Accepting God’s Provisions
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Key Verse: “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Selected Scripture: |
THE BOOK OF GENESIS begins with the record of God’s Creative works, most particularly those relating to and for the earth. After all, this earth is where God intended that man would dwell, and so it would seem logical that the account of Creation would focus its attention more particularly upon that which would be man’s intended eternal environment. Indeed, as the Scriptures say, “God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.”—Isa. 45:18
God most likely incorporated the assistance of the previously created holy angels to accomplish the tremendous work at hand, and, in fact, delegated the primary portion of this great project to his own Son, Jesus, in his prehuman existence. The Apostle John refers to him in this prehuman existence as the Word of God, or Logos. (John 1:1, Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott) That is, he was God’s ‘mouthpiece,’ his chief instrument to carry out his plans on the earth.
The Logos was not God himself, but was the expression of him, as shown by his character attributes and purpose. John says concerning the Word, “This was in a beginning with the God.” (John 1:2, Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott, Interlinear) “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (vs. 3) It was God’s own Son who was the chief instrument used in the Creative work described in our lesson, with God as the master architect.
There was much work to be done. The earth had no form and was void of any life. (Gen. 1:2) It took the mighty power of God, his Spirit, to bring about the necessary changes to the rudimentary elements that would change them into a form fit for man’s eventual habitation. God’s Spirit, or power, was used by the Son to accomplish this transformation. It is well for us to note the necessity for these three—God, his Spirit or power, and his Son, the Word—to all work in harmony together, though they were separate and distinct. Here we see the first example of teamwork and mutual cooperation recorded for our benefit.
As the Creative works continued to move forward according to God’s orderly arrangement, there came a time, during the fifth and sixth Creative ‘days’ (an epoch or space of time), in which all the fowl of the air, creatures of the sea, and beasts of the land were created. “God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. … 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.”—Gen. 1:22,25
These Creative works were for the benefit of man. To sustain life, “God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed … and every tree … to you it shall be for meat.” Likewise, to all other creatures he gave “every green herb for meat.”—Gen. 1:29-31