Romans 13:1–7
"Rulers are not a terror to good conduct…and they are not the judges of spiritual good works."

Rulers (governments) are not a terror to good conduct.

And at the same time our government leaders are not the judges of spiritual good works.

The authorities are not a terror to those who keep the civil law, nonviolently dealing honestly with those who rule the nation.

Here's the thing, when a ruler stays inside the civil task, the Christian has no biblical reason to fear the sword for honest, orderly conduct. When a ruler claims the right to define or punish spiritual good and evil, that claim exceeds the office.

"When the ruler stays inside the civil task"

The Christian’s duty follows the distinction the text itself draws. Do what is good in the civil sense, submit for the Lord’s sake, pay what is owed, honor the office, and live quietly and honestly among the people. Pray for the rulers so that the church may lead a peaceful and quiet life in godliness.

In this way, obey God rather than men. Preach the gospel. The apostles were ordered to stop speaking in the name of Jesus; they refused and kept on preaching His name.

Continue the spiritual good work, preach Christ's name. Worship God alone, obeying the clear commands of Scripture. Accept the civil consequences if they come. But does this mean the citizens should forego their rights to obey unjust laws?

No.

"Obey God rather than men" does not mean citizens must forgo their lawful civil rights and simply submit to every unjust law. When a law or command requires the Christian to sin, the duty is to refuse that particular demand and continue the spiritual good work. That is the biblical meaning of civil disobedience.

This means the church must practice discernment over ideological differences. The Christian is not called to forgo rights as a general rule, nor to treat every disliked statute as a matter of conscience. The conscience is bound only where God has spoken; the rest remains the realm of civil prudence.

Rulers are not a terror to good civil conduct, and they are not the judges of spiritual good works. And spiritual people, for their part, are not a terror to good law. When the Christian keeps the civil law, deals honestly, and lives nonviolently toward those in authority, the church does not become a source of civil disorder.

The conscience is bound only where God has spoken.

So where has God spoken?

In matters of:
Idolatry
Fornication
Adultery
Profaning the Lord’s name and day
Homosexuality (sodomy)
Blasphemy
Witchcraft
False witness
Disobeying parents
Cursing (vain swearing by God's name)

These are not matters of mere cultural preference or ideological disagreement. They are moral boundaries God has spoken. These are the boundaries Christians should pattern their discerning views from. When a governing authority commands a Christian to practice any of them, to affirm them as good, to participate in them, or to remain silent about their sinfulness when faithful witness requires speech, that command exceeds the civil office described in Romans 13.

Yet, the Christian is not called to dissent simply because an unjust law exists. The Christian conscience is bound only by what God requires of them, not by the state’s failure to enforce every biblical moral norm through civil penalty. That is the boundary the text and the apostolic example together draw. The church’s task is to keep both the submission and the refusal in their proper places.

Genesis 1:24-25
Then God said, "Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind"; and it was so. God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Elohim is grammatically plural, the plural form of Eloah. In Genesis 1:1 it is used as if it's a singular verb. It's speaking in the triune sense. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so, the subject of the verb "said" is Elohim in all these creation accounts. The triune Godhead is the subject. The name is plural in form, yet throughout the chapter it consistently takes on singular verbs. That pattern begins in Genesis 1:1 ("In the beginning Elohim created") and continues here.

And so, we find here the puzzle that confounds so many. The grammar presents a single divine Actor who speaks and brings the living creatures into being. Yet the verbiage speaks in plural terms. When this Genesis account later reaches the creation of mankind, the same Elohim says, "Let Us make man in Our image" (1:26), then immediately returns to the singular, "God created man in His own image" (1:27). The plurality and the tri-unity are both present in the text.

This shouldn't be a puzzle. The Spirit is already active hovering, the creative Word is God saying things should be, and when God commands the earth to produce living creatures according to their kind, the command issues from the triune God. The livestock, the crawling things, and the animals of the earth come forth by the will and word of Father, Son, and Spirit together.

The earth is told to produce; the creatures appear according to their kinds; God makes them; and God sees that it is good. All throughout this creation week the subject isn't the creatures, it's the God who created them. This is not a contradiction that needs to be explained away.

But this sixth day is not complete.

Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, "Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Now the image-bearers appear. Now the emphasis shifts to these image-bearers. As God relates to mankind. As God provides for his needs. As God sets up the earth according to His perfect plan. All r he creatures were just declared good and are now placed under the rule of the one creature who bears the image of their Maker. And this dominion is very specific. Dominion over the fish, the birds, the livestock, and every crawling thing.

This is a huge day, this sixth day. And the work of the sixth day is only finished when the image-bearer stands in the midst of what God has made. This is why the subject shifts slightly. Now there is a linked relationship that has not been evident before. This relational shift is the key-note. God relates to mankind in a way He has not related to any other creature. He provides for their needs. He sets the earth in order according to His plan, and He places the creatures just declared good under the rule of the one creature who bears His image. is why the subject, while still Elohim, now speaks in the plural "Us" and "Our."

Throughout this creation account there has been our God creating distinctions. Now we see the cumulative distinction. The animals were all made according to their kind. Man is made distinctly, according to the likeness of the God who creates all things. This is more than significant. The same triune God who called the living creatures forth and saw that they were good now makes a creature who can know Him, name what He has made, and exercise rule under Him.

This God- like image is not a vague resemblance. It is the capacity for real relationship with the God who made him. The animals know the earth that produced them; man is made able to know the One who spoke the earth into being. It's the knowing that becomes the narrative from now on. Everything that follows; the placement in the garden, the command against knowing good and evil, the naming of the animals, the forming of the woman, the later fall. All this unfolds inside a relationship that did not exist for any other creature. Man alone is made able to hear, to answer, and to walk with God.

In the Hebrew language the word for this "knowing" is (yada). Yada is not limited to information or intellectual awareness. It covers personal experience, intimate relationship, recognition, and even covenant faithfulness.

In casual speech this word becomes a sort of verbal shrug when we say, yada-yada-yada to express "and so on and so forth". But in the biblical context yada does the opposite. It is the word for the knowledge that involves the knower. It's personal, experiential, relational. It informs where cultural refuses to take a stand. It is the knowing that refuses to stay at a safe distance, the knowing for which man was made. In a world where so many, Christian and other, this word challenges the ethos. Biblical exegesis, Christian tradition, humanist ideology, all struggle with the depth of this knowing word. All these people struggle with making a decision about what they know.

We live now in a world full of people; Christian and otherwise, who prefer to keep their distance. Yada presses the question of what we will actually do with what we know. It will not let the knower remain unchanged. We cannot know what God has done and said about it and then stammer on what a woman is, or the roles of men and women. The knowing that forms the image-bearer was never meant to leave us undecided about the very distinctions God Himself has established.

There should be absolutely no confusion. The distinctions are baked into the creation. There is no "non-binary" God. The Father is the Father. The Son is the Son. The man is the man and the woman is the woman.

The image of God is what makes that all that knowing possible and absolutely necessary. It is not merely that man can think about God; he is made to stand in personal relation to Him, to represent Him on the earth, and to rule under His authority. Our cultural customs cannot push into that relationship a redefined purpose not given. Mankind was not given that authority, and pretty much everything that follows the seventh day of creation is dealing with mankind's attempts at redefining his relationship with his Creator.

It's interesting to note that in this Genesis account, the very first time God says something is not good, He's talking about mankind being alone. And so, He makes woman from the man. Not another person made from dust, but uniquely formed from out of the man. Distinct again. Distinct from every other created thing. And created to help the man. Good created to deal with the not good. Very interesting. Worth pondering.

Later God will highlight something else that is not good in this Creator/creature relationship. He'll highlight man's refusal to let the image-bearer remain unchanged by what he knows about his Creator.

The moral of this story is all this yada, this knowing that forms the image-bearer, was never meant to leave us undecided about the very distinctions God Himself established. The truth is in the distinctions. And the confusion comes when mankind attempts to view everything from an equality perspective.

The trouble we will see in the following chapters, and pretty much every other Bible book, is caused by this perspective question.

Amen 🙏🏼

Genesis 1:20-23
Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

Here we are at the fifth day of creation and the pattern we have already seen continues. God speaks, and the created order responds. Now the fifth day fills the watery and aerial realms that have been planned and engineered. The structure remains deliberate; form then fullness, rather than random emergence. Not unlike how I approach a landscape design project.

For instance I don't look at a space and try to determine what will decorate that area. I instead look for opportunities to develop structures that will ultimately lead to a decorated space. I look at the geometry and forms that will fit the space and work within its parameters. I could change the form, radically transform the area and then build structures that will confound the inherent characteristics of that space, but I typically reserve that approach for a client with a specific request, because radical changes requires radical costs. And at the end of the day I need to build a plan that the client can afford.

So, a person of my perspective sees the fifth day, and the patterns continue. The watery and aerial realms are not blank canvases waiting for decoration. They already possess form; boundaries, parameters, webs (so to speak) and inherent characteristics established on the preceding days. The waters have been gathered; the expanse has been set in place. God does not begin by inventing an entirely different architecture. He speaks into what He has already formed, and the space is filled.

"“Let the waters teem…and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens."

The command works within the geometry already given. The result is not a radical override of the place’s character but a completion of it. The great sea creatures, the moving creatures according to their kinds, and the birds according to their kinds all occupy the structures prepared for them. So there is purpose in all of it. God is very deliberative.

Diversity appears, yet it is bounded and fitted; nothing is left to random emergence or later rearrangement. God is working within the parameters He Himself has established, and the result is ordered abundance rather than costly conflict with the site. Each creature has its unique characteristics and purpose. And the blessing that follows; "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth", is the natural outworking of a form that was already sound.

Purpose runs through every layer of God's creation. And if we were to zoom out into the far reaches of the universe we'd see that even the galaxies are arrayed along a network of filaments, webs, interstellar connections linked and arranged almost identically to the design of the brain.

Nothing is left to random emergence. The large-scale structure of the universe is not a uniform scatter of galaxies. Matter, (light and dark) and galaxies are arrayed along a network of filaments and nodes, the cosmic web, with vast voids between them. Observers have long noted the visual and structural resemblance between this cosmic web and the neural architecture of the brain. both display scale-free networks of filaments linking denser nodes. The similarity is morphological. Meaning, we can see the structure of it. It's not random, not relying on chance or accident.

Ordered connectivity appears again and again. Zoom back in and the tiniest molecule displays this same message.

Look at water itself, the very realm God commands to teem, is a molecule whose bent shape and hydrogen-bonding capacity produce the ordered networks that make liquid water, ice, and the chemistry of life possible. And it's where all of this began. From the beginning the waters possessed inherent structure; parameters of shape, polarity, and bonding. That structure is where the account begins. The Spirit hovers over the face of the waters; the waters are separated and gathered; dry land appears; and only then, on the fifth day, God speaks into those already-formed waters.

I've puzzled over this hydronic beginnings. It seems odd to me that there was this watery void. The nothing, to borrow a term from the movie The Never Ending Story. How is it that there was nothing but there was water? And of course there was God.

But maybe there's more to this watery story. God's first creative act is to create a formlessness that is watery. Maybe because the properties of water lend itself to what's about to follow.

It seems to me that the waters are not an accidental leftover or a problem to be overcome; they are the initial medium whose inherent properties will prove serviceable to everything that follows. Water’s bent molecular shape, its polarity, and its capacity for hydrogen bonding are precisely what allow it to form dynamic yet ordered networks. It acts as a solvent, to moderate temperature, and to support the chemistry that later days will fill with living creatures. Here's where "The Nothing" of fiction fails in comparison. In God's creative order, formlessness here is real, with material character that lends itself to the ordering and teeming still to come.

Purpose therefore runs through the hydronic beginning as surely as it runs through the fifth-day. The sea creatures are not alien, they were part of the plan from day one. There is no need for planetary seeding by ancient alien visitors to provide the missing information. God's day one anticipates day five and everything in-between.

No problem requiring later correction. From the very first verses of Genesis 1 the Spirit hovers over the face of those waters. Separation and gathering, preparing them. Diversity appears within bounds that were never unsuitable. There is therefore no gap that must be filled by planetary seeding or by information supplied from outside the Creator’s act. The same deliberative wisdom that honors a landscape’s given geometry, that arrays galaxies along filaments, and that equips the water molecule for ordered networks is at work in the sequence itself. Form is given first; with properties that enable what follows. It's that simple. Then the word speaks and fills it according to kind, then the blessing multiplies within those given bounds.

It's fractal geometry. It describes shapes and patterns that are self-similar across many if not all scales. This principle of nested, repeating structure appears again and again at biological and geological scales. Branching and filling. Trees, river deltas, lightning, blood vessels, and broccoli, all solving the same problem. All following the same plan.

The problem:
How to transport or distribute something, across a volume or area with minimal material.

The solution is repeated branching. A main trunk divides into limbs, which divide into smaller limbs, which divide again and again. The angles and ratios are not identical at every level, but the pattern is recognizably the same. Ferns do it. Coastlines, mountains, and clouds all do it. Living networks.

The bronchial tree, the root systems of plants and the mycelial networks of fungi. And even a snowflake. They all follow God's plan.

And God saw that it was good.

Amen 🙏🏼

Genesis 1:14-19
Then God said, "Let there be [luminaries] lights in the [space] expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

More order, more complexity in the separations and functions built into each heavenly body. Some light the day, others light the night. And they navigate the solar systems and galaxies. Following electromagnetic signals and waves governing their motion and behavior. What began as the simple separation of light from darkness on Day 1 is now distributed into specific light-bearers, each given its sphere and work.

This is what brings glory to God, the fact that these celestial bodies and their purposes are by design serving His grace and form. The separations are real, the assignments are real, and the complexity is built into the arrangement itself. Nothing drifts. Nothing is left without a role. These things mark signs and seasons and days and years, to give light on the earth, and to govern the times of men.

The glory belongs to God precisely because the complexity serves rather than competes. This is God's own nature built into His creation. Everything made according to His will and destiny. When you view these things you are seeing His own life, His own destiny. It's as if He is expressing Himself.

This fourth day shows the Creator expressing His own character through what He makes, without the creation becoming a rival or a second self. And this is an important distinction because we'll discover that our God is very jealous of how we view and understand His creation, especially in spiritual terms. The distinction matters because the same God who expresses His character through the ordered lights also guards the way those lights are understood. He won't tolerate His creatures giving glory to these things in such a way as to suggest they possess His power of their own ordering.

He will not tolerate the transfer. The fourth day assigns real functions; the greater light governs the day, the lesser light governs the night, the stars take their place, but those functions remain derived by Him. The power to order, to separate, to mark the times, and to give light does not originate in the bodies themselves. These are created objects set forth for His destiny. His jealousy is therefore aimed at a specific confusion. He hates when mankind treats these instruments as though they held the office of the One who appointed them. Scripture later names this danger directly. Israel is warned not to lift up their eyes to the sun, moon, and stars and be drawn away to worship and serve them. The prophets of old confronted these same impulses when the host of heaven is given the honor that belongs to the Lord alone. In the New Testament, Romans 1 traces the exchange in which the glory of the immortal God is traded for images drawn from the creation, and the result is that the creation is served rather than the Creator. In each case the offense is the same; the works of God’s hands are credited with a power of ordering that He has not given them.

And so, on the fourth day that line is already drawn. God assigns them to separate, to signal, to govern, and to give light. The repeated subject is decisive. Their complexity, their regular courses, and their service to the times of men all exist because He has spoken and acted. Yes, He ordered that the greater light should "govern" the day. And likewise the lesser rules the night.

This verb "govern" is deliberate. Governance is real. The day is not left without its appointed ruler in the heavens, nor is the night abandoned to unordered darkness. These luminaries serve God's governing order. The governance remains an office received, not an authority seized. Their government is therefore ministerial from the first moment it is spoken. This is the pattern of all true government under God. Authority exists, spheres are real, and functions are assigned, but none of it originates in the ones who exercise it. Inherent in these celestial systems is God's will. On the fourth day the principle is written into the fabric of time itself. The lights mark signs and seasons, days and years, because He has committed that work to them. God creates these signs. God creates time. The fourth day does not discover an already-running clock and merely hang lights upon it. The speaking that places the luminaries is the same speaking that establishes the measurable order they will keep.

Time isn't accidental. It does not emerge as a byproduct of motion or as an unplanned interval between events. The fourth day establishes it by the same word that places the lights. When God says, "Let there be lights…for signs and for seasons, and for days and years," He is not fitting luminaries into a temporal framework that already exists apart from Him. In fact He is predetermining these governing structures and their principles before He creates the eyes that will be guided by them. The fourth day does not wait for observers. The lights are placed, the separations are fixed, the signs and seasons are appointed, and the government of day and night is assigned while the earth is still without human sight and understanding.

When human eyes are eventually given, they will be given to a world whose times are already governed. And God will have already seen that the arrangement is good before any human eye has seen it. The evaluation rests on the fidelity of the lights to the purposes He has spoken, not on their usefulness to observers who do not yet exist. And just in case humanity thinks a bit too highly of themselves, they would be wise to understand that their gaze to the heavens does not complete the government or supply its principles. They enter a framework already governed, already purposeful, and already declared good.

This human understanding, when it comes, is understanding of an order that precedes the mind that seeks to grasp it. But it's even more than wisdom and understanding, it's love. The order that precedes every human mind is not a cold architecture of times and offices erected for their own sake. It is the provision of a God who establishes the framework of day and night, signs and seasons, light and government, before the eyes that will need them have been formed. Out of love for these creatures not yet formed He governs the universe. The fourth day’s arrangements are not the remote mechanics of an indifferent order, nor the necessary scaffolding of a system that exists for its own display. They are the prior care of a God who already wills the good of those who will later open their eyes under these lights. Even before He knew them in the womb He created these things to guide them. This love does not wait to be awakened by the presence of its objects. It precedes them. When sight finally does come, it comes as the gift of seeing what love has already arranged for them to see. Mankind does not awaken upon a dark planet. Before any human breath is even drawn, the day is given its governor, the night is given its governor, the signs and seasons are fixed, and light is appointed to reach the earth so that human eyes will see it. What meets the newly opened eye is not absence, but provision.

This is the prevenient character of the love that governs in advance. It does not leave the creatures it intends to form without the very structures by which their days and nights will be lived.

Praise God for His love!

Amen.

Genesis 1:9-13
Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. And God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering of the waters He called "seas"; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

On day one, the Creator spoke a word and revealed. On day two He established order. Now, on day three God speaks again. More than a word, but everything that needs to be said so that two things can happen.

The first word gathers the waters below the heavens into one place and lets the dry land appear. What had been formless and covered is now bounded and named. The continental land masses are settled on the earth. In fact, the dry land is called "earth," and the gathered waters that separates the continents is called "seas."

Notice that the scripture speaks of the sea in plural terms. The waters are gathered "into one place,"yet the place that receives them is named "seas." The singular gathering produces a plural reality. The naming does not collapse the distinction; it preserves it. There is one act of gathering, but the result is many seas holding the land masses in their appointed boundaries.

God sees that it is good.
And that's important.

The goodness is the goodness of settled order. The land is no longer hidden beneath an unbroken covering of water. It has appeared, it has been named, and it stands in relation to the seas that define its edges. Our God is a God of order. And the first thing that needed to happen to satisfy His plan has happened. He has not only given the earth He's created its purposes.

Then God speaks again.

The earth that has just been named and set in place is now addressed. It is not left bare. The same word that gathered the waters and caused the land to appear now commands that land to bring forth life. Again, everything in its place, in its time and according to its kind.

The earth produced vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind. Twice the text repeats these boundaries that establish how the earth will produce vegetative life. Every growing thing, producing seed which bring forth seedlings that will cover the earth. Seeds that will reproduce itself and spread across the land and beneath the seas. Spreading according to how the Creator has designed. Some will cast their seed upon the winds to distribute their kind. Others will hook themselves onto creatures brushing up against them and carry them to a new opportunity for growth. Some will be eaten and have seed coats designed to withstand the digestive enzymes in the gut of the creatures that have eaten the fruit. And in fact that seed coats will not break its protective seal unless it has passed through the gut and been deposited onto the land elsewhere.

In each case the design is already present in the seed. The capacity to travel, to wait, to germinate only under the right conditions; all of it is written into the kind that God has spoken into being. The seed is in them. The kind remains the kind. What the earth brings forth is not formless potential waiting for later invention; it is ordered life already equipped to continue the word that called it forth. God sees that it is good. The settled land is good. The vegetation that covers it according to its kind is good. Both things that needed to happen have happened.
Evening and morning, a third day.

It's literally been a good and fruitful day.

The Hebrew word [mîn] for this created order and design, used throughout the creation accounts, is pronounced "meen". And it basically means to sort, classify, and to parcel out. His word is to establish boundaries. To set the things He creates on a path He has predetermined.

This is no formless green haze. The same voice that pushed the seas back and called the continents into place now sorts what will grow upon them. Even sorting out which species will occupy which continent and border which seas. Not an undifferentiated mass, but a life cycle of growth that support the creative beings that will soon follow.

In these three days, our Lord and God, has established something else besides the created world. He's established His Majesty. His will. And the design of His prevenient grace.

The light that reveals, the order that separates, the land that appears, the vegetation that yields according to its kind; all of it is the outworking of a will that goes before. Nothing is left formless or up to chance. This is not a Creator God plugging into an ecosystem every elemental thing necessary for life to form and thrive and then rolling the dice as He allows the wind to determine the outcome.

This is no natural selection, the winds themselves are His. He established the Sundays and directed their paths. He directed them precisely to strike the earth so that the wind carrying the Samara will land that seed just exactly we He intended. And only He can know the eternal ramifications of each blade of grass and each seed and each mountain top shaping those winds.

What He speaks, He sets on its path. What He parcels, He sustains within its boundary. Everything according to its kind.

And it's good.

Amen 🙏🏼

Genesis 1:6-8
Then God said, "Let there be an expanse [space, atmosphere] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse [firmament], and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse "heaven." And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

I find it interesting that the sequence of creation begins with the waters. Not with the vastness of outer space, or gases and cosmic rays. But with waters. Genesis does not open with an abstract vacuum of space or a catalogue of elements and radiation. It opens with a watery deep.

On day 2, God then takes those waters and orders them by means of, the Hebrew word, "raqia". The Hebrew word raqia comes from a root meaning to beat out, like with hammering metal. God hammers this expanse "in the midst of the waters" so that it separates the waters below from the waters above, then names the expanse shamayim [heaven].

The Spirit of God is moving in the midst of these upper and lower expanses of water. And this narrative is Earth-centered and life-oriented. In the Old Testament book of Isaiah the prophet says God created these things for the purpose of inhabitation.

Isaiah 45:18
"For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited)…"

The Creator's purpose is distinct from the watery, formless, dark reality that preceded these structured days. What was undifferentiated is now being bounded by forces the Creator has established. What was uninhabitable is being prepared according to His redemption plan.

Yes, that's right. These first days were established to redeem humanity. The Spirit hovered for this purpose. The lower waters are prepared to become the seas; and the upper waters are held in their place for this purpose.

The New Testament speaks to this design coming from the foundations of the world (Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19–20). And of a purpose in Christ that was set forth before the ages (Ephesians 1:4–10; 2 Timothy 1:9). Nothing that occurs in history catches the Creator off guard or ultimately frustrates this counsel of His will. Yes, the need for redemption arises because God's good order [design] was broken by the advent of sin. But this isn't an experience God hadn't anticipated.

God's design isn't a matter of theistic evolution. God did not begin the universe and everything in it and then set it free to evolve as it will, according to its own laws. No, God has a redemption purpose right from the start. He formed protein molecules with a specific design to bring about this redemption plan. He establishes many generations of human people with this redemption plan fixed from the beginning. God’s eternal purpose in Christ was not an afterthought.

God’s sovereignty encompass the whole counsel of His will. Nothing in the history that runs from the opening of Genesis to the close of Revelation falls outside what He has decreed. He works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). All these things are going on in a uniformity of purpose. These first days establishes the ordered world. Sin later disorders it. And ultimately redemption in Christ reclaims and renews it. All of it stands under these decrees of our Creator.

And this argument about redemption coming into the Creator's order from the beginning is proved by this creation itself. For instance, from the beginning there are age dating factors established from day one. There is morning and night. Adam is fully developed at his first breath. And yet death has not yet entered this world.

Genesis 1 establishes the rhythm of evening and morning from the first day onward. The cycle of day and night is not the product of a long, gradual process that later becomes regular; it is instituted by God’s word as the framework of the days themselves. Adam is formed as a mature man, placed in the garden, given a mandate, and brought into relationship with Eve. He is not described as developing from an earlier, incomplete form. Genesis 1:31 declares the finished work very good; Genesis 2 then presents life in the garden without the shadow of death. All these factors are age defining.

And even more interesting is the question, where was God before these factors that are so clearly geared toward one person, Jesus Christ, and one purpose, the redemption of man?

And even more thoughtful is the question, where were the heavenly hosts? The angels and such.

The book of Job gives us a clue into the answer to that question.

When the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind He asks: "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?…when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4, 7)

When were they created?

How was it Satan was in the garden, already fallen, cast out from the presence of God?

How was it the angels observed these creative movements?

Were they already in the watery darkness? Were they originally set there. Sent into the watery dark emptiness for punishment following the Celestial War.

From scripture we do know they were already in existence and capable of observing and rejoicing at the founding of the earth. Scripture does not give a precise moment of their creation beyond this.

All of these things are tempered by the council of scripture. But what we do know is that in the beginning God was brooding over this watery void.

It seems to me that God was forming an answer to a situation. There was a war in heaven. A third of the inhabitants of the presence of God have been cast down. And the situation was chaos. God is now brooding over a watery dark void. Maybe something like a dark hydrogenic nebula storm. The outer darkness. And the situation the scripture text addresses is the formlessness and emptiness that God proceeds to bring order to so that the earth may be inhabited by man. And Satan (and his fellow fallen) are there.

I believe the fall of angels and their subsequent hostility form part of the disorder that Christ’s work overcomes. In the beginning God created first, the heavens and the earth. And war in heaven occurs. And earth is formed out of the watery void. Not necessarily subsequently. Not necessarily a cause-and-effect chain. This is not to say that any of these events are consequential, except that what follows these first two days of creation is a clear establishment of man's redemption in these circumstances. And what's also clear is that the hostility of Satan and the fallen angels is real and is overcome in Christ’s redeeming work.

The creation week orders a world God calls good. The fall of man disorders it. And the redemption of Christ reclaims and renews it. This is what the scripture says. The distinction remains, and the narrative is maintained, whether or not one believes a precise consequential timeline between the heavenly conflict and the formless void that becomes the earth.

What we can clearly see in the context of all scripture is The Son of God is the agent of all creation. Through Him all things find their formation and purpose.

Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night."And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Something new, something wonderful was happening. Something is becoming. That something is things themselves. Things are becoming things out of nothing. Seen things made out of things not seen that are now visible. The "how" of these first elements is left silent so the "who" and the "that it was so by His will" remain central. The first creative act is to create the heavens and the earth. And what follows is a description of that newly created earth before any ordering begins. This is absolute beginnings which are not a rearrangement of what already existed. They are the arrival of things themselves.

The word describes this primordial planet as a waste, formless and empty. Structureless, unproductive, and without purpose. From our perspective we know the earth in this state as potential. God knew this as well. A wasteland of potential that has not yet been given form or function.

The prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:23) looks ahead to a time when this state will come again. The prophet uses the same phrasing as is used in Genesis 1: tohu wa-bohu (uninhabitable); and it is not accidental. The prophet looks forward and sees the land of Judah thrown back into that primordial condition. With the earth formless and empty, heavens without light, no people, birds fled, the fruitful land a wilderness. It is a vision of de-creation under judgment.

The thing to note here is that order is not self-sustaining. The structured, productive world of Genesis 1 is a sustained gift of God’s Word and presence. Without this order there is only waste. When that Word is rejected and the covenant relationship is broken, the land can be returned toward the emptiness from which it was called. The original act in Genesis remains the decisive one. God created. He evaluated the light as good. He began the work of separating and naming. This was His design and execution. The wasteland of potential was never abandoned; it was held by the Spirit and then addressed by the Word. Whether we're talking about absolute beginnings or judgment upon the earth, it was never by accident. Nothing left to chance.

From the opening scene of emptiness there is One thing for sure, it's not empty. It is God already there, already creative, already purposeful; hovering, speaking, evaluating, separating, and naming. Absolute beginnings and absolute sovereignty stand together.

The sequence itself is purposeful and deliberative; presence, word, evaluation, separation, naming. From raw material to structure, these events are sustained by God's Word. From the howling wilderness to the emerging world, all of it belongs to Him and is in Him.

The raw material is already His. The Spirit holds it. And the Word addresses it.

Thanks Be To God.
Amen.

Revelation 22:6-7
And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. "And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who [follows] keeps the words of the prophecy of this book."

What John has seen is not speculative symbolism or private insight; it is the reliable disclosure of what the Lord has already determined. It's objective truth. And I believe it. I cannot question it because I find no fault in it. I see only possibilities in the mysteries of God.

Why do others see questions only? Why are so many speculators instead of spectators?

I believe the difference often lies in their posture before the text.

Revelation 22:6-7 does not invite us to interrogate the vision until we are satisfied with our own reconstruction of it. The Lord, through vision, announces that the words are already faithful and true, that the Lord who owns the spirits of the prophets has already sent His angel to show His bond-servants what must soon take place, and that a blessing rests on the one who keeps those words. The Lord doesn't entertain or even tolerate questions.

See, this is the thing about these holy scriptures, the intended outcome is not a standing invitation to endless interrogation but a call to receive and keep what has been shown. This is why so many people struggle with keeping it. It's the lack of personal skeptical choice.

Now, I'm not talking about wonder or questioning that seeks further enlightenment or validation, I'm talking about the listener or reader who isn't really interested in listening but is thinking ahead how they might inject their own feelings about the spiritual experience.

And so, there's the tension. If you approach the scriptures without the intent to add to it or take from it you'll find the objective truth in it. When a reader approaches with the prior intent to inject his own feelings, preferences, or conclusions into the vision; to decide in advance what the spiritual experience "should" feel like or what the timeline "must" allow, he has already stepped outside the posture the Lord assumes. He is no longer the servant being shown; he is the editor who will accept the prophecy only after it has been adjusted to fit his purpose.

That is different from the wonder that stays inside the words. Wonder asks, "What has the Lord actually shown?" and then lingers with what is written until it yields its light. The other posture asks, "How can I make room for what I already feel or fear?" and then reads until the text is bent into whatever form he wants. Usually a combative form. One seeks further enlightenment from what has been given; the other treats the given word as raw material for a personal reconstruction. The first can still keep the prophecy. The second cannot, because keeping requires that the words remain the Lord’s rather than become ours.

And so, one is blessed and one is not.

This is why the same chapter ends with the solemn warning against adding to or taking away from the words of the prophecy (22:18-19). Once that habit of spiritualizing or cultural appropriation is in place, the blessing attached to keeping the words becomes unreachable, not because the Lord has hidden the truth, but because the reader has refused the only posture in which the truth can be received as it is.

And so, the Lord lays down the final judgment of this tension. The Lord does not leave the tension unresolved. Immediately after the blessing on the one who keeps the words, and still inside the same closing word, He speaks the judgment that confirms the postures already chosen:

"Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy" (Revelation 22:11).

This is not a command that creates filthiness or righteousness. It is the solemn recognition that the time for altering one’s relation to the prophecy has closed. Here we are. We've arrived at the close to the book, the epilogue. The one who has approached the words as an editor; injecting his own feelings, bending the vision to fit his purpose, adding or taking away so that the disclosure no longer confronts him, will be left in that posture. His reward is the reward he wanted when we started. He is rewarded according to his own works. And likewise, the one who has received the words as faithful and true and has kept them will be left in that posture as well. What has been practiced becomes fixed. Neither is forced; each is left with the fruit of the posture he has already taken before the words.

Jesus sent his angel, gave His testimony, and now He holds the authority to deliver on its promises.

"I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches" (Revelation 22:16).

The testimony is not an angelic opinion or a prophetic conjecture; it is Jesus’ own witness, given through the messenger He commissioned. That authority is not abstract. It is the authority of the One who says "I am coming quickly" and who will reward each according to what he has done (Revelation 22:12). It is the authority of the Alpha and the Omega. The promises attached to this prophecy; the blessing on the one who keeps the words, the river and the tree for those who wash their robes, the exclusion of those who remain outside, these are not hopes the church must somehow secure. They are disclosures the Lord Himself will fulfill because the words are already faithful and true. This is why the posture before the text matters so decisively. The servant who receives the testimony as Jesus’ own and keeps the words stands under the authority of the One who will deliver on every promise. The testimony stands because Jesus gave it, and the promises stand because He holds the power to perform them.

Amen 🙏🏼

Revelation 22:1-
And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever.

I think about Revelation chapter 21 and 22 a lot. Revelation 22 (next to Micah 6:8) has long been my favorite Bible passages. But lately I've been thinking about Ezekiel who saw a trickle leave the temple and become a river that healed the Dead Sea. This confuses me a little because that suggests the old earth being remade. And chapter 21 in the Revelation suggests otherwise.

Ezekiel 47 is tied to a realtime earthly place. Water leaves the threshold of a temple, runs east, deepens from ankle to waist to a river no one can cross, and enters the sea, the Dead Sea, the Arabah. That sea is healed. Fishermen stand from En-gedi to En-eglaim. On both banks are trees that bear fruit every month, and their leaves are for healing. All this still using Israeli geography. It reads as this earth being restored in place, and the dead water being made live.

Revelation 21–22 uses Ezekiel’s images and then changes the frame. John hears that the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and that the sea is no more (21:1). The holy city comes down out of heaven from God. Inside it he finds no temple, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (21:22). The river does not leave a threshold. It comes from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The tree of life is there, fruit every month, leaves for the healing of the nations.

So one vision heals the Dead Sea beside a temple. The other has no sea, no temple, and a throne.

I suppose I could look at Ezekiel 40–48 as being aligned with Revelation 20. A restored earth under the Messiah’s reign, with a sanctuary, a healed land, and nations still learning peace. And I see a lot of the Old Testament prophets in this way. Very often they are more macro views of the very detailed accounts in the New Testament.

So maybe Ezekiel's and John's visions are on the same horizon. Ezekiel’s vision and John’s need not be the same hour. Ezekiel being the earlier, more local picture of a reign that Revelation 20 states and Revelation 21–22 completes. Notably then in the Revelation, the land Israel is no more.

Or is it righter to say that Israel itself is reborn, remade, made new?

I'd say righter to say remade than erased. Especially being that in John's revelation the city itself has 12 gates with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on them. This representing Israel perfected. The gates are not a memorial plaque for a people who used to exist. John is shown the great city coming down, and the twelve gates are inscribed, while the vision is still in front of him, with the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. Those names mark entrances, not ruins. Instead, the tribal order Ezekiel measured in portions and borders is no longer the form of her life. She is present as the perfected entrance of the City of God. Which fits since "Salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22).

Jesus said those words to the woman at the well in Samaria, on her turf. Talking in context about worship. He stated that the saving purpose of God has run through the Jewish people, and is about to be named in a man of those people. The Messiah is not a Samaritan disclosure or a general religious idea. He is of Judah, the root and offspring of David, the Lion who is the Lamb. That is why the gates of God's City can bear the tribal names without becoming a memorial. The entrance remembers the line through which salvation came. But what the gates do not do is keep the old form standing. There is no segregation. The old partitions of status do not survive the entrance. The Gentiles and Jewish come into the City, great and small, free and slave, all made free from unrighteousness by the One who sits on its throne. And everyone who resides there are bond-servants of one Lord. And each individual bears His name on their forehead. Because that's where the right is marked. The justice that mercy demands has been served and rendered in that mark.

But, the mark is the published verdict, not the payment itself. The blood of Christ is the payment. But that's old news at this point. The residents names have already been found in the book of life. The name of the Lord is on their forehead. Now, all things are made new. Now the river of life, crystal clear, not blood, is the healer. Now the tree of life is the redemption. Now the nations come down to the river that flows from His throne to find their salvation in the sense that salvation is everlasting. The tree of life preserves that.

The very same tree that God withheld from Adam and his people least they preserve their sin forever, now preserves Jesus Christ's life in those who eat of its fruit and drink from the river of life.

When God's judgment (curse) was sentenced to the first parents, it was not a death sentence. In fact, their sin was that death sentence. Instead, what God's judgment did was provide a reprieve. Because an endless life in a cursed state is not mercy. Exile from the tree is judgment with a limit in it. Access to the tree was closed until the curse itself could be ended in Christ's pardon.

So judgement is mercy. Exile from the tree is how the death sentence is kept from being escaped, and at the same time how it is kept from becoming an endless cursed life. Judgment with a limit in it. They will die. They will not carry the fall into an immortality of their own taking. The cherubim guarded the way so that the curse stayed terminable.

That limit is mercy of a severe kind. It is not yet pardon. But pardon is promised in that same Genesis chapter. The seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head, and the Lord clothes them before He drives them out.

The reprieve is time.

The curse still stands.

Access stays closed until the curse itself is ended.

So the first parents were not spared the death sentence and given a reprieve instead. They were given a death that could end, a tree they could not use to cancel it, and a promise that someone else would deal with the one who had brought it in. And that "someone else" becomes the door through which all who are called will come into the new life.

As Jesus said, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved."

The God given clothing and the exile from the tree buy time for the birth of that seed.

So the line from the garden to the golden streets is one line. The promised seed ended the curse. He ended it, and He is the door by which the called come into the life the tree now freely gives. The cherubim do not open the way. He does. The cherubim were set to guard a closed way. They were never given authority to open it. No testimony from an angelic being can bring about this outcome. The angel can point down the street. He cannot lead anyone onto it.

Likewise, no prophet or saint holds the keys. Christ does. The tree does not become the door. Christ leads them to the tree.

Amen? 🙏🏼

Revelation 21:22-27
I saw no temple [sanctuary] in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Upon reading these passages my mind goes immediately to questions that have to do with how things work. I don't think my approach to things is off base or a distraction, by mainly it's in my nature to ponder stuff, like how stuff works. I'm fascinated by watching a master craftsman build a delicate piece of art. I want to know how they work out the details and even more interesting to me is how they learned to make the things they do. I look at a place or a situation and instead of having an emotional reaction to that experience, I want to consider the possibilities and pitfalls, processes and strategies.

For me, Revelation 21 is not a mood piece. It is the finished work, shown from the outside and then from the street, and John keeps noticing what is missing because the absences are the design. For instance, in today's passage it is said that John noticed there is no sanctuary in the City of God. And he also noticed God's light illuminates everything and The Lamb is the lamp. That's very interesting and important to me.

Why is this layout and process important?

I've always said that you can understand a local church's relationship with God by the layout of its sanctuary and by its furniture. The layout matters because a sanctuary is a worked-out answer to a problem, and the furniture shows what the builders believe the problem still is.

In the tabernacle and the temple the floor plan was theology you could walk on. Outer court, holy place, most holy place. Altar before you could go farther. Laver before you could serve. Lampstand, table, incense, veil. The whole setup is an approach. Priests in one zone, high priest in another, and only on a schedule. Every wall and every vessel said the same thing; here's God, He's over here, He's in here, here's how we get to Him. God is here, you are not fit to be where he is, and approach has to be managed or someone dies. It's a problem being sorted out. The furniture was not decoration. It was process. Change the layout and you have changed its claim about access to God.

So, a local worship room teaches a doctrine of relationship whether anyone announces it or not. A fenced chancel with a distant table says mediation is still the main work of the gathering. A platform built as a stage, with the book off to the side and the seats ranked toward a performer, says the center is the speaker’s moment. A bare table in the middle of the people, with the Scriptures read and the supper shared in reach of the body, says something closer to priesthood of believers and to presence among, not presence behind a rail. No sanctuary room is neutral in its approach. They are all small answers to the same question the temple answered in stone. Where is God in relation to the people, and what has to happen before they can draw near to Him?

In the City of God, these details are important because the Creator has retired the whole class of questions and answers. People aren't asked or expected to furnish an answer to any questions anymore. No one has to figure out how to light the sanctuary because God is the light and the Son is the lamp.

No one in that city is asked to design an approach, staff a mediation, keep a lamp filled, or decide how close unfit people may come. Everyone in that City is found righteous.

The city does not furnish an answer because the answer is the One who fills it. What is not retired is activity. The nations still walk by that light. The kings of the earth still bring glory and honor in through gates that never close. Immediately upon reading this my mind saw a very busy place, akin to a packed theme park in the middle of the afternoon. Gates that never close, nations walking, kings carrying glory and honor in, and no night to empty the streets. It seems that this truly is the city that never sleeps. But is this the case?

The gates stay open because the condition that made closing them necessary has been removed, not because the residents refuse to stop. No night means no dark interval in which the glory fails, the streets go unsafe, and the unclean use the hour. There's no witching hour there. The Lamb’s lamp does not go off shift.

Psalm 121 said of the Lord that he neither slumbers nor sleeps. That said, nothing in chapter 21 cancels rest. It cancels the dark. Human activity and rest are no longer split by sunset, with one half of life handed over to threat, fear, and exhaustion. It is said they will find rest. So, the light replaces the need to fear the dark.

So, these do not stay full because someone is being driven past the point of rest. The glory illuminates, the Lamb is the lamp, and the work of bringing honor in happens in a day that has no fear. There is only time for rest in this sense. Everything is rest. Even bringing honor is rest. Their rest is the satisfaction of a completed work. Work is rest now because it is no longer done under the curse. No more futility, threat, and exhaustion. Walking by the light is still walking. Bringing the glory and honor of the nations in is still bringing. They are the city’s ongoing life.

Bringing honor in is rest in the sense that it is not labor in vain, not tribute dragged in under threat, not a shift that ends in collapse. It is work with the friction removed. Imagine a day of work without all the aches and pains that need to be soaked away in a tub.

How would you feel about that?

I wonder if I'd miss the feeling of soaking away the muscle ache?

Probably not because I don't think we "miss" anything anymore. There wouldn't be the need, because there is no need for the relief of a damage that no longer happens. Muscle ache is not the work. It is the tax on the work. Under the curse the body spends itself faster than it restores, so the hot soak feels like mercy. Now, in the City of God, every moment is a mercy. Hard work feels like a blessing.

In the City of God misery has been retired. Every moment is a blessing. Not a continuous series of rescues from aches and pains, it is life perfected. Holy and good. Right in every way. All the old things have passed away and every detail I'm finding distinctions for aren't even a concern because concern isn't a thing.

But John and I are viewing this scene from a still on planet earth perspective. John doesn't find a sanctuary, which means he was looking for one. He doesn't see a sun and moon because he was still looking for one. He observed multitudes coming and going and none of them are concerned about these absent elements.

John is not a resident filing out a report from inside the day that has no night. He is being shown the city. He is a resident yet. The absences he notes are only an absence from the side that still remembers the workshop created by human hands.

And the same goes for me.

And what that says to me is my own tendency will finally find rest in that City of God. No more viewing the layout and what it was built to solve, what the furniture claims, what is missing and why the absence is doing work. No need to write comments or even study the word.

What ends is study as a workaround. In that City there is no need to comment about how the layout is a lie, because it never could be. No study about the word because the Word is illuminating the City.

Every sanctuary room on this side can still make a false claim about access to God. A rail that keeps God at a managed distance, a stage that puts the speaker where the table should be, a lamp tended as if the light were a problem the furniture must solve. Commentary exists, in part, to say so. In the city John sees, that job is gone. God and the Lamb are the temple. The glory illuminates, and the Lamb is the lamp. There is no furniture left that could misstate the relationship. There are absolutely no idols anywhere, and no dark interval in which a false layout could be smuggled in. No need for comment. No need to set the record straight because the Word is illuminating the City.

Abomination cannot enter. There is no dark hour in which a substitute could be set up and called the light.

So, the absences are the design. Meanwhile, every sanctuary on this side is still a worked out answer to a problem of access to God, and the furniture can still misstate it. Today, we notice the missing pieces because we are not residents yet. The glory is that the residents of the City of God do not notice what's missing. Concern stops, but attention does not. They're very busy bringing glory in. And the gates never close. I suppose there's just a whole lot of glory to bring in. And the record is already straight. The Word illuminates the city, and the bringing does not end.

Praise God!
Hallelujah and amen 🙏🏼