My first seminar on Genesis 1-11 was, in a word, wonderful. All sorts of intriguing questions were asked. At the beginning of the discussion, which was opened with a question from Mrs. Kirby about the role of naming in the first chapters, we discussed the interrelation of being (or “thinghood”) and a name. It was also asserted that all created being is derivative from God’s being. I think by far, for me, the most intriguing discussion was that centered on the act of separation and distinction. God separating the light from the darkness and separating the waters has a great implication on the creation that results. This world isn’t simply a synthesis of raw materials, as described in Plato’s Timaeus. Creatio ex nihilo is a remarkable concept. It and the separation that followed causes me now to meditate on how and why God makes distinctions and sets values and establishes laws among the created stuff and seems to set up His authority as very active in what is called the “natural world.” It’s not only that God created light, but He also actively placed light under His law—that is, His own active, governing will. It’s not fair to say that my seminar discussed so much in such wording, but there were traces of these things in the discussion.
Another intriguing item of our conversation, brought up by my friend Danny Osborne, was the separation of humans from God’s protection. Another in the group developed a parent-child analogy very fitting for the situation of God in Eden and the fall of humankind.
I scribbled a note in this course of this thinking that read, “Separated from protection when we wield our own knowledge.” It is conceivable that Adam and Eve depended on God for His knowledge of good and evil, but then they turned elsewhere, being bereft of wisdom in themselves, and sought to have a knowledge of their own; and having taken it upon themselves to judge the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as being good for eating and gaining wisdom, though they were utterly unfit to see such a thing until after they ate of it, they set themselves apart from God. It’s as if the light in the their souls rebelled against the boundary that separates it from darkness, and the dim and gray lawlessness that ensued brought shame by rendering their eyes incapable of seeing the image of God in themselves. But this is all my own meditation stemming from the seminar.
One of the most powerful moments in-session was when a young lady to my left, in a short discussion about the flood and questioning the judgment of God to save the human race that yet carried the corruption of its sin, posited with a resolute hope, “It seems God saw that there was something worth saving.”
Let it be declared on the rooftops that humans are utterly unworthy of salvation, but that the Almighty God has set His image upon us—something worth saving—and to the glory of the Lord He has made provision through Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself, reëstablishing us at His side as both children and worshipers.
Another intriguing item of our conversation, brought up by my friend Danny Osborne, was the separation of humans from God’s protection. Another in the group developed a parent-child analogy very fitting for the situation of God in Eden and the fall of humankind.
I scribbled a note in this course of this thinking that read, “Separated from protection when we wield our own knowledge.” It is conceivable that Adam and Eve depended on God for His knowledge of good and evil, but then they turned elsewhere, being bereft of wisdom in themselves, and sought to have a knowledge of their own; and having taken it upon themselves to judge the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as being good for eating and gaining wisdom, though they were utterly unfit to see such a thing until after they ate of it, they set themselves apart from God. It’s as if the light in the their souls rebelled against the boundary that separates it from darkness, and the dim and gray lawlessness that ensued brought shame by rendering their eyes incapable of seeing the image of God in themselves. But this is all my own meditation stemming from the seminar.
One of the most powerful moments in-session was when a young lady to my left, in a short discussion about the flood and questioning the judgment of God to save the human race that yet carried the corruption of its sin, posited with a resolute hope, “It seems God saw that there was something worth saving.”
Let it be declared on the rooftops that humans are utterly unworthy of salvation, but that the Almighty God has set His image upon us—something worth saving—and to the glory of the Lord He has made provision through Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself, reëstablishing us at His side as both children and worshipers.
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