom every perfect gift comes. He is YHWH who provides, who gave His son as a gift, and even His salvation, even faith is a gift provided by Him

5. He created light. First. This is the message. God is light and in Him is no darkness. Light is throughout Scripture a visible symbol of His holiness and righteousness. It is too little a thing for the Christ to be sent to redeem the lost of Israel. God will make Him a light to the nations. He is the light of the world. Indeed Christ Himself tells His people, they are the light of the world, that is what the nation is for. But He is the point of the nation, of the people, and He is the light that coming into the world shines on all. Men hate that light because they love darkness. But He restores sight to the blind and speaks into the darkness of lives and hearts and says let there be light. In that day, the eternal day, there will be no darkness, and no need of a sun, for God and the Lamb are the light.

6. He separates. Light from darkness. What fellowship has light with darkness. He not only symbolizes His holiness with light, He demonstrates that He separates darkness from it. He separates a people for Himself out of the mass of humanity. He establishes a remnant, first dividing humanity into nations, and then separating out for Himself a nation. He separates this nation from the nations by means of the Law, the covenant, the constitution of His nation. His nation exists to inject into human history His redeemer, the Son of Man, who will separate out God's elect from mankind. With His coming the Law is perfectly fulfilled, and has fulfilled its separating function (though it still embodies God's holiness). The redeemer turns the remnant principle ninety degrees and now works cutting across the grain of the the nations (all part of the plan). So that He is bringing in His people, His elect, His remnant from ever tongue and tribe and nation. (He will turn the orientation again, but not to the nation-only remnant of Israel, but encompassing both the warp and woof of His people, the nation and the nations.)

7. He is Lord of Time. He creates time. He does this before even putting the celestial clocks in place. A day is a day because He made it so. This is the day that the Lord has made. He gives us our time, our time of life. He establishes the rhythm by which His people will live. He builds the number seven into the universe, into His covenant, into His nation, His people. Seven is a numerical symbol for His own holiness, as light is also a symbol of it. Seven occurs throughout the life of His people. Sabbaths, sabbaths of years, jubilees. Even the captivity. Then Daniel's prophecy of seventy sevens. This point to the coming of the Messiah. In my understanding there is one seven left. It is hard to miss that seven in Revelation. Time itself is a symbol of eternity, and at the end of time, God brings us into His rest, the eternal New Heavens and Earth.

Thus we see abundant expression of theology proper, the plan of His salvation, and the eschatological goal of His plan.

This also encompasses an understanding of His glory. He is bringing glory to Himself in a people for Himself, who will glorify Him forever.

Practical day-to-day...meditation on Who He is brings us back to who we are, His creatures and His children. And it helps keep our eyeballs on Him and off of ourselves.

[Jason]

Ser,
We're ok so long as we both realize that there are true stories :-)

love4theword said:

First off. I wish you had said Creation account, not story.

Second off, I think to call into doubt the first 11 chapters of Genesis is very problematic especially in light of Jesus' quotes about creation in the gospels. I don' t think it is a stretch to say doubt one doubt the other.

practical day to day living for Christ? see doubt one doubt the other. Doing so would certainly seem to impact how much weight is given to following the things Jesus said, or resting in His promises.

LYB

Sorry if I caused any issues in the other thread.