1A5
© Jeff Stacey | Last updated: 15 September 2016
1A5. God’s nature expressed as perfection:
Everything God created was absolutely flawless
1A5(title) God’s nature expressed as perfection
On completion of His creation, God inspected and declared it all to be “very good”, meaning perfect Gen 1:31a. So it all totally expressed the perfection of God’s own nature.
1A5(sub-title) Everything God created was absolutely flawless
How was God’s creation absolutely flawless? How did it express His perfection?
1A5(sub-title)(a) “Separations” within God’s creation
It has already been shown [1A1(b)(iii)] that various parts of God’s creation were seen and declared by Him to be “good” Gen 1:4,10,12,16-18,21,25.
There were also several occasions when God’s acts of creation involved separations of parts of it from each other, as follows:
# light from darkness Gen 1:4b
# waters above the sky from waters below it Gen 1:6-8a
# day from night and light from darkness (by creation of the sun, moon and stars) Gen 1:14a,16-18a
# the division of the river flowing from the Garden of Eden into four rivers Gen 2:10,11-14
Each of these separations involved the principle of complete contrast. This principle also applied to the perfection of God’s own nature, which involved some absolute distinctions.
1A5(sub-title)(b) God made the seventh day “holy”
What was meant by God making the seventh day “holy”? Gen 2:3a. This is the only occurrence of the word “holy” in the whole of Genesis! So it is not possible to develop its meaning at this point other than as outlined below.
The context is that God had completed His creation in six days, so He “rested” on the seventh day Gen 2:1-2. Then it was “because” of this resting that God “blessed” the seventh day and “made it holy” Gen 2:3. He was especially favouring the seventh day by setting it apart as totally different to the other six days.
This making of the seventh day “holy” was the last of God’s great “separations” that distinguished aspects of His creation from each other. God made it a special, unique day.
1A5(sub-title)(c) The significance of the holiness of the seventh day
The holiness of the seventh day can be seen as symbolising God’s absolute “otherness” relative to all of His creation. By “resting” on the seventh day, God was distinguishing Himself from all that He had created. He had been completely involved with its creation and then with its ongoing existence. Yet He Himself existed before it, was absolutely superior to it and separate from it.
God had not been affected in any way by His creation activities. He was totally unchanged from how He had been prior to beginning them Gen 1:1. This also implied that in the future He could never be changed or compromised in any way by His creation or by whatever happened within it.
So by resting on the seventh day and making it holy, God was expressing the perfection of His own nature.
1A5(sub-title)(d) God’s expression of His perfection TO and THROUGH people
The perfection of God’s creation included the first two people, who were made in His own “image and likeness” Gen 1:26a,27. So God’s perfect nature was being expressed THROUGH them!
God had given Adam almost total freedom of interaction with his environment Gen 2:16. This freedom was expressed when God and Adam interacted with the animals and birds Gen 2:19b-20a.
But God had also told TO Adam that this perfection must not be violated by him Gen 2:17a. Adam was to maintain an absolute personal separation between himself and the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The ethical values of this Tree (good vs evil) represented the ultimate distinction and contrast between God’s perfect nature and all that was separate from it.
If Adam disobeyed God’s one command it would have disastrous, irreversible consequences Gen 2:17b. In fact these outcomes would involve life versus death – another total separation! Obviously this also applied to Eve. If it happened, God’s perfection would be demonstrated in absolute contrast to the whole of His evil-polluted creation.