Sunday School - Roger Phipps - From Creation to Deluge

[0:00] Let's look to the Lord for his blessing this morning, please. Father, thanks so much for the way you've cared for us. Thank you for bringing us together this morning, giving us another day, and for deigning to give us your word whereby we can find how to be saved and exist eternally with you, with life everlasting.

[0:26] We thank you for, most of all, for that great gift of your son, Jesus Christ, who took upon himself our sin so that we might be granted righteousness in him.

[0:39] It's for that reason that we can look forward, no matter what we see happening in the world, we can look forward to the time of reconciliation, and so we do, Lord.

[0:53] Now, please bless us in your word this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're ready for the creation of man, and we left things kind of hanging last week.

[1:12] So, here we come to day six, God creates the animals, and on day six, God created man in what?

[1:28] In his image. Now, there's some debate about what that means, right? So, somebody help me. Okay. Is man exactly like God?

[1:50] I'm sorry? Okay. Is man like God? Okay. How? Okay.

[2:07] Okay. Is man spirit? Well, is, does God have a spirit, but is not a spirit completely?

[2:29] Now we have, now we have a hitch. So, we'll get into some of that, because I, it's going to be important, especially as we get on here, because, well, it's going to become increasingly important, so I don't want to just drop it.

[2:50] Yes. Jesus is God, and he was an image of God, and obviously God is, and he was like man, he was like us, but we look a lot like Jesus, and then it's going to be a human part, it concerns humanity of God.

[3:10] Okay. Okay. Which, which, now we get into what, what some would call the theology of the simplicity of God, which is God is of one essence.

[3:30] Let's keep going, and then we'll, we'll try to clarify and, and nitpick a little more later. So, yes. I just want to say, if it has to do with the trine, like we are, in the image of Christ, part of the, the three.

[3:50] All right. So, Trinitarianism comes into it. The, God the Father, God the Son, and.

[4:04] Okay. Okay. Incomprehensible to me, but I don't have to understand it totally to be able to understand some of it truly, right?

[4:16] So, how else is man like God? Made in his image. I'm sorry.

[4:26] Okay. Okay. So, we have the possibility of the, the Trinitarian view. Okay. Christ. Now, is Christ born at the time Adam is created?

[4:43] Now, now we're talking eternity and history and how it all works together, and I don't understand that. But, is Christ, we're approaching, and we're really reminded, Sherry mentioned it this morning, the snow.

[5:01] What'd she think of? Christmas. Christmas. Okay, I'm cold. I thought of the beauty, Sherry thought of Christmas.

[5:15] But, now, what does Christmas represent? Does it represent Christ?

[5:30] Speak it out. Okay. Okay, the incarnation, what does that mean? The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

[5:45] That's incarnation. That is, in the beginning was the word, and the, okay.

[5:56] So, and the word, then later on down, it's going to say, and the word became and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

[6:10] That's why the hymn says, begotten, not created. That's pretty important theology right there. Because Jesus, as man, as I would understand man, and you're going to think about this, we're not talking about sex here, we're talking about mankind, right?

[6:34] Jesus, as man, is the incarnation of God. This is mysterious to me.

[6:49] How God took flesh. Because there are some scriptures that indicate that that's not, you know, God, well, Jesus at Jacob's well, talks to the Samaritan woman.

[7:09] And why must those who worship God worship him in spirit and truth? Why? That's, yeah, there's a reason.

[7:19] Because God is spirit. Now, how it, is there any other way you see God or man like God?

[7:38] Okay. Any other thing? Relational. Okay, relational.

[7:51] God tells, God's going to say to man, it is not good for man to be alone. I'm going to make him a help me.

[8:03] Now, there we are talking about sex. Because now we're talking about man as masculine and woman as the feminine.

[8:15] In the creation, he says, and God created man, male and female created he them.

[8:26] So, when we start talking, when we start splitting the hairs, we need to be careful if, like, the helpmate, or the helpmeet really is the word.

[8:42] The helpmeet is, now it's masculine and feminine, and we're no longer speaking generically.

[8:53] But, man generically, how is he like God? How is he created in God's image?

[9:11] Okay, some of the attributes that man has are similar. So, here we get, and there are more that go on.

[9:22] And we'll not drag this out. But, how does, how does man differ? Okay, man's different from animal.

[9:43] How does man differ from God? He's finite. He's limited in power. He's limited in knowledge.

[9:59] He's subject to death now. He only has to die once, but he can die twice.

[10:10] Now, that's not for this study. I realize that, but it's important to us to remember that. Anything else? Oh, okay.

[10:26] Now we're born in sin. He wasn't created in sin, but now we're born in sin. He what? Man has emotions.

[10:37] Man has emotions. And a will. And a will. So, in those respects, in those respects, he's very like God, but he's somewhat different than God.

[10:53] So, here comes my point. In those things which are essential to the being, in order for God to be God, he has to be some things.

[11:16] He has to exist in certain ways. And in order for man to be man, he has to essentially have some things.

[11:27] John brought it up. Man has to not only have a spirit, but he has to have a body. In order to be?

[11:40] Because God formed of the, and then he breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a soul, a living soul.

[12:00] Now, I hadn't, and I'm sorry about this, I have not, I sadly misjudged my timing. And so, and so, yeah, you're laughing, you get it.

[12:15] I sadly misjudged my timing, so this is quite incomplete. But there are some things, in order for man to be exactly like God, he has to have all of the essential attributes of God.

[12:34] The essential nature. In order for God to be exactly like man, he would have to have all the essentials of man. If they differ in essential points, eternity, then they're not the same being.

[12:58] If they differ only in points of degree, mental aptitude, wisdom, or knowledge, man is, man is, knowledge.

[13:13] Man is, finite. Now, I'm not, but you are. No, man is finite, right?

[13:25] There, there comes an end. With God, he knows, all things, he knows all things, simultaneously, completely.

[13:42] That, so, God's omniscience is part of his eternity. So, there are, there are some things that are necessary for his existence.

[13:53] He has to be, that's where Romans 1 comes into play. Natural revelation. When we look at creation, we know there has to be a, a creator, and he can't be part of the creation.

[14:10] The, the argument, can God create a rock he can't lift? It, and it's, that's an absurdity, because he's outside the creation.

[14:24] Um, now, back to the incarnation, just for a moment. when Jesus, we sing a song, a hymn, and most of it is perfectly great.

[14:38] But there is one phrase in there that does concern me a little bit, and it has to do with what we commonly call the kenosis, the emptying, where Jesus emptied himself, coming from Philippians there.

[14:53] And, the, the phrase is, he emptied himself of all but love. Now, now, that's not exactly true. When God, when Jesus walked the earth as fleshly man, now, he's going to walk the earth, once in a while, appearing as man, the pre, what we call the pre-incarnate.

[15:22] that's what, that's what, that's what, I have been referring to as a theophany, God, appearing as man, taking on, a body like man, and we're going to get to that, if I ever get into Eden, and the, the tree.

[15:44] But, but, when Jesus walked the earth, did he have, any authority, that was God authority?

[15:59] What, what, what authority did Jesus exhibit, before men? Well, okay, but, but he gave unto his apostles miracles, but, what sorts of authority?

[16:14] What kinds of miracles? He had authority over nature. How so? Stop the storm. He walked on.

[16:29] He put a coin in a fish's mouth, so that Peter could pay the temple tax. Miraculous things. Now, now, I want to be careful with miracles, and, and when we're, talking about the miracles, as we find them in the scripture, we're not talking about 60, 40 things.

[16:50] We're not talking about 80, 20 possibilities. We're talking about, this cannot ever happen. Right? The dead, do, not, rise.

[17:04] Unless, Jesus says, hey, Lazarus, get out of there. So, the, the, the, the person who, whose limbs have never worked from his birth, doesn't stand up and walk.

[17:22] Unless, Jesus tells him to. So, he, he exhibited authority over nature. Over, over disease.

[17:34] I, inadvertently, threw that one out. But, what, how else? Over the spirit world. In fact, when he goes to the Gadareans, what do they say?

[17:47] Why have you come here, son of God? Have you come to punish us before our time?

[17:58] Now, I'm not going to go, I don't know why, the demons apparently know that that's coming. But, nevertheless, he, so he did, he did not give up all his attributes.

[18:15] In fact, I would have it, I'll stumble around looking for it, but you know where, you, you know the verse. When, when he is approaching crucifixion, Jesus makes a couple of statements to them.

[18:35] He said, no man takes my life, I give it up willingly, but he doesn't stop there. I have the authority to lay it down and to pick it up again.

[18:52] This commandment I have from my father. So, Jesus had the authority over his own life and death, even while he walked. So, he didn't give up every single thing.

[19:04] The kenosis really in Philippians is being found in the form of, the idea is not did Jesus empty himself of everything. The idea there that is being portrayed is Jesus found, Jesus as human flesh humbled himself.

[19:24] that, that's why it begins with let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Now, if the, if the theology, if the Christology is what's it being taught there, then I'm kind of at a loss because I'm not God.

[19:48] Jesus is. So, that's, that's for the Christology. But, somewhere in the mind of God, of course, in eternity, is not only the shape that he's going to make the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom and the mineral, it's also, or for that matter, all the universe.

[20:18] In fact, in fact, he says to Israel, look, check out the expanse. Can you tell and John's pictures that he took in Finland of the Milky Way and, and the, what we observed on the film?

[20:38] God says, I know every one of them by name. By name. God, he is completely and utterly of a different sort than am I.

[20:55] So, but, in, in his mind, of course, is the shape that he's going to give man and the attributes that he's going to give to man.

[21:09] And I believe that is in, see, my, my mind in history and eternity don't, I don't get it.

[21:20] But somewhere in the mind of God, in eternity, is not only my fall, but my salvation.

[21:34] In, in Revelations, we see the form, as it were, of the lamb slain from the foundations of the earth. I, I don't get it, but I am thankful.

[21:46] If I'm thankful for anything in these next couple of weeks, it ought to be for that. When I, I walked in this morning and here it is on the wall.

[22:03] And I just thought, if I'm ever tempted, not, not that I ever am, of course, if I'm ever tempted to doubt the love of God, it's at the cross that I find it.

[22:24] That Christ took on himself, that Christ took on himself my sin so that I could be reckoned righteous in him.

[22:35] that's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. Now, to be fair to, to be fair to the understanding of a theophany and God and the nature of God and the nature of man, I sadly misjudged.

[23:08] But to be fair, you'd have to, we need to, or in our own minds, we need to consider a couple of very important matters. One is, man is created in the image of God, so we need to deal with theophanies, as we will see, and with the incarnation.

[23:29] with Emmanuel. That's what the word means, by the way, which is translated, God with us.

[23:42] So, however, I misjudged time, and I did not get there. But, and the other important thing to note is, the word we're using for God here, and forgive me for my bad expression, but it's Elohim.

[24:05] It's a plurality. That's the word that is going to be used for God. When you see Lord, in small cases, it means exalted one or important person, and when you see Lord in all capital letters, that is Jehovah, or the anglicized is Jehovah, the Yahweh, and even there, I'm not real sure of.

[24:33] So, forgive me, I don't speak Hebrew, I don't read Hebrew, I don't, I'm taking this from, mostly from Strong's concordance and dictionary.

[24:46] But, Elohim is not always translated in your Bible as God. and in order to be fair, we need to look at a couple of those things because that's going to come up later on again.

[25:02] In Exodus chapter 21, 6, and Exodus 22, 8, and 9, the word is translated judges.

[25:25] Now, you'll recognize this in the law. This is the law of slavery. When God gave the law to Moses and Moses delivered it to the people, if we're going to be Jews just for a moment, okay, and for whatever reason, I couldn't pay it.

[25:49] I was faulty financially, or I came into hard times somehow, but I couldn't pay a debt. Well, I have to pay it.

[26:02] So, John bought me. I sold myself to John, which was legal, by the way, as far as the law was concerned. So, I sold myself to John.

[26:14] Now, depending on the year, that helped determine how much John paid for me. So, I sold myself to John, and this is going to be the third year.

[26:32] So, I'm going to work for him for four years, and then the year of Jubilee comes, and then if John's a good Jew, he's going to let me go, because he was told to.

[26:45] Now, we aren't going to get into the rest of them, but there are a whole lot of things involved with that. So, I sold myself to John, I worked for him for four years, and I found the life really good.

[27:00] John was a wealthy man, and he treated me well, and took good care of me, and life was easy because I didn't have to do the stuff.

[27:12] Somebody else ran the business, so I didn't have to run my own business. Somebody else ran it, and I'm his servant. So, I decide that I'm going to be a lifetime servant, and I say, John, don't turn me loose on Jubilee.

[27:32] I want to be, so what do I have to do? And this is the word there that you get. It says, then his master shall bring him unto the judges, and he shall also bring him to the door, to the doorpost, and run his ear through with an awl, and I shall serve him permanently.

[27:59] Now, that word judges is Elohim. So, in order to be fair, it's not translated that way many times, but it is translated that way.

[28:13] Same thing with Exodus 22, verses 8 and 9, only this time it has to do with thievery. And it says that the thief, if the thief is not found, then the master of the house, that is the one who, in whose possession was found whatever it was that somebody lost, right?

[28:38] So, they find it in his possession. The master of the house shall be brought unto the Elohim, unto the judges. And whatever the Elohim, the judges decide, he'll pay back double.

[28:55] So, if they say, not guilty, then, sorry about that, we couldn't decide who was guilty.

[29:08] If he's found guilty, then they say you pay him twice. That's the judges. That's translated Elohim. Or Elohim is translated judges there.

[29:19] And in Genesis 23, 6, Rachel says, with mighty wrestlings, I have striven with my sister. The word mighty there is the Elohim.

[29:32] So, in those instances, at least in our English Bible, Elohim is translated differently than God. But all, but usually, whether it means false gods, or God, as it does here in early Genesis, it usually means a plurality of deity.

[30:01] So, God is speaking of himself in the plural, which is part of why we support Trinitarianism, why we believe God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[30:14] Distinct in their personalities, each one being personal, yet one God. God. It's also why Islam and Judaism can't abide it, because they say, you know, you people are multiple gods.

[30:35] And that, by the way, is their argument against us. So, that needs to, oh, one other, there are a couple of other times that it's translated differently.

[30:57] Genesis 23, 6, is when Abraham's looking to bury, and he wants to buy a field, and the men of the country say, hear us, my Lord, small case, hear us, my Lord, my important person, you, Abraham, are a mighty prince among us.

[31:22] Mighty is the Elohim. So, and then in Genesis 38, it's translated, or rather, Exodus 9, 28, the people are saying the mighty thunderings, that's the word Elohim.

[31:42] So, once in a while, and in Psalm 8, 5, this one we've quoted before, what is man that you are mindful of him?

[31:53] Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. So, there the English has translated it angels, the word is Elohim.

[32:05] So, having said all that, that has to be fairly stated in order. I don't know, because that's kind of up up to the translator, isn't it?

[32:42] To take it in. And usually what they do on words like this, usually you find this in prepositions like before or about or those kinds of things, the translators take it within context and they say, this is what I think it ought to say.

[33:06] Now, what it says in the Hebrew, I can't read. I can't read. Genesis, that's going to come up in chapter six, too, of Genesis, because there are possible translations there.

[33:27] But, nevertheless, I thought to be fair, I had to at least lay those out.

[33:40] So, let's go on. So, God creates man in his image. Not a complete image, but an image.

[33:53] Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[34:07] And, and, there are, there are more, there are more verses that we, I mean, this is very incomplete. It's, it's the reason that there is, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus.

[34:27] So, the fact that I need a mediator, there is a great gulf fixed. That's why I love that phrase in the song, oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary.

[34:45] The God who created this thinks of me? That's astounding. Okay.

[34:57] man so, man alone, man alone is, is said to be created in the image of God.

[35:13] That's fairly important. That, it is not just a cultural construction reaction, that when you drive along the road, and you see a groundhog lying dead there that's been hit by a car, that you don't have the same reaction as if you were driving along the road and saw a child lying there, hit by a car.

[35:48] right? There's a fundamental difference because only the child bears the image of God.

[36:00] Our image is marred, that's true, but an image bearer nonetheless. And, in fact, well, that's for after the flood, I realize, but I'm going to jump there anyway just to whet our appetites.

[36:19] That's exactly the reason that God said, he who sheds the blood of man shall by be his blood shed for in the image of God created he man.

[36:40] So, the reason, the reason that God told them you do not leave a murder, go unpunished, is because he bears my image.

[36:54] That's expressly the reason. That's what, well, that's why Ethan's in ministry, the ministry he is, because those children bear the image of God.

[37:12] So, let's move on, if we may. Okay. Now, remembering then the seventh day, he sanctifies the seventh day, sets it aside, because on the seventh day, he had finished his work on day six, so he's not working, as it were, in creation today, and he sanctifies it.

[37:43] Later on to the Jews, he's going to set apart that seventh day again, but it won't be, it won't be until Exodus 16, and it will be prior to Sinai, but it will be from the time of Adam up to then, he's not going to mention the Sabbath.

[38:13] So, it's not a, it's an institution that was given to Israel, not to the church. church. Now, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

[38:28] We meet always on Sunday morning, and it's good that the church meets, but it is not a Sabbath meeting.

[38:41] It is not a Sabbath day. In fact, I'm not, I don't know, they do now, the Jews now do gather at synagogue on Sabbath, but I don't think in the scripture that that's ever indicated that that was a Sabbath meeting.

[39:03] I don't think they did. talking about the Sabbath, it seemed that during Christ's life on earth, that the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they tried to trip him up mostly about violating the Sabbath.

[39:18] It seemed like most of the time they were trying to trip him up on that. And it's, well, now, in fairness, some of that has to do with he purposefully, he, he took no thought for the Sabbath in terms of healings.

[39:40] And he used that for a couple of reasons. He said, and I don't have the scripture before me, he gave a parable, but he did say expressly, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

[39:58] that is, I have control, or I am in authority over the Sabbath day.

[40:09] And he said, and then he would answer them back and say, tell me, is it lawful for a man to do good on the Sabbath, or to let him suffer? So, Jesus was making points, too, about his deity and his authority over the Sabbath.

[40:31] The same thing goes with the eating with unbaptized hands and various other things. And if we go on, I'm going to overrun you.

[40:46] But we do know from Romans chapter 14 that today for the church in the dispensation of grace, that one day is as another day.

[41:03] So, the Sabbath day does not pertain to the church. It's well that we meet on a day. We would have people, some of us would know people, or we know of people, who say that baptism is to the Christian what the circumcision was to the Jew.

[41:24] it's the Christian circumcision. And they would say the Lord's day, Sunday, is to the Christian church what the Sabbath day was to Israel.

[41:39] And in fact, I grew up with people who actually called Sunday the Sabbath. In fact, that's kind of where the blue laws, so-called, came from and so forth.

[41:54] Well, thanks very much, and we will pick up then with your we'll probably pick up, I think we should probably pick up then in chapter three of next week, God willing.