Creation & Covenant (Part 6)

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What does charting the 6 days of creation in parallel with the First Table of the Law teach us? 

God is already present & at work in the opening of Genesis.   Likewise, when the Children of Israel reach Sinai, God is already there.    God speaks the creation into existence just as He later reveals the Decalogue to Moses.  

The text of Genesis is written from the perspective of an observer (Moses, the authors/editors, the reader or readers) standing on the Earth.   I find it helpful to place myself in Moses’ shoes on Sinai as he hears God speaking. 

As Genesis opens, the Spirit of God is hovering, protecting, “quivering” over the deep.  Then,  God speaks, & the environment starts to take shape.  

The first chart deals with the establishment of the environment.   When understood relative to the 1st & 2nd Commandments, we can see & understand that God, without help from anybody or anything else, created the world as His temple (which according to Romans 1:20 testifies to His existence, attributes, & authority) — and the proper use of the environment is not the crafting of idols that represent Him or, for that mattter anyone or anything else.  

We have paired the 3rd Commandment with the creation of the animals.  Keeping in mind that the Noahic Covenant is with all living things, the animals are created first & represent us on the Earth in anticipation of Day 6.    They are in the skies & seas and both in and on the land, testifying to the truth that God is everywhere.    They are God’s servants & representartives in, on, over, & throughout the Earth.     

The 3rd Commandment teaches us to not take God’s name in vain, specifically, we are not to speak “thus says the LORD,” if the LORD has not so said.   In addition, via representative theology, and given the plethora of life all around us, we are to love & respect the animals just as we are to love & respect God, the environment, & each other.    

Broadly speaking the 3rd Commandment is about literal speech & figurative speech.     Every day we testify about ourselves & God just like the living creatures that surround God’s throne in Revelation 5. 

On the 6th Day God created more animals & Adam and Eve.   We paired Day 6 with the 4th Commandment to emphasize that there is a sense in which this stage of creation is a figurative Sabbath, insofar as the animals (Rev. 5) and people worship God both separately & together.  

God also intends for us to build trust relationships with each other & the animals (and all living things), &, when you think about what trust entails, rest is most certainly an element of trust, as is apprehension— apprehension of the beauty of the creation & of God Himself.  

The Sabbath also reminds us to lay down our rooted works righteousness.  It isn’t enough to obey God to worship Him only & refrain from authorizing the created order for faith (theology, philosophy) & practice (ethics), God intends for us to periodically stop working & rest and worship God in & through our resting instead of perpetually laboring (especially laboring in or under our own strength &/or that of others. 

Notice also that as the text moves, not only does Genesis 1 take the form of a suzerain covenant, it also repeatedly states that God pronounced judgments each day, stating that He saw (took inventory of His labors) that it (the then present state of affairs) is/was good.  The LORD’s pattern was to speak His intent while acting & editing, then pronounce, publish, & to covenant & recovenant every step of the way.   

Before the 6th Day concluded, God covenanted with Adam & Eve, and in & through them, the whole of the created order.    

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 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. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to 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.

We paired this text with the 5th Commandment to emphasize rightful authority.   God, without ceding His own dominion, charged Adam & Eve (and in & through them all living things) with administration of the Covenant.   God endowed them (and us) with perpetual, meticulous, & exhaustive covenant authority in each & every sphere of Moral Governance.  

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.

May God bless us all, each & every one & “Go & sin no more.”