Man: his creation, calling and Communion - Chambers, Oswald
Chapter I
Although the passages quoted appear as texts, they are really portions of connected revelation .
1. Conditions before mans creation (genesis 1:1)
(a) celestial creations ( job 38:47)
(b) celestial catastrophe (Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18)
(c) celestial condemnation ( john 8:44; Jude 6)
2. Conditions leading to mans creation (Nehemiah 9:6)
(a) terrestrial chaos (genesis 1:2)
(b) terrestrial creations (genesis 1:225)
(c) terrestrial cosmos (genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31)
3. Climax of creation. (genesis 1:2627)
(a) the son of god (genesis 1:27; Luke 3:38)
(b) the six days work (genesis 1:2831)
(c) the sabbath rest (genesis 2:13)
1. Conditions before mans creation
in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters. (genesis 1:12)
between verses 1 and 2 of the first chapter of genesis, there is a great hiatus. Verse 1 refers to an order of things before the reconstruction referred to in 2.
(a) Celestial creations
We mean by celestial creations the creations that were before men and the system of things as we understand them. These celestial creations belong to a period before man. The creations first alluded to, then, are not men, but something other than man. Job 38:47 refers to a time when the sons of god shouted for joy. Who were these sons of god? They were not men; they were unquestionably angels and archangels, and the indirect inference is that god had put that former world under the charge of an archangel, Lucifer.
(b) Celestial catastrophe
The bible also alludes to a catastrophe before man was created, which makes the first two verses of genesis 1 understandable. God gave the rule of this universe to Lucifer, who opposed himself to gods authority and rule. In falling, he dragged everything down with him, and consequently called forth on this earth a tremendous judgement which resulted in chaos: and the earth was without form, and void. This catastrophe is referred to in such passages as Isaiah 14:12, how art thou fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, son of the morning! And Luke 10:18, i beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. When did our lord behold this? Surely it is legitimate to suggest that this refers to the period before our lords incarnation, when he was with god, in the beginning, before all things. (this particular verse is frequently thought to refer to the time yet to be and that our lord annihilated time by his fore look. ) these verses are like mountain peaks revealing a whole table-land of gods revelation of the order of things before man was created. This interpretation is of the nature of a legitimate speculation and would seem to account for a great number of indications in the bible. Beware, however, of making too much of these indications, because although as has been hinted, chaos may have been the result of judgement, a careful reading of genesis 1:12 does not necessarily imply it.
(c) Celestial condemnation
Then comes the condemnation of the angels, a celestial condemnation, the condemnation of Lucifer and all his angels, nothing whatever to do with man, and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever- lasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day ( Jude 6).
When Jesus Christ uses the phrase from the beginning he does not mean the beginning of man, but the beginning of creation of god, which was long enough before man was created (see john 8:44). Hell is the place of angelic condemnation. It has nothing to do primarily with man. Gods book never says that hell was made for man, although it is true that it is the only place for the man who rejects gods salvation. Hell was the result of a distinct condemnation passed by god on celestial beings, and is as eternal as those celestial anarchists.
These three amazing episodes indicate the conditions before the creation of man, viz. : that the archangels and the angels governed a wonderful world which god created in the beginning, and which gods spirit alludes to in that phrase in job, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy. Lucifer fell, and with him all his angels in a tremendous ruin. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters (genesis 1:2). Without some such explanation, verse 2 is unintelligible. To say that in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth, and then to say that the earth was without form, and void is a confusion. The inference is that between the epochs referred to in these verses there occurred a catastrophe which the bible does not say much about, the evident purpose of the bible being to tell what gods purpose is with man. Roughly outlining that purpose, we might say that god created man in order to counteract the devil. These sections refer to the strange unfamiliar background of the life we live at present. Such things are not to be made too much of, nor on the other hand are they to be ignored. It is necessary to note them in biblical psychology because they have a distinct part to play in mans present existence.
2. Conditions leading to mans creation
Thou, even thou, art lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. (Nehemiah 9:6)
(a) Terrestrial chaos (genesis 1:2)
Satan was the means of the ruin of the first created order, and now god begins to create another order out of the confusion of ruin. Void means the after- math of destruction by judgement, or the result of divine judgement.
(b) Terrestrial creations
god began to create things. Genesis 1:225 gives a detailed account of the creation of the earth and the life upon it. The bible nowhere says that god set processes to work and out of those processes evolved the things which now appear. The bible says that god created things by a distinct act. If the bible agreed with modern science, it would soon be out of date, because, in the very nature of things, modern science is bound to change. Genesis 1 indicates that god created the earth and the life on the earth in order to fit the world for man.
(c) Terrestrial cosmos
The order and beauty of this world were created by god for man. Genesis 1, verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25 and 31, all say that god saw that it was good. After the judgement by god on the previous order, god created a new thing, for a totally new being whom no angel had ever seen. This new being, man, stood at the end of the six days work as a creation of earth, and he stood at the threshold of gods sabbath day. God created a unique being, not an angel, and not god himself; he created man. Man was created out of the earth, and related to the earth, and yet he was created in the image of god, whereby god could prove himself more than a match for the devil by a creation a little lower than the angels, the order of beings to which Satan belongs. This is, as it were, gods tremendous experiment in the creation of man. God put man at the head of the terrestrial creation. The whole meaning of the creation of the world was to fit and prepare a place for the wonderful being called man that god had in mind. There is nothing in the bible about the evolution and development of man as a survival of the fittest, or about the process of natural selection. The bible reveals that we are earth and spirit, a combination of the two. The devil is spirit, just as god is; the angels are spirit; but when we come to man, man is earth and spirit.
3. Climax of creation
(a) The son of god (Luke 3:38)
Adam is called the son of god. There is only one other son of god in the bible, and he is Jesus Christ. Yet we are called sons of god, but how? By being reinstated through the atonement of Jesus Christ. This is an important point. We are not the sons of god by natural generation. Adam did not come into the world as we do; neither did Adam come into the world as Jesus Christ came. Adam was not begotten; Jesus Christ was. Adam was created. God created Adam, he did not beget him. We are all generated, we are not created beings. Adam was the son of god, and god created him as well as everything else that was created.
In genesis 1:27 we read, so god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them. This is a point of importance. Adam and eve are both needed before the image of god can be perfectly presented. God is, as it were, all that the best manhood presents us with, and all that the best womanhood presents us with. (this aspect will be dealt with in subsequent lectures. )
(b) The six days work (genesis 1:2831)
This word day means roughly what we understand by twenty-four hours, and has no such meaning as the day of atonement or the day of judgement. Devotion to the ephemeral scientific doctrine of evolution is responsible for the endeavour to make out that the bible means a period of years instead of a solar day.
The particular unparabolic use of the term evening and morning in genesis distinctly indicates a solar day. Man was the climax of the six days work; in gods plan the whole of the six days work of creation was for man. The tendency nowadays is to put the six days work of creation above man. Some people are far more concerned about dogs and cats than about human beings.
There is not only the tendency to exalt animals above man, but there is the speculation of the super- man, which holds that man, as we understand him and as the bible reveals him, is not the climax of creation, but that there is a higher being yet to be, called the superman, and that man is as inferior to this being that is going to be as the ape is to him. All through the new testament the spirit of god has foretold that we are going to have the worship of man installed, and it is in our midst to-day. We are being told that Jesus Christ and god are ceasing to be of importance to the modern man, and what we are worshiping more and more now is humanity, and this is slowly merging into a new phase; all the up-to- date minds are looking towards the manifestation of this superman, a being much greater than the being we know as man. Second Thessalonians 2 gives us a picture of the head of this great expectation. . . . The son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called god, or that is worshiped; so that he as god sitteth in the temple of god, shewing himself that he is god (2 Thessalonians 2:34). He is to be the darling of every religion; there is to be a consolidation of religions, and of races and of everything on the face of the earth, a great socialism. The ethical standard of the superman claims to be higher than Jesus Christs standard. The tendency is noticeable already in the objection of some people to Jesus Christs teaching, such as thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ; they say, that is selfish, you must love your neighbour and not think of yourself. The doctrine of the superman is absolute sinless perfection. We are going to evolve a being, they say, who has reached the place where he cannot be tempted. This is all an emanation from Satan.
Man is the climax of creation. He is on a stage a little lower than the angels, and god is going to over- throw the devil by this being who is less than angelic. God has, as it were, put man in the open field, and he is allowing the devil to do exactly what he likes up to a certain point, because, he says, greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. This is also the explanation of our own spiritual setting. Satan is to be humiliated by man, by the spirit of god in man through the wonderful regeneration of Jesus Christ.
Man, then, is the head and the purpose of the six days creation. Mans body has in it those constituents that connect it with the earth; it has fire and water and all the elements of animal life, consequently god keeps us here. The earth is mans domain, and we are going to be here again after the terrestrial cremation. Here-after, without the devil, without sin and wrong. We are going to be here, marvellously redeemed in this wonderful place which god made very beautiful, and with which sin has played havoc, and creation itself is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of god.
(c) The sabbath rest (genesis 2:13)
Not only is man the head and climax of the six days work, but he is the beginning of, and stands at the threshold of, the sabbath of god. Gods heart is, as it were, absolutely at rest now that he has created man; even in spite of the fact of the fall, and all else, god is absolutely confident that everything will turn out as he said it would. The devil has laughed at gods hope for thousands of years, and has ridiculed and scorned that hope, but god is not upset or alarmed about the final issue; he is certain that man will bruise the serpents head. This has reference to those who are born again through Jesus Christs amazing atonement.