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this cosmos perished due to inundation. What precipitated this destruction of earth and what caused the earth, with vegetation created within it and moisture from surround- mg waters giving its fertile soil adequate drink, to become a Stygian dark abyss of submerged and formless waste? The Scriptures suggest the answer. No one questions the fact that the cry of King David in Psalms 22:1: “My God, my God, why hast thou for saken me,” extends beyond that monarch to David’s Greater Son, our Lord Jesus. What is not so well known is that statements predicated of the prince of Babylon, in Isaiah 14:4-23, and the prince of Tyre, in Ezekiel 28:11-19, go beyond these monarchs to the prince of this world, Otherwise called the prince of the power of the air: Satan. In these passages Lucifer, the day star, the son of the morning, exalts his throne above the stars of God. He is determined to be “like the most High.’’ Created a perfect- being; honored with wisdom, beauty, and splendor; walk ing up and down amidst the fiery stones of the holy mountain of God, as the anointed cherub; iniquity was found in him, and he was cast as profane out of the mountain of God. These are but some of the statements of the two Old Testament passages cited. On an occasion when the seventy seemed likely to fall into the sin of pride, our Lord warningly referred to Lucifer’s above cited sin of pride, saying: “ (While you were speaking) I was contemplating the Satan, like a star from heaven fallen” (Luke 10:17-18). Jude has in mind this fall of Lucifer, and the angel hosts who fell with him, when he discusses “the angels who forsook their unique dwelling place, not keeping—-by attentively guarding— their very own first dignity” (Jude 6, Greek). Peter has the same thing in mind when he speaks, of God’s “not sparing the angels that sinned” (2 Pet. 2:4). The above passages are the plain statements of Holy Scripture16. The equally plain statement is that “the earth beearne void and without form, and darkness ucon the face of the abyss.” Also, that “the then cosmos . . . perished.” It is clear that this “ then cosmos” is the earth of Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:4-6, as well as of Isaiah 45:1817. The cosmos represented by the subsequent work of the: six days16, certainly did not perish: all the life of that cosmos except what was in the ark perished; but with the draining of the waters of the deluge and the new civilization of Noah and his sons, the cosmos that now is (cf. 2 Pet. 3:7) became the form of the cosmos-of post- Adamic and pre-Noahic days. In the light of all this direct statement of Scripture, and in the absence of any direct Biblical statement that the sin of Lucifer and his fallen angelic associates pre cipitated the formless waste and darkened abyss that the originally perfect earth became, a meaning for these related statements is demanded. Having read what Scripture, says, an effort must be made to ascertain what the statements mean. Our interpretation, well within the bounds of a simple and scholarly hermeneutics, is that Lucifer’s fall brought about his being cast from heaven into earth, arid that earth, as the result, became without form and void, darkness coming upon the face of the abyss, or deep. That just such judgment is the result of sin is clear from Jeremiah 4:23. In that context, the prophet is portraying judgment that, unless Israel repents, shall fall upon this sinful people. Among other aspects of the judgment he envisions is this one: “ I beheld the earth and, lo, without form, and void . . . ” w (Jer. 4:23). Jeremiah’s pronouncement, which unquestionably is a review of Genesis 1:2a, is the Bible’s own evidence that earth’s becoming without form and void is within the purview of judgment for sin, as Almighty God judges sin and sinners.
Some Closing Observations The time and- effort invested in the writing and reading of this brief article are more than mere search for the informative. The acquisition of knowledge is only a path way to the exercise of wisdom. When the believer is told to glory only in “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. 6:14), how can he intelligibly live and move and have his being in this sphere of world-crucifixion apart from thorough Biblical knowledge of the world" (the cosmos) ? The same question might be raised, of course, about cross and crucifixion: our interest just now is in the world (kosmos). Once he learns that the Bible speaks of a first cosmos, created in perfection, but reduced to a formless waste by the sin of ¿alien angels; once he learns that in six days of restoration and creation labors, God brought into being a second cosmos, and that this cosmos, as the result of Adam’s sin and the sinfulness of Adam’s progeny, was overwhelmed by the deluge; once he learns that the pres ent postdiluvian cosmos is a world in which the believer is, but of which the believer is not; once he acquires such Biblical knowledge, he might be expected to exercise wis dom in living in a world, or cosmos, that is crucified to him, and he to it. i This term is used throughout to indicate the King Ja.-jes or Authorized Version of the Bible. AL UOLUIa V“ V piuiai uuiy. 3. Hayetha, the third person, preterite, form of the Hebrew vem to be. The basic idea conveyed by the verb is not was but became. In the following instances even the English Version ren- ders it. became: Ge. 2:10; 47:26; Ex. 9:24; Jos. 14:14; 1 Sa. 10:12;' 2o:37; other instances might be cited. In one of the several pref aces to his commentary on Daniel, Dr: Pusey, erudite in Hebrew language and literature, gives convincing evidence that our form * Hebrew verb t0 be must be rendered not was but became. Instead of the normal connective kai, they render the Hebrew Con nective (waw) by the Greek adversative de. Grammarians differ as to the force of the Adversative sense of de. One (Monro) de- clares: ‘‘The adversative de properly indicates that the new clause stands in some contrast to what has preceded . . Another (Robertson) denying this element of contrast, says: “ What is true is that the addition is something new and not so closely associated m thought (as is true of te and kai).'» 4. A boy baby is therefore a yeledh; a girl baby a yaldah; both words are derived from yaladh. 5. It is the Niphal Infinitive construct form of bara\ and dif ficult to reproduce in English. “ In their having been created” or, more literally, “ their to have been created” better represent the sense conveyed than does the smoother English “ in their being created. ” - f • 6. Hebrew yom (day). It expresses both point and period of time m the Old Testament. The context must decide which of the two senses is conveyed. 7. The full form of the Niphal Infinitive construct of bara'. ■ 8. The Hebrew is quite forceful in these utterances. Of the plant it says: ‘Terem yihyeh ba’aretz, that is “ before its coming into being in the earth.” Of the herb it says: “ Terem yitzmach, that -s, “ before it went on springing forth.” Further, it makes careful distinction between earth ('aretz), as source of the vapor ous mist, and the ground or soil (’athama), as beneficiary of the moisture thus produced. 9. (1) The best critical Greek text is so punctuated a,s to show that both the heavens and the earth were of ancient time; not the heavens first and earth later, but both created at one and the same time. Cf. “ in the beginning;” “ in their having been created;” /¿S iv u Jehovah Elphim’.s making of earth and heaven.” (2) E kp a ia i (m ancient time) occurs but twice in the New Testa- men:. and is employed only by Peter (2 Pe. 2:3; 3:5). Thoughtful me* demonstrates that each use indicates a pre-Adamic period. (3) The phrase predicated of earth, namely ex hudatos kai di' hudatos sunestosa can mean only what it says: “ . . . out of water and by reason of (agency of) water subsisting.” “ Subsist ing (sunestosa) is an aorist participle indicating historical actu- abty. (4) Di’ hon, ‘with long O (plural form) rather than with short O (singular form—as found in minuscle No. 69)—is the cor rect reading. The plural embraces the two waters mentioned in the prepositional phrases. •(5) The destruction of this ekpaiai earth by inundation is discussed elsewhere in our present study.
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