To answer the first query from last week - ''Who else was present and worked in partnership with the Spirit during God's Creation?'' - lets start in John:
John 1: 1, 2, 3 &10; ''In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.''
John goes on to give us a massive clue as to the identity of ''The Word'':
John 1: 14; ''And the Word was made [became] flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.''
One of the most important titles used in the Bible relating to Jesus Christ (''the only begotten of the Father'') is Logos (''Word''). The idea behind this title embodied God's revelation of Himself to mankind.
Jesus is both the expression and communication of God's Word. Jesus is both the incarnate and inspired word of God. The term incarnate, (or incarnation) refers to the miracle of God the Son becoming human, yet remaining God.
(In verse 14 ''Dwelt among us'' John uses the word for ''tabernacled'', here translated as ''dwelt''. The Old Testament tabernacle was where God dwelt amongst His people in the wilderness. In the context of this verse, God is dwelling in the person of Jesus Christ - but I digress - more on this in future weeks).
Let see what Paul says about Jesus's role in Creation;
Colossians 1: 15, 16 & 17; ''Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [First in rank] of [over] every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in [on] earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities [rulers], or powers [authorities]: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by [in] him all things consist.''
''First-born'' here signifies two things: i) as the first born child in a family is born before his brothers and sisters, similarly Jesus existed before Creation - before our universe was made; and ii) the firstborn in a family was customarily accorded more honour, greater authority, or larger share of the inheritance, and so held a more privileged position in relation to his brothers and sisters; Jesus in a like manner occupies a position supreme over all the universe.
''...by him were all things created'' reinforces that Jesus must have existed before the universe.
''Thrones...dominions...principalities... powers:'' all refer to angelic beings. ''Thrones'' refer to angels who sit on thrones as rulers; ''dominions'' refer to domains or kingdoms over which these heavenly beings reign, ''principalities'' refer to rulers, and ''powers'' refer to angelic monarchs who wield regal power. Since Jesus created these various ranks of angels, He is supreme over them.
(In this context Paul is striking a blow at the Colossian heresy advocating angel worship. The text forbids Christians to pay homage to angels or other heavenly beings created by God; Colossians 2 : 18a ''Let no man beguile [defraud] you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worship of angels...'')
''By him all things exist'' or in other words by Him all things are held together; Jesus Christ now preserves all that He made in Creation.
To answer the second question posed in the last blog post ''How did God use the Holy Spirit, in a final act of His Creation, in the joining and making one the material (physical) and immaterial (spiritual) parts of man?'' - we need to go to Genesis:
Genesis1: 26 & 27; Genesis 2: 7 ''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 thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.''
Man was created by God on the sixth day of Creation and is the grand climax of all that God had accomplished in the Creation week of miracles. The final act of Creation was that God joined the material and immaterial parts of man. Man's body was shaped from the dust but he became a living soul only after God breathed the breath of life (the life giving force of the Spirit) into his nostrils.
In the Old Testament the word soul refers to the whole person. It identifies something that cannot be defined materially - sometimes referred to as metaphysical - and is therefore distinct from the body. The soul is that part of us that has life - it is without material form, body or substance.
Man was created in both the image and likeness of God. An image is a representation of one person or thing by another. The term likeness is used as a gauge of comparison and is used to denote the moral, rational and spiritual likeness with our Maker - or put another way- God gave man the capacity for eternal life, fellowship, moral discernment, self-consciousness, speech and worship.
To find the answer to the third and final query from last week, ''[What were] Adam's responsibilities under the Edenic Covenant which God established with him?'' we again look to Genesis:
Genesis 2: 8, 15, 16 & 17; ''And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put man whom he had formed. And the LORD God took the man [Adam], and put him into the garden of Eden to dress [tend or cultivate] it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die.''
The Lord's God's provision is a model of parental care. The fledgling, Adam, is sheltered - but not smothered: on all sides discoveries await him to draw out his powers of discernment and choice, and there is ample nourishment. So Adam's responsibilities, obligations God had given him, were simple
- to labour for his sustenance
- to obey God by abstaining from eating the forbidden fruit.
''Thou shalt not eat'' is in the strongest Hebrew form of prohibition. ''Surely die'' is the strongest way to stress the certainty of death upon eating.
In the Bible there are three deaths:
- physical death, separation of body and spirit
- spiritual death, separation of the individual from God
- eternal death separation of God forever (known as the ''second death'').
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