Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Genesis and Creation (2) - Gods Perspective

Genesis One describes creation from God’s perspective. God existed in the heavenly or spiritual dimension before the earth was created. He created the earth and everything in the universe by speaking and commanding from his place in heaven. His words and their consequences are described in Genesis One from a heavenly perspective. Genesis 2 switches to a more human perspective.

The seven days of creation describe how God’s activity was punctuated. Given that we are being given a glimpse of God at work, we should be careful about saying that it can be understood in terms of human concepts of time and activity. When God does something in a day, we cannot know what that means, because we do not understand how God works. I am reluctant to say that days of creation were seven 24-hour days, as we know them, because my human mind can only partially understand what a day looks like in heaven.

Seven literal 24-days cannot be my stake in the ground with respect to creation. Genesis One gives a description of what God was doing in the heavenly dimension, so it cannot be interpreted in the same way as written description of a human baker baking bread. Genesis One is not the beginning of history on earth, but a description of what happened with God in the heavenly dimension, but using human categories of thought.

1 comment:

Gene said...

I don't know if it will help, what if days in heavenly perspective are eons.

Eras.

Times.

Dawn and dusk of a creation moment.

Then how long is it? This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Day? 24 hours? Or Day, time, or age.

Just pondering. But, my friend, you and I are on the same page.

On the other hand, I believe in the events of Genesis precisely and exactly in execution. I just don't know the times and seasons it took to cause them all to come to pass.

The writers of the new testament looked for the DAY of Jesus return. We still do.

Yet Days have passed. And it's still the Day of the Lord.

To God everything is NOW anyway. Time is a created thing.