The Bible

 

Genesis 1

Study

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Commentary

 

The Word Was Made Flesh

By Brian David

This painting by Richard Cook  of the newborn baby Jesus, with Mary and Joseph, evokes the spiritual power of this long-awaited advent.

We could say the Lord’s love “has always been and will always be,” but even that really doesn’t cover it – the Lord is beyond time, and in fact time came from Him. We could say that Lord’s love is expressed “everywhere and in everything,” but even that really doesn’t cover it – the Lord is beyond both space and the stuff that fills space, and in fact space and stuff both came from Him.

So the Lord’s love never changes: It simply is. And the expression of that love – what the Writings call “divine truth” – never changes: It simply is.

People, on the other hand, change all the time, both as individuals and as societies. We turn toward the Lord and toward each other; we turn away from the Lord and away from each other. We look to spiritual things; we look to bodily things. That means our reception of the Lord’s love changes all the time, and the Lord’s love, in its complete desire to be joined to us, adapts its external forms constantly to try to reach us.

That’s what’s described here, in John 1:6-18. Humankind had always received the divine truth, but the forms had become more external as people got more external. Among the earliest, most innocent people The Lord could flow in directly; later he reached people through the minds, using symbolic stories and nature as a container. As people became entirely external, however, His love flowed out in the stony form of the laws of Moses. Understood spiritually, these laws and the other stories and prophecies of the Old Testament contain infinite ideas about the Lord and connections to His love – they contain all of the divine truth. But the Children of Israel themselves couldn’t understand that; the best they could do was obey.

That historic process is described in verses 9-13, which show the creative and sustaining power of divine truth (represented by both “the Light” and “the Word”), as well as the fact that those who received it became “sons of God,” or angels in heaven. As time went on, though, most people “received him not” and “knew him not.” In fact, as the Jewish leaders twisted the externals of Scripture to their own selfish ends, the world grew so evil that according to the Writings humanity was in danger of losing its connection to the Lord altogether.

So “the Word” – divine truth, the expression of the Lord’s love – was “made flesh” in the form of Jesus. In a way, this was the most external form the divine truth could take, extending from spiritual reality to give itself a physical form. But the purpose was to turn the process around: Jesus would reveal the deeper meanings of Scripture and teach the divine truth more directly, through commandments of love and caring. He would start humanity on a spiritual journey back toward a more internal life, one more receptive of the Lord’s love.

So what’s the role of John the Baptist here? John represents the external, literal meaning of the Old Testament, and to “witness” means to confirm what is good by using the things we know to be true. So John here witnesses first to “the light,” reminding the people of the time that Scripture is holy and urging them to return to its forms; and later to Jesus, confirming through the letter of Scripture that he was the promised Messiah, come to offer us truth and grace – which represents the delight we feel in things that are true – and ultimately to “declare” the Father to us, or to bring us into connection with the love that is the Lord’s essence.

(References: The Apocalypse Explained 151:4, 294 [16])