July, 1945
Lord God formed man of the dust of the groupd. . . ” (Gen. 2:5,7). Whether thus created or subsequently born, the Bible speaks of man as an integral part of the cosmos. The anguish—the Greek says tribulation—of child-bear ing is forgotten “for joy that a man is born into the world” (John 16:21). Moreover, Jesus is the True Light— the Greek says Genuine Light—“which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John.1:9). Here then are the Scripture facts. The cosmos is originally created by God and subsequently renovated by Him, the Spirit of God and the Word of God acting as associates. Life in the image of, and after the likeness of God, crowns these labors of the triune God. There upon God saw—the Hebrew word means to view with discriminating discernment—this cosmos which He had made and, behold, if was very good. Since the seed in the parable is mankind—“the children of the kingdom” ; since God graced His cosmos-creation with a man made in His image-likeness and a woman taken from the side17 of that man; we may correctly speak of a time when there was no enemy seed in our present field of tares: a time when only good seed was in the very good cosmos-crea tion.
From Mars’ hill, the supreme court in Athens — the court of the Areopagites, Paul declared to cultured Athenians that “God...made the world, and all things th ere in ...” (Acts 17:22-24). To the world of Roman might he declared that “the invisible things of Him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen’’ (Rom. 1:21). In the original the prepositional phrase is from world creation: a much stronger statement than that of the English Version.7 The cosmos then, and all things in it, are God's creation: the everything that God made and declared to be. very good. Since all things are from the Father (cf. Jas. 1:17) but through the Son, and by the Spirit, the latter can ’remind us that “the world was made by-Him (Jesus),” and that “without Him there was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3, 10). In each of these verses from John’s gospel ac count the Greek term rendered made is more correctly to come into being; the Greek preposition rendered by is more correctly through. There is further scriptural evidence that the cosmos is the creation of God: the everything that He made and pronounced very good. In describing Israel’s future trib ulation, the Spirit quotes Christ as saying, through Matthew, “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world" (Matt. 24:21). But through Mark He quotes Him as saying “the beginning of the creation, which God created" (Mark 13:19).8 In the thinking of our Lord, let us observe, the cosmos and the whole crea tion are identical. The very good cosmos-creation is animate rather than inanimate; vegetable, animal, and—as its highest form—human life lies at the very heart of its divinely wrought structure. Before its earth became void and without form9 plant life, which was not utterly de stroyed by the ruin of the fall, existed: when God, by the Spirit and the Word, renovated the, earth, He merely called upon vegetation to reappear. Any animal life that may have existed, perished: in the renovation of earth God therefore creates animal life. Human life, which had never before existed, is created as-the climax of the' renovation. In contradistinction to other forms, human life is created in the image, after the likeness of God.1® Perhaps because the first of these words—see footnote- means, primarily, “to delineate obscurely,” the second phrase—“after the likeness”—was added by the Spirit of God. Its meaning is similitude, likeness, model, pattern. A cosmos without man is scripturally inconceivable; “ ...there was not a man to till the ground...and the 1. In both those passages the Greek verb is passive: the subject is acted upon; he himself is not the àctôr in this matter of. cruci fixion.; In Gal. 2:20 the verb is perfect tense: “ I have been, hence, still am crucified with Christ.” In Rom. 6:6 it is aorist tense: the old man ,is once for all crucified with (Christ). 2. Not, as in the Authorized Version, “ by whom.” It is liter ally ‘‘through which.” 3. Crucified “ with” is a single word in the Greek. It is used of the malefactors who were “ with-crucified” (with) Christ. So with th e,believer. In Christ he is “ with-crucified:” as well as 4‘with-resurrected and with-seated in the heavenlies” (Eph. 2:6; Col. 2:12, 3:1). 4. We shall use this term, throughout, to indicate the Author ized Version. 5. Like, for example, the definition .for gospel, in 1 Cor. 15:1,3, 4. “ . . . I am explaining unto you the gospel which I gospelled unto you . . . how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He arose again the third day, according to the Scriptures . . . ” The gospel is the actual, necessary, substitutionary, predicted, and victorious death of the Lord Jesus Christ. 6. The Hebrew reads todh me' odh. Todh means good in the sense of agreeable, pleasant, cheerful, joyful, beautiful. Me’odh means might, power, excess. Used as an adverb, it is really a noun. It is derived from an unused root, 'udh which, in the cognate Arabic language, means “ to surround with the view to make strong.” The everything that God made was mighty and powerfully good: it was excessively pleasant and beautiful; it was agreeable, and cheerful, and joyful. 7. The Greek reads apo ktiseos kosmou. The preposition is fol lowed by two nouns, the first in the ablative, the second in the
genitive case. The Idea conveyed Is not so much one of time (temporal) as of power (effectual). 8 In -the Greek of each verse we have the exact prepositional construction mentioned above: apo ktiseos kosmou, “ from world creation." Matt. 24:21 has ap’ arches kosmou, “ from world begin ning;” Mark 13:19 has ap’ arches ktiseos, “ from creation begin ning.” 9. The Hebrew verb hayetha, in Gen. 1:2, indicates that some thing other than the creation mentioned in Gen. 1:1 has now. come Into being. It is a void and formlessness which were no part of the original creation. Without form, in Gen. 1:2, is tohtir; in Isa. 45:18 tohu is translated vain. The Spirit tells us, through Isaiah, that God created the world, not tohu! 10. Image is the Hebrew tzelem, derived from tzalam, a verb not found in Hebrew but used in the cognate language Arabic and Syriac. In Arabic it means .to be dark, obscure; in Syriac, to delineate. The Hebrew tzelem primarily means shadow, then image. 11. The English Version reads: “ One of his ribs.” The Hebrew reads 'achath mitztzal’ othaio. The shorter of these two Semitic words is the feminine form of “ echadh, meaning "one male.” Our feminine form means, therefore, “ one female." The lengthier compound word does not mean "from his rib," , but rather “ from his' side.” The Hebrew reads tzela’ : a word that occurs forty-one times in the Old Testament.' It is rendered rib only twice: both times in the creation story, and both times erroneously. It is more cor rectly rendered side twenty-nine times. Beam, board, chamber,, corner, halting, and leaf are its other renderings. The only sense in which it could possibly mean rib is the rib or framework of a building; not of a human being. God put Adam into deep sleep and took one female from hi.s (male) side.
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