40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 2

Episode Date: January 27, 2015

Chad and the guys shed some light on the first words spoken by God in scripture..."Let there be light."

you are listening to a podcast produced and distributed by christholdfast.com please visit christholdfast.com for additional resources this is 40 minutes in the old testament Hey guys, thanks for coming back for another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. Glad that you decided to give it another run. And we didn't get too far last week, but we plan on maybe getting farther than three words. We might even shoot for three verses, I don't know. But that's going to be up to Chad. If you want to contact us

You can contact us at Christholdfast.com Or you can find each one of us On Twitter and Facebook And all of that And you can search us there So Chad what are we going to be Looking at today

Well last time We talked a little bit about The approach to the Old Testament Then we jumped right here to Genesis But as you As you remarked, we didn't get very far. We covered these first three verses, I mean these first three words. But it was a good way to start because it got us to thinking about exactly what God would have us read in this opening verse of his scripture.

And it also got us to thinking about how Christ is at the center of everything that we do, everything that we read here in the Scriptures. Just for those of you who might not have joined us last time, or maybe you've forgotten since then, we focused on this phrase in the beginning and unpacked that, that it's not just a temporal beginning, Not just the start of God's creative work, but this beginning is a beginning that should be capitalized because it's the beginning that is actually Christ himself, that he is the one in whom and by whom God created the heavens and the earth. So if you have the opening word of Scripture pointing us to Christ, then we have certainly started off the right way because we're going to be asking of this chapter like we do every chapter in the Old Testament,

what is Christ speaking to us about himself in these words? So that got us started. we want to we want to move on to uh as much of the chapters we can get to today i think it's important to point out uh something that that might not be completely obvious to people here in these in these opening words of genesis and that is who god describes himself to be it says in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth and as i pointed out already we've already got uh the the hint here of the presence of the word or the logos christ who is the beginning and we have we have god we have god the the father who is in his son creating the

heavens and the earth but then you move on to the second verse of genesis and you've already got mention of the spirit of god it says the earth was formless and void and darkness is over the surface of the deep and the spirit of god was moving over the surface of the waters now this is this is remarkable and i think it's it's worthy of uh of focusing in on for a couple of minutes uh it is something that the christians often have remarked upon but it's also something that really uh is missed by by many christians not not long ago i was teaching a bible class on uh on genesis and we looked at these opening verses of scripture and one of the one of the members of the class uh in just completely honest way said that he had never really thought about

the fact that that you have the trinity in the old testament you know he uh he knew that god was father center holy spirit but he just never had really considered the fact that god was was always that way that that already in the beginning in fact before the beginning that god is uh three persons and united in in essence so it's a good thing for us to bring out and to emphasize that it's not as if god has you know evolved into a trinity that he started out as this just kind of a unity kind of god a unitarian kind of god and then over time he became three persons this is who god is this is who he has always been and who he's who he's always going to be he's the father the son and the holy spirit and we have the opening uh opening chapter of scripture already

pointing us as to as to his identity but there's something else here too that i think is is worthy of note not just his identity but really we have already in the second verse mentioned the spirit of god hovering over the face of the waters now what's uh what's telling is the the hebrew verb that is that is used here the translation that i'm reading from is the new american standard other other translations rendered this verb a little bit differently when it says the spirit of god was was moving it it's the verb there for the movement of a bird so he's he's fluttering or He's hovering over the surface of the waters. This same verb is used in the book of Deuteronomy to describe how a bird hovers over her nest.

So think about this. I like to do this with any part of the Old Testament. You don't look at it in isolation. You always look at it as to where it fits in the broader perspective of the Scriptures. So when I read Genesis, I'm not just reading Genesis. I'm reading Genesis in light of the rest of the Torah, in light of the Psalms, in light of the Gospels, but most importantly, in light of Christ himself. So you're always looking at it from the bigger picture. So if we look at verse 2 of Genesis from this bigger picture perspective, what do we see?

Well, we've got the earth, which is nothing but formlessness and void and waters everywhere, and the Spirit of God appears as some bird-like manifestation of God, hovering over the surface of the deep. and you you can't hear the second verse in genesis without hearing it in connection with other biblical stories so you think of the bird that occurs a few chapters later in the account of the flood once more you have the dove associated with the waters when noah sends out the the dove at the at the end of the flood but then you also move from there to the account of jesus baptism where you have the son in the water of the jordan river you have the father speaking from heaven and then you have the holy spirit appearing and landing upon him in the form of a dove now what's amazing about all of these connections is that when we read those

in light of what we have here in genesis it it shows us that the spirit already from the beginning and then progressing through these biblical narratives is associated with water so the spirit and water they're they're joined they're joined together the spirit appears as a dove or there's there's the dove at the at the flood there's the spirit appearing as a dove at the baptism of the jordan river now when you read genesis in connection with the baptism of jesus and when you see the holy spirit active in both in connection with water it tells you something it tells you that the spirit is the spirit who is connected with this water in creation to bring about life because it's from this it's from this water

in genesis 1 that all life is to emerge peter says that everything was made out of water in the beginning it's like the primal source of creation not dirt not anything else but water Water is like the elemental stuff of creation. Everything comes from water. So as you read through the rest of Genesis, all of these things start coming from water, the very water over which the spirit was hovering. So the spirit is the one at the water bringing forth this life that manifests itself in all these varieties in Genesis 1. And it's the same spirit in the account of Jesus' baptism that is also bringing forth life. He is there at the baptism of Jesus, not just as a witness that Jesus is the Messiah,

but who is also with the Word, that is the Son, and with the Father, bringing forth a new creation. He's bringing forth life from the water of baptism, the water of Jesus' own baptism, in order that he might give us a new creation, a new life. So there's a whole theology of the spirit that is woven into this particular account, this particular part of the creation account, and then that follows through these other stories of the water and life coming from the water. that's something that you don't you don't hear a lot about in a lot of sort of mainstream evangelicalism and stuff um you know even you talk about peter and even when he talks about when he draws the correlation between baptism and the flood sort of everyone gets the idea of people going into the ark and you know the ark is a type of christ and if you're in the ark then you're saved uh you know and and that's all that's true but there's something to do with

the water there that god uses water to do what he does it to to wash away wickedness which is which is the same thing he does in baptism where it's uh you know repent and be baptized and and uh for the forgiveness of sins or you know uh in the in paul's testimony where uh you know he says why do you wait go rise and be baptized and have your sins washed away that that this correlation between what god does through the spirit can you know in connection with water is the removal of wickedness of sin and this kind of thing of unrighteousness and then something new is born out of it you come out you come out new you're a new creation and and even in the kind of flood the waters recede and uh you have you know you have a rainbow and then you have you have life starting over again

That's not something that is drawn upon a whole lot in modern theology. I think what I appreciate the most about it is how intimately God links his presence to the things of creation. The Spirit is not simply way up in heaven, but the Spirit is right there at the water. And we see God doing that throughout the rest of his interaction with Israel and, of course, with the church as well. God is not a God who is ashamed of his creation, who separates himself from his creation. Quite the opposite. He's the God who binds himself to these things of creation so that in them he might give us forgiveness. He might give us life and salvation and a new creation.

So when God says that creation is good or that it is very good, it's not just a stamp of approval, but it's also him claiming that this good creation is the way that he gives good gifts to us. And one of the ways he does that, of course, is through water. He does wash away that wickedness, and he replaces it with the righteousness that is his very own, makes us new creatures. So the Spirit of God is there, the Son is there, the Father is there, already in these opening two verses of Genesis. and then i i think another good thing to talk about just for a minute is is the first words that god speaks the first recorded words are let there be light now it's

if we can unpack that a little bit i think it would be would be helpful just to kind of open our minds to understand exactly the fullness that's latent in in the old testament we skim over these words very often and we don't see that that that they're uh that they are packed with a significance that is beyond uh their brevity so it's four words but packed into these four words is really is really the gospel so think think about this in connection with uh what we see in the new testament and uh maybe you can uh give me some of your thoughts here uh on how john uses this image of light and and god to talk about to talk about the sun And I want to focus us just for a minute on how Paul reads these words.

Now, we read them ordinarily. I mean, if you ask a typical Christian, what does it mean when God said, let there be light? They would say, well, that's when God created light, which is true. But when Paul reads them, he sees even more there. I'm looking here at his second letter to the church at Corinth. chapter 4, and Paul's been talking about his ministry, what he preaches, and he says that the God of this world, meaning the devil, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Now already there we have this Genesis language in there because we have the image mentioned and we have light mentioned as well as this world. But the God of this world, that is the devil, he's blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they don't see this light. But if we look at verse 6, look what Paul does here. This is 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6. Paul says, for God, who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. This just blows me away because what Paul has done is he's taken the very first words that God spoke. and he has read out of those the revelation of god in jesus christ he's read out of those the the active work of god to bring us to faith and he's read out of the out of those how how god

has shown us the light of who he is in one particular place and one particular person in the face of his son so if i could say it a little bit differently when god said let there be light he shows us several things first of all he shows us that apart from him and his word there's only darkness so that's really where we are apart from apart from god we are we are enveloped in darkness Our hearts are darkened. They've been darkened by the God of this world and been darkened by our own sins. So that apart from the word and the work of God, we're kind of like this creation was before God said let there be light.

We're formless. We're void. Darkness is over us. That's the first thing. And the second thing is that when God speaks, his word creates what it says. So God says, let there be light. And there's light. His words are not like our words.

His words actually do what they say. They create things. So if God says, let there be light, there is light. And that's the same way that he works with us. When God calls us to faith, when God calls us to life in his son, his word actually gives what it says we don't create faith in our hearts we don't bring ourselves back from the dead we don't dispel the darkness of unbelief that is uh all around us and inside us instead god does that so i mean we call it monergism which is just a theological word for

the fact that god does all the work but that's really what's happening here so conversion is really the same as creation in creation god brings all things into being out of his grace and power in conversion he brings us into being his children by his grace and and by his power and he does this by means of his by means of his word he speaks into existence that which did not exist. And in so doing, he drives away darkness, and he replaces it with the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Christ. And that's, I think, the third and the most important point to be made here, is that God doesn't just speak faith into our hearts, doesn't just speak light into our hearts but this it's a particular light it's a particular word about a particular person

it all centers upon his son because that's really where you have god revealed it's where you have light revealed that's really where our new creation comes from is the the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of christ so in these opening words you've got all of this gospel saturation shining forth for us to see. Just to see if I'm connecting this correctly, when Peter says in Acts 2, repent and believe, it sounds like a command, but then

God's words, let there be light, or let light shine out of darkness, also sounds like a command, but it's a command that is doing what it's being told to do is am i am i connecting that correctly there yeah that's it we hear let there be light we hear repent and believe we hear uh to draw from one of the gospel accounts we hear jesus saying lazarus come forth these are all imperatives these are all commands from God telling something to happen, and yet these words bestow what they say. So it's not as if God is somehow saying the words

and then letting people kind of mull it over as to whether they want, by their own will, to make a decision to let this happen. God is, in these commanding words, also making them creative words giving what he says wow so when i when i take uh when i take on a theology that's foreign to scripture and i say well i made a decision to follow christ to believe in him that was my decision by my own will i'm really undermining the power of god in creation but also in

recreation and salvation yeah and I think really one of the in my own experience what it does is it creates this kind of doubt you know because anything I do I

somehow mess it up whatever I'm involved in I somehow I can't quite do it perfectly so So if I think of my salvation in those terms, well, if anything were really up to me – I mean if any little segment of it was up to me, I'd mess it up. But the good news is that because God does it all, it's perfect. It's complete, and because of that, I don't have to doubt as to whether I'm his child. I don't have to doubt as to whether I'm forgiven because it's not up to me.

It's not my decision. It's not my action. Instead, it's all the creative work of a good and loving God. So I think that's a great point to emphasize because it creates comfort for us. It creates hope for us because the speaking God, the creating God, is also the one who is the converting God and the grace-giving God. So that's a few things that I was thinking about. I don't know, Dan, if you wanted to bring in a little bit of John 1. We were talking about that earlier before we started the podcast and how that fits in here with Let There Be Light.

yeah well you see john um it's it's really evident that john is is playing on on genesis at the beginning of his gospel that he's you know in the beginning was the word and this kind of thing but he also says that um he also refers to that word as as as the true light that that that christ is the light of all men that he is that he's come that the true light that enlightens all men was coming into the world this is what the incarnation is and and that is to say then that all the light and we see this with with everything in creation and jesus does this over and over again in his life but what we see is that that john is saying that light even as we know it um as we step outside and light hits us in the face or we go into a dark room and flip on a light switch that

all of those things are are just pointing you back to christ that that he is the true light that enlightens all men um and so all light is a is a type and a shadow of of a light that uh the true light they rid the first light and you and you see jesus do this over and over again as well you see him do it with uh vines and branches you see him do it with doors you know uh i am the door i i am the i am the vine this kind of thing and and so i really believe that like in creation and even in the things like simple things like doors which are things that you know we make that that there's christ we see christ everywhere that that you walk through a door and that's just a this is another type and shadow of of christ it's not it's not the real thing but the real

thing is christ he's he's the true door and you know vines that uh those speaks that that christ is telling you something that the god who created those things is telling you something about his son about about his plan of salvation through the things that he's created um that they're not these things don't just exist um just just to be there but they exist to tell us something about god uh something about his son something about us and uh that's that's a beautiful thing and it And it makes you have to step back and sort of observe things with a bigger sense of awe and wonder that, you know, what is it that God, you know, you don't want to get, you know, some people might be, you know, put off by this kind of language like, oh, seeing God in creation. You know, that sounds very, you know, new agey or something like that. But this is the truth that God has attached himself to it, and he is saying something in the things that he's created about himself.

Yeah, I think you could say that with the kind of eyes that Christ wants us to have, the kind of ears that he wants us to have, the kind of mind that he creates within us, then we can see all around us these windows into who he is. And not just that he exists or that he's all-powerful, but when our ears and our eyes are in tune with the scriptures, then all of creation opens up as this immense pulpit from which Christ preaches to us about himself, whether that's light, whether that's doors, whether that's the earth itself. If we view creation rightly, we always view it as an icon of a good and gracious God who has given us life in his Son. It would be good for us to talk just a minute also about something that occurs a little bit farther down in Genesis 1. And we'll be coming back to this, but the creation of Adam and Eve of humanity is brought up here in verses 26 and following. And we can look at those in particular. I think a good question to ask, though, is why God made man to begin with? What purpose or what goal did he have in mind?

I've always loved a quote from St. Irenaeus. He was a second-century church father, and creation meant a lot to him because his opponents were the Gnostics who were creation-denying heretics. Creation for them was the work of a lesser deity. So creation was not good. In fact, the Old Testament was not good to the Gnostics. So Irenaeus spent quite a bit of time

talking about creation and how the creator uses the things of creation in order to give gifts to his people. But this particular quote from St. Irenaeus is that God created man in order that he might have someone upon whom to bestow his blessings. I've always loved that quote because I think it orients our thinking rightly. Instead of seeing man as created to be a servant to God, instead of seeing man as something that was created in order to glorify God, it's a completely different understanding of the purpose. Instead of God, as it were, creating something for himself to do for him, he creates man in order that he might have someone to give his gifts to.

Is it really that different than even our own children? I didn't decide to have a child so I could bring glory to myself. um but but like what is a child other than something to to lavish lavish affection and and blessing on um and to care for uh now i must say that creating something for my own glory definitely sounds like something i would do uh that's that's very much within my nature that i would do such a thing um but uh i don't know that we want to you know and certainly it does glorify god but it glorifies god in a way that you might not think because while i might create something for the express purpose of bringing glory back to myself we might not want to do that with god

lest we make god like us because while it does glorify god it's like this um you take john 3 16 and you say uh for god so loved the world that he that he gave his only son and you say like well why do you do it well he did it to bring glory to himself well that's okay uh i guess that you can you could say that but uh but what if he did it because of the reason that the text says he did it what if he did it because he so loved the world well you might turn around and say well that's that's a glorious thing and so when push comes to shove you ask yourself what actually brings more glory to god a god who creates everything because he's a he's a glory hound and he he must he must have it or is he glorious because he has no need of us but creates us anyway as objects to

pour out his affection and blessing and gifts well that is glorious and i would i would argue that that's more glorious than just creating something for the purpose of glory yeah i would agree that's The glory of God is revealed in his gift-giving nature. He manifests his glory in the giving of life. He manifests it in the giving of forgiveness. So God is most glorious when he's most giving. Yeah. I mean, is it safe to say that God created us? I mean, if you really want to just really boil it down, just make it simple and just say that, well, God created things because he's good.

Exactly. And his goodness is the kind of goodness that is not content to stay bottled up, but it spills forth in creation itself. It continues to spill forth in his ongoing care of his people, and then, of course, most especially in the giving of his son, which is which is which is nothing more than the the restoration of the creation that he gave in the beginning so his his reason for creating adam and eve his reason for creating all of us is not because he yeah it was a glory hound not because he was in need of something but because

he simply wanted to have those upon whom he could bestow his gifts it's uh you know you think about uh all of us you know why do i why do i exist why am i here why was i even born what purpose do i what purpose does my existence serve people struggle with those kinds of deep questions And this really answers them. You were born, you were created in order that God might just lavish His love upon you. That's why. Because He has so much love. He is love, and He has so much love that He wants to have those upon Him that He can give His love to, pour His love into.

So that's why you exist. And it really completely changes at least my understanding of why I exist. I don't exist for myself. I don't exist to do things for God. I am here because God wanted a child that he could love, that he could cherish, that he could take care of, that he could give his gifts to. that he could save and redeem in jesus christ so uh that glorious action is the cause of my giving of thanks because it really it establishes my identity this is who i am now when i uh when i used to have a glory-centered theology and i used to believe that i existed

for the purpose of serving God. Looking back on that, I should say, I realize how actually man-centered that was, how me-centered that was. My entire theology in centering on the glory of God, that I existed for the glory of God, really turned the sights back on me and what I was doing to serve him,

how well I was doing. And it was a, it was a, besides being an uphill battle, it became a endeavor or an exercise in narcissism. I could, I could pat myself on the back when I thought I was doing good. And I could fall into the pits of despair when I, all about me, even despair is narcissistic. Oh, poor me. but uh you know and i i struggle a little bit with depression but uh that's um that's something that i've realized is uh i've been able to break free from that not i break but god has freed me from uh certain aspects of depression as i've realized that it's really not about me i mean it is, but not in the sense that I have to do something to give God glory. And it turns my

whole theology around from a theology of glory or a man-centered theology, we should say the theology of the glory of man, the glory of me, to a theology of the cross, a theology of Christ being at the center. And that just, oh, the love that he wants to lavish on me completely frees me, the forgiveness of God given to me when I don't even deserve it. Just like from the beginning, man didn't deserve to be created, to be given a garden. And it wasn't dependent on his work in the garden that he was placed there, but all God's gift. Now, we had a lot of free time on our hands, so we needed the garden to work in, of course, and we wanted to do that. But now this is not focusing in on man.

It's God giving his gift to man from the beginning. And still, today, it doesn't suddenly switch because God's plan got messed up or something, and now I've got to try to make it up. But it really is all on God from the beginning even up until now. It's still God. There's a phrase that's kind of been not really a motto, I guess, more of a miniature creed for me, if you will, through the years. It's real simple, but I think it sums up a lot of what you're saying and a lot of what Genesis chapter 1 is saying too. Four words, God gives, we receive. It's as simple as that.

That is the sum of who we are. It's the sum of the creation account. Really, it's the summary of our entire existence. God gives, and we receive. We are receiving creatures, and he is a giving God. And it underlines the fact that theology and the scriptures are not just kind of esoteric type things, but this is the stuff of real life. This is what gives hope to people.

This is what gets you through those hard times. This is what allows you to live another day in thankfulness for what God has done for you because you know that you are so important to God that he's created you, so important to God that he has redeemed you, so important that he's promised that nothing and no one will ever be able to separate you from the love that he has for you in Jesus Christ. and that is the source of our hope a tremendous hope that is brighter than any darkness that could try to envelop us well that's a wrap on that we got a little bit farther

so I think we'll probably still be on Adam I assume next week and we'll see how far we get through that but please go over to ChristFullFast.com and you can check out other podcasts and sermons and articles and other resources. So we hope that you will join us again next week

for 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. Thank you.