And Behold, It Was Very Good

Experiencing the Incarnational Tradition and the Sacramental Life

Genesis 1:24-31; 2:1-3; Ephesians 4:17-24; Revelation 21:1-5

Genesis 1:1 asserts that God created everything. The point is that God is Sovereign over all creation. Figuring out how the seven days of creation relate to scientific theories of origins might be an entertaining pastime, but I do not see how such speculation helps us live the Christian life. I prefer to focus on the purpose God has in revealing these days of creation. In 1:2-13 the text asserts that all created matter was in unproductive disorder until the Spirit of God began to move and God began to speak forth his sovereign purposes. This tells us that God’s Spirit and Word are the foundation of meaningful life. Now that is important to know!

God on Day One created light, put the light in regular rotation with darkness, and saw that the light was good.

God on Days Two and Three divided the waters above from the waters below, creating a breathable atmosphere, and then raised up land to divide the waters below, giving a place for vegetation, and saw that the sea, the land, and the vegetation, not to mention the atmosphere, were all good.

God on Day Four assigned to the heavenly lights the role of marking the seasons, making calendars possible, a fact that is important not only for farmers, but also for a covenant people who will honor God with regular days and seasons of worship, rest, commemoration, and celebration, and saw that this ordering of seasons was good.

On Day Five, we see the animals of sea and air populating the world, and on the first portion of Day Six, we see the land animals further populating the world, and on each day, God saw that this rich variety of animal life was good, and blessed the animals to be fruitful and multiply.

Let’s read about the last portion of Day Six, which describes the second most important purpose of creation, in Genesis 1:26-31: 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Human beings, male and female, are created in the image of God. That means that human beings have the capacity to communicate with God and to represent God’s nature and purposes. It is this created capacity that leads to their being assigned the role of dominion or reigning over creation. This is not an unlimited reign. They rightly reign only so long as they fulfill their created purpose of representing the nature and purposes of the Creator for his creation. Some things were initially revealed about those purposes.

One, God has revealed that the light, the air, the land, the water, the ordering of the season, the creatures of air and sea and land are all good. Add the human beings, and the whole thing taken together is VERY GOOD.

Two, God has blessed the plant life, the animal life, and the human life to be fruitful, to reproduce in such ways that the rich and varied goodness of creation is sustained.

Three, God believes in the value of order in all creation. God ordered things on the days of creation, and assigned human beings as his representatives to maintain a fruitful order. God’s words about grain fruit, nuts, and leafy vegetation indicate specifically that there is an orderliness to food production and consumption, and that human beings are responsible for maintaining that orderliness in accord with God’s intentions. God later will make explicit a concession that allows human beings to eat meat, but again the assumption is that this will be done in an orderly way that is proper to the fact that the created order is VERY GOOD, and that God values each part of it. So, from the beginning of creation, God’s purpose, not just for a select chosen people, is that all human beings are assigned to maintain the creative, fruitful balance of a good creation, and in doing so, to represent the nature and purposes of God.

The creative balance is terribly important. For some reason, near the end of the last two summers, roadrunners have moved near the Christview Ministries Center. It is such fun to see them, to watch the way they move. They make me laugh. I am hoping that they also bring some balance to nature. In my opinion, the numbers of copperheads could be reduced a bit in our woods [On my Monday Sabbath, the day after I preached this sermon, a roadrunner came to the window where I was seated at my computer, looked at me, cocked his head once to each side, and decided that he should quickly and unobtrusively exit stage right. His exaggerated pivot and long tip-toe-y stride were so funny that I had a belly laugh].

Four, beyond what is here revealed, we should note that, as the human beings God created are fruitful and multiply, they will need to extend the creative orderliness from the natural order to the social order. Our families, communities, nations, and cultures also need to be organized with an eye to God’s creative plans, to God’s special kinds of orderliness, to God’s ways of love, compassion, mercy, justice, peace, and hope. When Israel and then the church are later called to represent God’s nature and purposes, to be a kingdom of priests and a holy people, God intends that calling to be shared with all the people of the earth. The people of God are to live in such a way that the remaining people of the world will be drawn into relationship with their Sovereign Creator.

We have talked about the second most important message of this text, our calling as human beings to be children of God. The most important message of this text comes on the Day Seven in Genesis 2:1-3: 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. God did not rest because he was tired or because he was limited in his power to attend to many things simultaneously. God set aside the seventh day as holy because he wished to set a model for us who were created in his image, a model of observing a periodic Sabbath day.

The purpose of God’s resting is fulfilled in the fourth of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:8-11: 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The Sabbath principle is that, if we wish to fulfill our divine calling to represent the nature and purposes of God, we must set significant time aside from our own agendas to let God be God, to let God be the Sovereign Creator and Provider, to let God speak his purposes and power into our lives, to let God remind us of who and why we are, and we must grant such time to those around us as well, including those who serve us and even our working beasts. Christians do not have a Sabbath law. It would be easier if we did. But we do have a Sabbath principle which we must find our own ways to implement, and we will suffer when we do not implement the Sabbath principle on a regular basis. This is not just a cultural need of a few religious people. It is a need that is built into our created natures. We are at war with our own natures when we do not observe the Sabbath principle in a godly manner. Regular, substantive, quality time with God is basic to our ability to live out our divine calling in daily life.

If we live only by the principle of the Day Six, that we are the god-images, the little lords, on earth, and if we try to carry out that role of power without sufficient time with God, the result will be disastrous. There are no scarier words in the Bible than, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Those words are attached to the very worst in fruitless, decadent, and destructive living. Our taking dedicated time with God, time apart from our own agendas, time to let God’s nature and purposes take rulership over our lives, is vital to our living out our created purpose. This must be our top priority, or we will lose our direction, and, even with the best of intentions, we will wander off into destruction, doing what seems right in our own eyes rather than what is right in our Creator’s eyes.

My message today is that we were created in God’s image, and that we must spend time with God so that we can live out in our daily lives our calling in life, the reason we were created. This is the point of the incarnational tradition.

God has not surrendered his purpose in creation. Nor has God surrendered his purpose in salvation. The widespread message in our culture that the purpose of salvation is to get us off the hook for our misdeeds is a serious misstatement of the Bible’s message. God’s purpose in saving us, in sending his Son to die for us, is that we might be restored to his purpose for us from the beginning, the purpose that we might be his royal children, living as his image-bearers, representing his loving nature and creative plans, reigning with him in making life ever richer in beautiful variety.

The process of being restored to God’s plan for us and of living for the praise of his glory is the meaning of our present lives. Paul put our purpose this way in Ephesians 4:22-24: 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. And, as new creations in Christ, we are to walk in Christlikeness. Paul stamps the message with these words at Ephesians 5:1-2: 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. What a goal, to be walking representations of Christ’s love, divine love incarnate in us.

Revelation 21:1-5 shows that the saving process that we Christians are presently undergoing leads to a goal, our dwelling and reigning with God and the Lamb, in a perfected new heaven and new earth. Let’s read again the key concepts of that passage: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

That is what will be for those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life: all things will be new; all things will be as they were meant to be from the beginning; the richness and variety of beauty will be ever astounding, breathtaking. Our purpose right now in this life is to represent that goal toward which we are moving, the restored creation of heaven and earth, in the concrete circumstances of our lives. We do that by gratefully receiving, rejoicing in, taking care of, and sharing God’s daily blessings.

We will do that in a variety of ways. Some of us will farm or garden. Some of us will prepare and market produce. Some of us will distribute the overflowing abundance to those in need. Some of us will work with our hands, mixing our labor with the earth’s resources to produce things both useful and beautiful. Some of us will keep the wheels of the economy turning so that laborers may be justly paid for their labor. Some of us will work with our minds, producing words that instruct, guide, and inspire. Some of us will pass our most cherished truths and skills to succeeding generations. We will work in many ways, and God is able to bless every work that is dedicated to his glory.

If we are Christians, we will do our individual tasks for the glory of God. Even if the work itself seems to us of little spiritual significance, our impact on our employers, employees, fellow workers, customers, family, and friends, will be for the glory of God. Even if we are unemployed or retired, we will look for ways to embody God’s love in meaningful daily activities, to build a community of hope through Jesus Christ, always pointing ahead, showing our eagerness for the perfection that will one day be. And we pray that Christ will be incarnate in those of us who have been baptized into unity with him, who weekly gather to feed on his Word, his Spirit, his Body and his Blood. And we pray that Jesus will lead us in every endeavor until we reach the goal. May it be so! Amen!