Search
I. Restoring the judged universe — Gen. 1:2-25:
А. The earth was waste and emptiness; and darkness was upon the surface of the deep — the issue of God’s judgment upon His original creation — v. 2a.
B. The Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters — v. 2b.
C. God restored the light to divide the light from the darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night, on the first day — vv. 3-5.
D. God made the expanse in the midst of the waters to separate the waters under the expanse from the waters above the expanse; God called the expanse Heaven, on the second day — vv. 6-8.
E. God gathered the waters under the heavens together into one place and caused the dry land to appear; God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters Seas, on the third day — vv. 9-10.
F. God caused the earth to sprout grass, herbs, and fruit trees, on the third day — vv. 11-13.
G. God restored the light-bearers in heaven to separate the day from the night, for signs, for seasons, for days and years, and for light-bearers in heaven to give light on the earth: two great light-bearers — the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night — and stars, on the fourth day — vv. 14-19.
H. God caused the waters to swarm with swarms of living animals, and birds to fly above the earth in heaven and multiply on earth, on the fifth day — vv. 20-23.
I. God caused the earth to bring forth living animals: cattle, creeping things, and animals of the earth, on the sixth day — vv. 24-25.
II. Creating man — v. 26—2:25:
God’s history in time with man objectively — Gen. 1:26 — Mal. 4:6
А. God created man in His image, according to His likeness, on the sixth day — Gen. 1:26-31:
1. To express Him in person — vv. 26a, 27.
2. To represent Him in office — vv. 26b, 28.
B. Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground (for man’s body) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (for man’s spirit); and man became a living soul — 2:7.
C. Jehovah God put man in the garden of Eden in front of two trees — vv. 8-9:
1. The tree of life, signifying God in Christ as life to man, to be taken by man — Rev. 2:7b; 22:2, 14, 19.
2. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, signifying Satan as the origin of death (Heb. 2:14), to be prohibited from being eaten by man — Gen. 2:17; 3:3.
D. With a river, in the flow of which are gold, bdellium, and onyx stone — 2:10-12.
E. Jehovah God built a woman with the rib of Adam as his wife to match him as his counterpart, signifying that the church was constituted with the resurrection life of Christ to be His counterpart — vv. 18-24; Eph. 5:23-32.
F. God rested on the seventh day after He finished all His work which He created and made — Gen. 2:1-3.
The more you read a book like Genesis, the more you must admit that the Bible is really a record of God’s movements; it is the history of God. You cannot say that the record in Genesis is merely a record of mankind. While it is a record of mankind, it is not primarily such. Genesis is primarily a record of God, then of man. Without God there would be no way for man to be here. God is the Initiator; He is the beginning. Then man came into existence from God. Therefore, if Genesis is a record of man, it must certainly be even more the record of God.
In the previous chapter we saw God in eternity. That was the origin of His history. He did not come from anywhere, because He is self-existing. We have no human words to explain this. He has no parents, no genealogy, no origin (Heb. 7:3). But when He was there in eternity past, He began to move. We saw in chapter 1 that He first began to form an economy, to make an arrangement, according to His heart’s desire for His good pleasure. That was the beginning of His move. Then, in that move there was a council among the three of the Godhead — among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — and a strong determination was made. He wanted to have mankind so that He could have an organism to express Him, represent Him, and even be one with Him. This organism would be His enlargement, His increase. The Bible shows us that eventually after God moves so much throughout all the centuries, the New Jerusalem will come forth. The New Jerusalem is God’s enlargement, as Eve was Adam’s enlargement. Since God as the very substance of the New Jerusalem is embodied in Christ the Lamb and since the New Jerusalem is called the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9), it is absolutely right to say that the New Jerusalem is the enlargement of God.
After God formed His economy and determined to create man and to have Christ, the second of the Trinity, die an all-inclusive, vicarious death, God walked out of eternity and entered into time by means of creation. Creation is a matter in time. This was God’s first step into time. Time began with God’s creation.
When God created, He created the heavens with the angels, the stars, and the heavenly bodies first. He also created the earth with all the things upon it. Then one of His creatures, the chief archangel, became rebellious, and God judged him. This angel became God’s enemy. Hence, in God’s history which exists in time, God first had an enemy due to a rebellion. Because there was a rebellion, the heavens and the earth were polluted, and God therefore judged not only Satan but also the heavens and the earth. The heavens and the earth became devastated, and the whole universe became darkness.
This is what is mentioned in Genesis 1:2. Verse 1 concerns the preadamic age, but our age begins in verse 2. Genesis 1:2 says, “But the earth became waste and emptiness, and darkness was on the surface of the deep.” The word but at the beginning of verse 2 indicates that verse 2 is an additional event. It does not mean that verse 2 is an explanation of verse 1. Verse 1 includes all the matters that we have covered in the previous chapters. Then after verse 1 more things happened: “But the earth became waste and emptiness.” Isaiah 45:18 says that God did not create the earth as a waste, but here in Genesis 1:2 we read that the earth became waste and emptiness. This indicates that after the earth was created, it was judged by God. The judgment came because of Satan’s rebellion. Genesis 1:2 also says that darkness was on the surface of the deep. The deep indicates deep water; hence, darkness was on the deep water. In the Bible darkness and death frequently go together (Job 10:21-22; Isa. 9:2; Luke 1:79). We may even say that darkness is a sign of death. This was the situation of our earth under God’s judgment. It became waste and emptiness, and darkness, implying death, was on the deep water.
Then there is an and in this verse, indicating that something more happened: “And the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters.” The Hebrew word for brooding can also mean “hovering,” as when a mother bird broods over her eggs to bring forth life. This indicates that after God’s judgment, God did something to bring forth life. The situation was really waste and emptiness, and there was darkness on the depth of the water. Then the Spirit of God came in to brood, to hover, over the situation in order to produce life.
Following this, from Genesis 1:3 to the end of chapter 2, there is a long record of how life was brought forth through the brooding of the Spirit. These two chapters are full of striking significances. Every detail of these two chapters has some significance. You should not merely read the letters in black and white; rather, you must know the significance of what you read. In Genesis 1:2 we read about the Spirit. What is the significance of the Spirit here? In the Bible the Spirit always signifies life. What is the significance of the waste, emptiness, darkness, and deep water? All these signify a disaster, and even death. These are all negative things. Then all of a sudden something good came, that is, the Spirit. The Spirit came not to rebuke, not to condemn, but to brood, as a mother bird broods over the eggs. The “eggs” are just the waste, emptiness, darkness, and deep water. These are all terrible things, yet these terrible things came under the brooding of the “mother hen”; hence, they all became “eggs.”
We also were under this brooding. We are out of Adam, and Adam was out of the dust, which was there under the brooding. The dust, which is the earth, was the first thing that came out of the brooding of the Spirit. First, there was the Spirit; then, after the Spirit there was light (vv. 3-5); and after the light the expanse was made (vv. 6-8), which is the air. Then the resurrection of the buried earth came up on the third day, the day of resurrection (vv. 9-10). Hence, the first thing that came up because of the Spirit’s brooding is the resurrected earth. Adam was made out of this earth, and we are a part of Adam. Hence, we came out of the brooding of the Spirit. Our existence came out of the Spirit’s brooding in God’s history. God first came out of eternity and entered into time by creating the heavens and the earth. Then God’s creature rebelled, and God judged him. This rebellious one became God’s enemy, and the entire universe became waste, emptiness, and darkness. Then God moved. He moved by the brooding of His Spirit, and we are included there under that brooding.
The brooding brought forth the earth. But for the earth to produce life, there is the need of light and air. Therefore, on the first day the light was recovered, and on the second day the air, the expanse, was created. Then on the third day, the day of resurrection, the buried earth came up (typifying the buried Christ resurrected), ready to produce life. The producing of life started from the lowest life. There is a sequence of life in Genesis, beginning with the lowest life, the life without any consciousness. First, we find the grasses, the herbs, and the trees (vv. 11-13). These are living things, but their life is very low and without any consciousness. These were created on the third day, immediately after the earth resurrected from the death water.
The light that was restored on the first day was good only for the lowest life, that is, the plant life. It was not good for the higher life forms. Life depends upon light, and the higher the light, the higher the life. The first-day light was a general kind of light; hence, the light-bearers needed to be recovered on the fourth day (vv. 14-19). These are the solid lights, not light in general. These bodies bear the light and give location to the light. The light-bearers, or luminaries, are the sun, the moon, and the stars. These three made the light definite and solid. The general light of the first day was good for producing the lowest life, the plant life without consciousness. But God wanted something more. He wanted not only the plant life but also the animal life. For the animal life, which is a higher life, there was the need of higher light, of solid light. So on the fourth day the sun, the moon, and the stars were recovered. Although the sun, the moon, and the stars had been created before Adam, they were judged by God. In judging them, God stopped their function. This is why the universe became darkness.
On the fourth day the solid lights were recovered to give more light for the producing of higher life. First, there are the fish, which is the lowest life among the animals. Then there are the birds in the air, whose life is a little higher (vv. 20-23). Then comes the cattle life (vv. 24-25). The animal life became higher and higher on the earth.
The fish, the birds, and the cattle all reproduce their young differently, and this indicates the levels of life. In English we say that fish lay eggs, but what they lay is not like the eggs that birds lay. What fish lay are something almost like seeds. Birds, however, are higher. Birds lay eggs that have a hard shell. Furthermore, fish lay countless seedlike eggs, but birds lay a small number of eggs. This also shows that the bird life is higher. Cattle, such as oxen, cows, sheep, and goats, do not lay seedlike eggs or eggs with a shell but have wombs from which their descendants are brought forth. They deliver their young alive at birth. They have a higher life. It is clear then that there are various levels of life. There are the vegetable life, the fish life, the bird life, and the cattle life.
The plant life came out of the shining of the general light of the first day, but the animal life came out of the shining of the higher lights, the solid lights, of the fourth day. The universe was so bright with both the general light and the solid light of the three light-bearers, and the earth was full of vegetation and animals. All of these are quite beautiful. But these are not the highest life with the highest consciousness. Man has the highest created life and is full of consciousness. No animal can do mathematics or develop computers. But man continues to progress in matters like these. Moreover, Genesis 1 tells us that the plants come forth according to their own kind (vv. 11-12), as do the animals (v. 21). But man’s life is not according to man’s kind. Man’s life is according to God’s kind because man was created in God’s image and according to His likeness. Man bears His image. Man resembles God, man expresses God, and man will eventually represent God. Therefore, because man is according to God’s kind, he is very close to God.
These are the steps, the actions, in God’s history. God produced life by brooding as the Spirit upon the waste, emptiness, darkness, and deep water. His goal in brooding upon this devastated situation was to bring forth man. Yet for man to exist, the life in different levels is needed. The cattle, birds, and fish are needed, and the plant life is needed. Furthermore, for all this life to grow on earth, there is the need of the air of the expanse and of the rain from the heavens to water the earth. There is also the need of light, even light-bearers, in the heavens. With these the earth can produce all the things needed by man for his existence, and man was created fully for God. In God’s restoring of the judged universe, His goal was to produce man.
Genesis 1 and 2 are very strange, wonderful, and mysterious in the revelation of God’s creation of man. This is a marvelous step in God’s history. God’s creation of the universe, with the heavens, the earth, and millions of items, is not as strange, wonderful, or mysterious as His creation of man. We need to consider a number of the mysteries related to God’s creation of man.
First, God created man in His image and according to His likeness (1:26). This means that God made a duplication of Himself. He made a copy of Himself. He took a “photo” of Himself. We need a definite and accurate definition of God’s image and God’s likeness. God’s image refers to God’s inner being, and God’s likeness refers to God’s outward form. Since God is invisible, how could He have a form? This is very mysterious.
In Genesis 18 God appeared to Abraham in the form (likeness) of man. Three men came to Abraham, two of whom were angels, but the third One was Jehovah (vv. 1-2, 22; 19:1). Even at Abraham’s time, long before His incarnation, God came in the form of man. Abraham talked to God, and God had a meal with Abraham. That meal was cooked by Abraham’s wife Sarah. Abraham even served water to this wonderful man for Him to wash His feet. God was there in the form of a man. According to our “legal” mind, we would wonder how this could happen. God did not become incarnated to be a man until much later, as recorded in John 1:14. But about two thousand years before Christ’s incarnation, God appeared to man in the form of man already. This is a mystery. This shows us that no one can thoroughly understand the person of God in His Divine Trinity, but we can see all the points concerning Him in the divine record.
God has an inner being and an outward form. His inner being is actually His image constituted with all His divine attributes. God is love; God is light; God is holiness; God is righteousness; God is many items. All these items are the divine attributes. Man was made according to the inner image of God’s attributes. Even after the fall, we human beings still have the image of all the attributes of God.
God’s likeness is His outward form. Abraham saw God in the form of a man. Ezekiel and Isaiah also saw Him in such a form, sitting upon the throne (Ezek. 1:26; Isa. 6:1). God appeared in the form of man. Man’s form is a copy of God’s form. God’s form is the original, and man’s form is the duplication, the Xerox copy, of God’s form.
This is a part of the history of God, with which man is involved. In God’s history He made a duplication of Himself, a copy of Himself. This duplication of God is for the expression of the invisible God. Genesis 1 and 2 are not merely the story of man’s creation, but a full record of God’s history in making Himself a duplication.
When God created man, He first made a form for man. This was the body of man made from dust (Gen. 2:7). The body is the form of man. Never forget that God made man with a form and that this form is a “photo” of God’s form. Man is in the form, the likeness, of God (1:26). The form of our body is marvelous. Besides God Himself, the most beautiful item in the whole universe is man’s form. Consider your eyes, your eyebrows, your nose, your lips, your ears, and even your cheeks. Man is God’s masterpiece.
Then God breathed the breath of life into man’s form (2:7). God did not breathe into any other created thing, but to create man, He breathed into man the breath of life. This breath of life was not God Himself, not the Spirit of God, but it was something out of God, something very close to God’s intrinsic being. When this breath of life got into man’s form, man became a living soul, a living, animate being with life. This is a part of God’s history.
God made a duplication of Himself with a dusty form and the inward breath of life. That breath of life became the human spirit. In Hebrew the word for breath in Genesis 2:7 is translated “spirit” in Proverbs 20:27. Thus, God’s breath of life becomes the spirit of man. The breath of life came into the body of dust, and man became a living soul with a spirit.
God was not within the man He created, but something within man, that is, the spirit of man, is very close to God. The outward form of man is from the dust, but the inner spirit is very close to God. This is why we say that man was made according to God’s kind. God is Spirit, and God made a spirit for man to contact Him (John 4:24). Because we have a part that resembles God, we can contact God through that part. God is Spirit, we have a spirit, and these two spirits are of the same kind.
In addition, God created man with many virtues. These virtues are copies of God’s attributes. God has many attributes, but love, light, holiness, and righteousness are the four main attributes of God. God is love, God is light, God is holiness, and God is righteousness. When God created man, He made a copy of all these attributes in man’s spirit. Therefore, man is a creature with virtues. The lions and the dogs do not have virtues. Only we men have virtues. We love. We like to be in the light and not in the darkness. We also like to be separated. We do not like to be common. We like to be righteous. These virtues were all damaged by man’s fall, yet they are still here. They are the means for us to express God’s attributes.
God’s attributes eventually became the reality of man’s virtues. The attributes are the real thing; the virtues are the outward form. This may be likened to a glove and a hand. The hand, like God’s attributes, is the real thing; the glove, like the virtues, is the outward form, the covering of the hand. At our regeneration, when we were born of God, the elements of God’s attributes were born into our being, mostly into our spirit, so that we may express God in love, in light, in holiness, and in righteousness. These are God’s attributes manifested as our virtues lived out from our spirit.
Even the teachings of Confucius recognized that the highest learning develops the spirit. Man should not behave himself according to his flesh or even according to his soul or his mind. Therefore, the Bible tells us that we must walk according to our spirit (Rom. 8:4). In bodily form we resemble God because we have His likeness, and in our spirit we resemble God because we were created in His image of His attributes. Outwardly we have God’s form, and inwardly, in our spirit, we have God’s image, yet in our created state we still do not have God. God’s desire is for the man created by Him to receive Him as the tree of life.
After God made man as a duplication of Himself, He put this duplication, a living being with a spirit, soul, and body, before two trees — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life signifies God, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil signifies Satan. According to Genesis 2:9, all the trees in the garden were pleasant to the sight, but one among these trees was particular, the tree of life. The tree of life was good for food. God warned man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that he ate of it, he would die (v. 17). This is also a part of the history of God in creating man.
By the side of the tree of life in Genesis 2, there was a flowing river, and this flow issued in three precious materials: gold, bdellium, and onyx stone (vv. 10-12). Bdellium is a kind of pearl produced from the resin of a tree. Onyx stone is a most precious stone. We cannot fully understand the significance of these three precious materials until we read through the Bible and come to its end.
Exodus reveals that gold was the base of the breastplate of the high priest, and this breastplate was full of precious stones (28:15-21). In Matthew 13 we can see precious material once again. In this chapter the Lord Jesus first spoke of the wheat that produces the meal, the fine flour. This is good for the making of a loaf, which signifies the church, the Body of Christ. But that meal was leavened (v. 33), so the Lord followed in Matthew 13 to speak of the treasure (v. 44) and the pearls (vv. 45-46). This treasure must consist of gold or precious stones, the materials for the building of the church and the New Jerusalem (1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:18-20). Pearls are also material for the building of the New Jerusalem (v. 21a).
In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul says, “You are God’s cultivated land, God’s building” (v. 9). The cultivated land, the farm, becomes the building through transformation. The believers, who have been regenerated in Christ with God’s life, are God’s cultivated land, a farm in God’s new creation to grow Christ so that precious materials may be produced for God’s building. As God’s farm, we need the watering (v. 6). This watering causes us to grow and be transformed into precious materials. Paul also says that God’s building should be built with gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12).
In his first Epistle, Peter says that the Lord is a living stone and that we are the living stones who are being built up as a spiritual house (2:4-5). Eventually, at the end of the book of Revelation, the three materials — gold, pearls, and precious stones — are built up into a city. In the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 2, the materials are only existing there, but at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21, the materials have become a building.
Merely to have a tree with a river flowing issuing in three kinds of materials to illustrate God’s purpose in creating man is not adequate. Following this, the divine record speaks of God’s producing a couple (Gen. 2:18-24). For the reproduction and continuation of man, there is the need of the female. God produced the female in a different way. He did not form a female person from the dust of the ground as He did with Adam. God put Adam to sleep, opened up his side, took a rib, and built a woman with that rib (vv. 21-22). When Adam awoke and saw the woman, he said, “This time this is bone of my bones, / And flesh of my flesh” (v. 23). She was one with Adam as his counterpart, his match, his mate. Jehovah God built a woman with the rib of Adam as his wife to match him as his counterpart, signifying that the church was constituted with the resurrection life of Christ to be His counterpart (Eph. 5:23-32). This is the completion of God’s creation of man.
Is this the story of man or of God? We may have the concept that this is the story of man. But actually, this is not merely man’s story of how he was created but God’s story of how He created man. This is God’s history in creating man.
This short part of the history of God in Genesis 1 and 2 is a miniature of the entire Bible. In Genesis 2 there are three materials to be built up into something. Then there is a couple, a husband and a wife. At the end of the Bible there is a built-up city with three precious materials — gold, pearls, and precious stones. This building is the wife (Rev. 21:2), and the Builder is the Husband (Heb. 11:10). This built-up city at the conclusion of the divine revelation is not a material, lifeless city but a corporate living person as the wife, having Christ, such a wonderful person, as her Husband.
