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Creation week is the basis of the plan of God. The days of creation reveal what humankind is to remember. In the 21st century, we’ve forgotten.
Creation week rehabilitated Earth. It started with let there be light out of darkness. With seventh day serenity out of tohu and bohu confusion. It divulges the overall plan of God for humankind. It even reminds us to remember God’s plan for us. How are we doing?
(Origin of Humankind, chapter 2.4)
With Genesis 3:2-3 the author of Genesis closes the story of the seven days of Creation
2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
I reproduce here the better translation I demonstrated in these past blogs for sit still, from and made. The deeper Biblical meaning of Gen. 3:3 is, “God sat still resting with His created humans to make them.” I must insist that you click on those three links and reread those explanations. All of this information together, as coherent completeness, unlocks Bible comprehension. Missing one piece, or altering the contours of a piece and misunderstandings arise.
This same Creation week concluding verse indicates two specific actions of God directly related to the seventh day BECAUSE (notice because in verse 3) God’s goal on that day was to continue His work with humans.
This Creation week's concluding verse indicates two specific actions of God directly related to the seventh day BECAUSE (notice because in Gen. 1:3) God's goal on that day was to continue His work with humans. Share on XThis verse was directly referred to by Christ when he said; The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27) Humans are center-stage; the focus is on them; the Sabbath was blessed and sanctified BECAUSE it was a period after their creation/birth when God was WITH them, helping them learn and understand the first steps of the life they were about to commence.
You don’t create, invent, or give birth to anything without spending the time to explain the why the what and the how. Chapter two of Genesis will provide us with more detail of this explanation they received on the Sabbath in the Garden of Eden.
Bless
In Genesis 1, God blesses three items. We have discussed the fowl and fish; their blessing was to be able to multiply themselves automatically. Their reproduction is innate; they don’t need any instruction if left to their own in their natural habitat; nature takes its course. Humans were blessed to multiply, have social relationships, and rulership. For that humans certainly, do need instruction. Hence, the first day after their creation, God blessed the seventh day of Creation week for that specific purpose.
I do not want to expand this subject here, because I want to focus on the Sabbath as a whole and as the final day of Creation week. But, I ask you how much time does humanity devote to learning about and meditating on the two most essential functions of humankind: human relationships and governing oneself and others. Maybe if we devoted more time to that, we’d have fewer problems than we have in today’s society. God blessed the Sabbath for that purpose.
Sanctify
He also sanctified the seventh day. What’s that, and why did He do it?
KJV – appoint, bid, consecrate, dedicate, defile, hallow, (be, keep) holy(-er, place), keep, prepare, proclaim, purify, sanctify(-ied one, self), ⨯ wholly.
Look at how the KJV translated kodesh. These are descriptives of the seventh day. It is appointed as a period of holiness and purity, both literally and figuratively. It is the day dedicated to proclaim and prepare holiness in social relationships and rulership. Imagine a world pushing to that goal on a personal, community, national, and international scale. It’s totally in that spirit that God sanctified the seventh day.
When these verses say, in essence, God created (hu)man(s) to make them. That is precisely the purpose of the seventh day. God is making man holy in social relationships and rulership; this is what God is in the process of doing. When you look at the state of this world, you might think God’s failing. I assure you He’s not, what we see is a necessary part of the learning curve humanity has to go through to see the light of day.
God blessed and sanctified the Sabbath to serve humankind as a period to learn and reflect on how to attain the sanctity and holiness the Creator intends for social relationships and rulership. In that, the Sabbath is at the service of all of humanity. That is why God created this time period for the service of humankind.
The seventh day, what it represents and its meaning are a very vast subject. It could easily be the subject of a book and maybe, one day will be. This is just the briefest of brief incursions into this subject. It is the final day of Creation week and a day of reflection by humans as to what their role is here on Earth. The details of all this will become clearer in Genesis 2 and the rest of the Bible Story.
And so ends the overall, but oh so pertinent presentation of Creation week. Let’s succinctly summarize what’s happened over these seven days. Keep in mind that all of the physical creation has two aspects—both a literal and figurative meaning. Then you’ll see the relevance of these points for us today in the 21st century.
Summary of Creation Week
Day 1
Let there be light. Literally out of the darkness, God created light. Figuratively He began to make order out of the chaos, truth out of the lies. Clean out of the dirt. The week starts with the Earth being formless and void. It ends with Sabbath which is the world with form and holiness,
Day 2
God made the firmament dividing the waters. He initiates the water cycle. Figuratively water represents His Spirit, which we’ll come to, as well as God’s ability to control and use water to teach lessons.
Day 3
Creation of dry land and vegetation. God supplies all the physical needs of humankind, from minerals to bread. Figuratively, humanity can’t live by bread alone; we need spiritual sustenance.
Day 4
God made the sun and moon to keep time. He set the calendar for planting and harvesting seasons. That same calendar represents the planting and harvesting of His people. God has a calendar for calling and conversion. A vast subject, which will include calling every single human being that has lived on the face of this Earth.
Day 5
God creates and blesses fish and fowl. God populates the water and air established on day 2.
Day 6
Firstly God brings forth the land creatures. To populate land established on day 3. Figuratively the way God brings forth fish, fowl, and animals is to reveal the chasm that separates them from humankind.
Secondly, but more importantly, God says, let us make (hu)man(s) in our image. He makes them male and female. He blesses, marries them establishing social relations and gives them dominion establishing rulership.
Day 7
God sets aside time to explain to the male and female what has happened during the week and their social relations and dominion roles. We’ll see many more details of this starting in Genesis 2.
I think we can comfortably say it’s been a very active and fruitful week. Accomplishments are numerous. But it’s only the beginning of the story, which is yet to be written and played out. There’s much much more that can be said about Genesis chapter 1 but not now.
In conclusion of this expose about the seventh day being blessed and sanctified and the summary of what took place during the entire week I’d like to come back to a meaning of the Biblical Hebrew word zakar which is the term used for male. in Genesis 1:27 “…male (H2145) and female created He them.”
Remember
I pointed out that Strong called male the most noteworthy sex. and how there’s a figurative relationship between Adam and Jesus, the noteworthiness and the preeminence.
Male and female are equal; both are in the image of God. Yes, the male came first; this does confer on him a honorability. But it also behooves him to realize that with that honorability comes responsibility and obligations. Let’s see what’s involved through an additional meaning of the Biblical Hebrew word zachar.
KJV – ⨯ him, male, man(child, -kind).
H2142. זָכַר zâkar zaw-kar’; a primitive root; also as denominative from H2145 (זָכָר) properly, to mark (so as to be recognized), i.e. to remember; by implication, to mention; to be male:
KJV – ⨯ burn (incense), ⨯ earnestly, be male, (make) mention (of), be mindful, recount, record(-er), remember, make to be remembered, bring (call, come, keep, put) to (in) remembrance, ⨯ still, think on, ⨯ well.
The Hebrew for male is also remember, and this is probably the most crucial point that should characterize males and humankind. He should remember where he comes from, who his Maker is, and he ought to be mindful of what God has prepared for him and what his responsibilities are.
I summarized Genesis 1 above because this is the record of what God wants humans to remember. He even set aside the seventh day to consider these things. True mindfulness is remembering these overall and fundamental principles laid out as the introduction to the story of humankind in the Bible. Let there be light. Let the tohu and bohu of day one turn into the sanctification and holiness of day 7. That is the plan God is accomplishing.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 2.4 of the book Origin of Humankind.
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