The Point of Genesis

The Book of Genesis is a source for many topics of interest. In it one can find fascinating perspectives on history, regaling dramas between gods and men, and a multitude of controversial points of discussion. The text itself though was never meant to be a mere cache of water-cooler conversation matFerial. Its purpose is to shape the way that people understand the world around them and their relationship to God. Its dramatic telling of the creation of the world, of God’s struggle with chaos in nature and in men’s hearts, and of the interactions between the different human tribes, is meant to give people a picture of who they are in light of the God of Genesis. Many people see Yahweh as a stoic figure, sitting atop a Holy Mount and unapologetically handing out divine wrath and judgment. Others see God as an absentee creator, one who put things together and then took off leaving men to fend for their selves. Both of these views suffer from a lack of a careful reading of what Genesis is saying to mankind. The God of Genesis is a God who cares about holiness to be sure, but he also cares about his creation and that they would come to a place where they would also understand and care about holiness in the same way God does. The people God has created are meant to be a Royal Priesthood, joined with God in ministering a process of creative love throughout the entire Earth. A thorough reading of Genesis will reveal this and will also dramatically shape the way we live our lives and relate to one another.

On the seventh day, God rested. What does that mean? Is God simply relaxing and having a lemonade? This is the common understanding of Genesis chapter 2, verse 2. Creation was complete and now God could kick up his feet in heaven and enjoy a nice relaxing couple of millennia. It would have been great if Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten that cursed fruit, right? I submit that what Genesis is actually saying here is that God is taking up his royal throne and assuming management over his creation. The “rest” that is implied here is a type of stability which occurs after a battle or a crisis and now God is ready to get down to business. John Walton puts it well, “When a newly elected president looks forward to taking up his residence in the White House, it is not simply so he can kick off his shoes and snooze in the Lincoln bedroom.

It is so he can begin the work of running the country.” God has built the Earth as a temple for his rule, a residence for his kingly management of creation. His rest is his rolling up his sleeves and getting to work on making this world into something truly remarkable. We can see this clearly when the Lord proclaims through Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool, what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?” It is clear that God’s rest is his sitting on his throne and executing his kingly rule, he has created the heavens and the Earth as temple for him to reside in and manage. What then is the role of God’s people in this royal place? We can read in Genesis 1:26 and 28 that God has created blessed humans to have “dominion” over the Earth. Verse 28 reads, “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.” If dominion is given to man, does it still also belong to God? Of course, God is eternally sovereign over creation. He has made man to partner with him in ministering his divine rule to creation. He has made us in his image to represent God as ambassadors to the Earth. In short, God has created us to be a Royal Priesthood.

The creation account in Genesis 1 is actually a war story. It is the triumphant tale of God’s defeat and mastery of the chaos of primeval Earth. Genesis 1:2 tells us that, prior to God’s creative activities the Earth was “without form and void”. Pointedly, it had no order or function and it was not habitable for life. Jeremiah uses similar language in describing a vision of a desolate land where he, “…looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord…” God takes the Earth in this desolate state and molds it into a world teaming with life and habitable for man, a world of order and relative peace in the face of formlessness and chaos. He subdues the desolation, but does he totally vanquish it? Referring back to verse 28 of Genesis 1, you will recall that God commanded his newly created priesthood to “subdue” the Earth. Clearly, if God had totally and utterly defeated all that was “without form” there would be nothing left to subdue, leaving this command meaningless. Two things can be said from this line of reasoning. First, God’s creative work is the work of bringing life and order out of desolation and chaos. Second, God desires mankind to partner with him in the ongoing process of creation by subduing the Earth and filling it with life. So, what is God’s intention in creating the royal priesthood called humanity? He wants a partner through which He can continue to mold and shape the formlessness of Earth into something appropriate for God’s purposes, or tov in the Hebrew.

In molding this partner in which to continue creation, God has taken a great risk. A partnership implies that both parties have some say in what product the agreement produces. While God is perfect and omnipotent, humans are not. Our freewill and fragile nature makes us infinitely more susceptible to mistakes and failings than our divine counterpart. However, in the failings of man, God has the opportunity to show himself faithful and true to his promises, and even more willing to continue this partnership, in spite of our flaws. The story of the Great Flood demonstrates this well. In Genesis 6 it is said, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Mankind had indeed failed to live up to their high purpose and the Lord was grieved. This begs the question, how can an all-knowing and all-powerful God be grieved? Would not such a God be able to at least prevent this sort of thing from happening, and if not, could he not have at least seen it coming and prepared himself emotionally? These are fair questions. Of course God is an all-powerful deity, but he seems to be willingly limiting his own omnipotence out of the love and respect He has for his partners in creation. He did not create man to be slaves or mindless automatons. He desired a relationship of love and comradery, and this requires a measure of respect for mankind’s freewill, even if it is “only evil continually”. Our God will willingly sacrifice and limit his very nature out of love and respect for the partnership he has formed with humanity. He will allow us to make bad decisions and will allow the consequences of said decisions to play out. Surely, he will use these occasions to instruct us in how to live more righteously, but he is no tyrant. This relational dynamic is further buttressed by the covenant God makes with Noah after the flood. While smelling the pleasing aroma of Noah’s burnt offering, God is moved and proclaims, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” Indeed, man’s heart had not been cured by the flood and wickedness would again cover the Earth. The Lord knew this and would have been well justified in bringing divine judgment in the same manner, but he willingly limited himself for the sake of man’s survival. In this, the Lord demonstrated the lengths he was willing to go for man and their survival as his partner in creation.

Another fine example of mankind’s relationship to God can be found in the covenant God makes with Abram after his daring night rescue of his nephew Lot, found in Genesis 15. The Lord causes a great sleep to fall on Abram and the Lord makes his promise to an unconscious recipient. This is significant because it shows to an even greater extent that the Lord will stand by his promises made to us, even if we are unable to agree to them. He knew that Abram was flawed and would jeopardize the great blessings he had in his future, yet he entered into covenant with him anyway. Were Abram awake, the agreement would have been contingent on the word of two parties. By enacting this covenant while Abram was asleep, the Lord was essentially declaring that, in spite of how flawed and rebellious mankind is, he will not break the relationship we have with him. We are in this partnership with God whether we like it or not, and “…neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The people of God are a Royal Priesthood, here to minister God’s love to the world and wage a battle against the forces of chaos and desolation. We are not perfect and in our natural state we can be wicked and full rebellion against this great calling. That does not matter; God has made his commitment to us in spite of our wayward nature. Like the prophet Hosea, God will continually pursue us as his bride even after the most deplorable treachery. For the people to whom Genesis was written, this message was truly revolutionary. The ancient cultures of the Middle East worshipped Gods who looked upon humanity as slaves and servants, nothing more than worker bees to collect the honey. Understandably, this bred a culture which did not value the sanctity of human life leading to rampant violence, subjugation, and human sacrifice. For a text to proclaim that humans are made in the image of God and are his partners of creation in the world was an idea which shook those fallen cultures to their foundation. The ancient Hebrews developed a profound sense of human worth and reverence for life as a result. They also realized that their relationship to God was intimate and built upon love, hence the emotionally charged literature of the Old Testament. It often reads like a collection of letters between lovers, complete with romantic peaks and adulterous valleys. The fact that the monotheistic culture of this relatively insignificant nation would go on to shape the spiritual and moral foundations of the entirety of Western civilization is a testament to the potency and truth of their scriptures.

Today, the people of God are those who have entered into covenant with Yahweh through Jesus Christ. While we may not worship at a temple mount, God’s spirit has been “poured out on all flesh” and our role as a Royal Priesthood has taken on a new form. While the people of God were largely contained within the borders of a small nation during the Old Testament period, God’s people have now been dispersed all over the surface of the earth to declare the truth and minster God’s love. Truly, the subduing work commanded in Genesis 1 is well underway. As people made in God’s image, we are slowly but surely showing the world that the one true God is a God who cares about Mankind and about his creation. He is not stoically watching from on high, ready to flog anyone who strays from the path. He is here with us, getting his hands dirty by getting our hands dirty, and continuing His creation of the world, making it more and more tov each day. We are still not perfect and wickedness reigns in the hearts of many, but God has made a way for us to be ruled by his spirit. He still respects our decisions and allows the consequences of our bad ones to play out and become instructive, but “…in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” So, while there is much tragedy and heartache in the world, God is working with us in order to subdue it and bring it to an end.

Many in the modern Western church would sit on the sidelines of this grand drama which is playing out in front of us. Due to some unfortunate theology, a lot of Christians feel as if the highest calling attainable is to patiently wait for the Lord to return and fix everything. While the Lord will most definitely return and redeem this world, this is no excuse for us as the people of God to sit back and relax while evil and injustices run rampant in our society. God has not given us his spirit so that we can watch TV all day and tithe to our favorite ministry. As a people filled with divine love, we absolutely must be in the arena, fighting alongside out Lord against the forces of chaos and desolation. This planet is in desperate need for all of the people who know the truth about God and the sanctity of life to stand up, make their voices heard, and get their hands dirty planting seeds of God’s love all over the world. As long as we are in partnership with the Lord and working toward establishing his will (or telos) for the world, there is no way we can lose. Along the way, we will find the most fulfilling life possible for any person to live. That is what a Royal Priesthood looks like in the modern world. 

Sam Bolton - April 12th, 2012

Sources:

• Walton, John H. The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2009.
• RSV Bible