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He came into his own home. – Saint John
The holy Bible starts off with the famous words "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" and goes on to give a brief account of the creation of the world in seven stages, culminating in the creation of man and woman on the sixth day after which God looks upon his creation and proclaims "it was very good." The seventh and final stage of creation is proclaimed holy, whereupon God finishes his work which he had done and he rests. "So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation." This is also the end of the first story in the bible (Genesis 1:1 to 2:3), a key prologue to all that comes next.
Thousands of years later, Saint John writes his commentary on the original creation story with his own prologue at the beginning of the gospel about Jesus our incarnate Word (John 1:1-18). Saint John provides insights into the mystery of creation when he writes "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; and all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made."
John's prologue hits on many of the same themes as Moses's prologue - light, life, sons of God, and so on. And he has a very powerful verse that sheds light on the original creation story, especially for those of us so far removed from Moses' account that we forget to appreciate how revolutionary of a revelation about the God of the universe that the first story of the bible is. And it is the line "He came to his own home."
If we are not attuned to the meaning of the original story, the line "he came to his own home" is the key that unlocks it. In creating the heavens and the earth, God created a home. He created a home and filled it with all sorts of life - plant life, animal life, and human life. And this insight from Saint John that helps unlock the days of creation - they are the stages in which God creates a very good home which he fills with life abundant, including his family.
The first day he says "let there be light" and ensures his home has separated light and darkness. The next day, on day 2, he creates a roof to separate the water from the skies and from the seas. On day 3 he gathers the waters below so the foundation (earth) emerges. Once that is done, in day three we have the beginnings of life with the vegetation of the earth, including plants and trees bearing fruit. On day 4 he sets up lights - the sun, moon and stars - to help tell time in the day and seasons as well as light up the world during the night and day of the various seasons. Day 5 is when animal life is introduced with the fish and birds. Day 6 is when God creates the land animals, including the cattle and culminates with mankind. On day 6, God looks at everything and says "it was very good" and enters his sabbath rest. Day 7 is the holy day of rest in which God makes the week and consecrates one day as holy.
And in this short story we have lots of principles that would be expanded on later, and ultimately fulfilled in the New Covenant. These principles are hidden in shadows that the light of Christ draws out through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Let's look at a few.
First off, the fact that God creates in seven days gives us a pattern to structure our weeks. There is no reasons for us as humans to have 7 day weeks other than the very simple fact that we are modeling ourselves after our heavenly Father. If he worked six days and rested one, we being made in his image and likeness, do likewise. And so, it is only natural that in the Old Covenant the sabbath was respected, likewise the New Covenant holds the Lord's day as holy.
Key to God's majesty, he creates out of nothing (ex nihilo). In the beginning he created the heavens and earth - that is, everything. The Maccabean mother understood this ex nihilo creation when she encouraged her youngest boy to follow his brothers into holy martyrdom. She spoke, "My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you. I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being. Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers."
And since God creates out of nothing, Saint Paul understood that nothing could separate us from God's love. "No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And so, the first story of sacred scripture makes very clear, God created all things. And as we approach the 6th day, we see that out of all things only mankind is made in his image and likeness. And while there is a hint of the trinitarian mystery even here, let us focus on the Fatherhood of God first. For God says in reference to mankind, "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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." To be made in someone's likeness and image is to be made someone's son. Which is why Luke can write in Jesus' genealogy, "Adam, the son of God."
And so, mankind is made in God's image, we are his living images, we are his sons and daughters, and for those who noticed the hint in the description of humanity and our being given dominion, we are made to be kings. Also, we are witnessing our prophetic and priestly roles as well, in the next lines God says to mankind, male and female, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion... Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit." We are kings with dominions, we are prophets who receive our Father's instructions, and we are priests who live by the word of God, serving and protecting his creation.
So, when Christ comes to restore all things, he restores us as kings, prophets, and priests. Most importantly, he restores us as beloved sons of God. Though, at this point in the story, we don't have the Fall and so we don't have the Redemption and Restoration. At this point, we are simply looking at the God's initial design and gleaning the glimpses of his hope for us, his children. And like most covenants with a Father and his sons, this covenant is implicit in the story, meaning it is not explicitly stating that it is a covenant, but it is hinting at what covenants are - sacred bonds of family.
All the sacred covenants represent are family bonds between God and his children. And before there is strife in a family, before the children disobey, there is no need to specify that there is a family bond between a father and his children. The children simply live in the Father's love. And even though we won't hear the word covenant until the salvation story of Noah, it is a restoration of the original covenant with mankind that we are hearing about in the Creation story. And there are all sorts of patterns being established in these first stories of creation and mankind, in this family bond between God and his children, that give us insight into there fulfillment in the story of Jesus of Nazareth. In this first story, a story of idyllic beauty and goodness, are things hinted at that will be fulfilled in the New and Everlasting covenant, the covenant we have through God's only-begotten son, the Word of God.
Among those shadows of the Old hidden in the creation story brought to light in the New covenant of Jesus include the importance of baptism, the resurrection of the 3rd day, and even the trinity. Let us consider briefly how these key principles and characteristics are hidden in even these first stories and foretold long before they would come to be fulfilled.
First, we see that life only begins to emerge once the waters recede. The sacred story is very clear, and will soon become more clear in the story of Noah the importance of baptism. But even here, in the first story of creation, we see that all life on earth emerges when the waters covering the earth recede. The starts a pattern we see throughout the whole of the bible that life comes out of the water. And this is fulfilled in the New Covenant, when we are born into eternal life when the believer emerges from their immersion into water, their baptism. We are given life when we emerge out of the water covering us in our mother's womb, and we are given eternal life when we emerge from the waters at baptism.
And the waters recede and the earth emerges with life on the 3rd day. This sets up another key principle of the 3rd day that we will see noted in so many stories of scripture, including the promises of the patriarchs and prophets of life and healing on the 3rd day. And ultimately, fulfilled in Christ's resurrection that happens on, you guessed it, the 3rd day. For Christ himself is consistent in the New covenant with the patterns by which heaven and earth were created through him, by him, and for him.
So confident in his resurrection on the 3rd day, he publicly proclaimed this throughout his ministry. In John's gospel he tells the nation's leaders, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." The disciples themselves didn't understand this until after his resurrection and the coming of the holy Spirit, for only by the light of the New covenant do the mysteries of the Old come to light, for only then are the shadows revealed, and only then do we "believe the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken."
And another one of the mysteries hidden in the Old, revealed in the New is the trinitarian mystery. Trinity, a word that is not in the bible but is used to describe what is found throughout the whole of the bible and taught by the Church across seas and centuries, throughout the millennia to all mankind. For it is there in the Covenant with Creation, for we saw the fatherhood of God already, but we also see the Holy Spirit when Moses writes "the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters." This link between water and spirit will be continued throughout the bible and we will look into it; for now, the holy Spirit is establishing the connection in our mind's eye that will be expanded on throughout the Law and the Prophets and into the New covenant. Moving forward, when God speaks his word into creation, his eternal son listens and obeys. For the Father speaks and his Son listens and the Spirit interprets. And so, the eternal communion with God in three persons is here in the beginning, in the communion of the triune God, we have the three persons of our one God speaking, listening, and interpreting the word spoken.
This trinitarian mystery helps explain perplexing language of when mankind is created, for God says "let us make man in our image, after our likeness" and some may say that it is simply the royal speech of kings to speak in plural. But where do the kings get this example but from our triune God? Where do those kings get that example from but the great king of kings? He establishes the way to follow. In the next line, the sacred writer continues, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." The scripture records the change, "Let us make" but "he creates." We hear plural and singular in reference to God. And so, by the power of the holy Spirit guiding his words, Moses writes this trinitarian mystery into the first story of Creation and the covenant God makes with mankind as our Father.
He records God's word, "Let us make" and also writes "so God created man in his own image." Plural and yet singular. Like three-in-one.
And mankind finds our fullness in God's image in being male and female. We cannot fulfill God's word to be fruitful and multiply until we come together as male and female. We fulfill the original command of God by multiplying life, and that is by two becoming one flesh. Two-in-one makes three. Other hints of our being made in the trinitarian image. We find our fullness in community and communion. That's when "it is very good." We being like God, bring forth life in love.
And so this image of the fullness of mankind will be made evident in the stories of the other covenants. In the covenant with creation and mankind, we have male and female, Adam and Eve. In future covenants we have Noah and the Ark, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and God's people, David's son and the Queen Mother, and Jesus and Mother Mary. The fullness of mankind is found in partnership between man and woman, for male and female he created them. It was true in the covenants of Old, it is true in the New.
Moreover, we have even a hint of the cross that will continue to be made clearer and clearer in the following covenants and stories. Trees are prominent in this first story. For trees carry the seed of life and mankind is given the plants and trees for food. For God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food." We are to live by eating from the trees that give life. Likewise, in the New and Everlasting covenant there is "the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month." From the first Covenant with Creation, God is giving us a copy and shadow of the heavenly fulfillment in Christ our Lord. But while all was made "very good", something bad happened. And that was man's disobedience.
I suppose we could continue to discuss the covenant with creation, like Saint John says, and find more and more insights for the books of the world can't contain all that could be spoken of Christ, our eternal word, but these are sufficient for now and it is time we progress to the second story of Scripture to have a deeper look into the original covenant with mankind. And this will reveal much more about our heavenly paradise and the Tree of Eternal Life which our souls are searching for.