A Lenten Bible Study: Genesis to Jesus Lesson Three: Covenant with Creation

Here is the third lesson in the Saint Paul Center for Catholic Biblical Theology's Lenten Scripture study, Genesis to Jesus. Follow along, and by the end of Lent, you'll understand the importance of Easter in light of God's plan for our salvation. Sign up to receive new video lessons [here] and buy related study materials.
________________________________________________________

In the first two lessons we looked at how to study the Bible. We talked about how Scripture tells the story of salvation history. It’s history from God’s perspective. It’s all about God’s plan to save us from our sin, and bring us back into his divine family. We also discussed how understanding God’s covenant with the human family is the key to understanding salvation history. If you don’t understand covenants you can’t really understand Scripture.

In this lesson, we’re going to put what we’ve learned into practice. And appropriately, we’ll start at the very beginning of salvation history. We’re heading into the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and looking at God’s first covenant with mankind.

To begin, let’s lay out some of our objectives for this lesson. First, we want to understand God’s covenant with creation and see how the Sabbath is the sign of that covenant. We also want to examine God’s creation of man and woman in his image and likeness. Then we’ll discuss how God designs creation as a cosmic temple. Finally, we’ll see how God designed marriage to be a covenant between man and woman, and a sign of the Divine Family of the Trinity.

Right at the start of Scripture in Genesis 1:1, we learn that, in the beginning God, created the heavens and the earth. But we need to realize he did more than bring something out of nothing when he created the world. The way Genesis describes it shows that he actually established a covenant with creation. This is what the prophet Jeremiah later refers to when he speaks of God’s covenant with day and night. [See Jeremiah 33:25] And what was the purpose of this covenant? What was the purpose of creation? Why did God create men and women? Certainly not because he was bored or lonely. God doesn’t get bored or lonely. God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – created us to be his family. Creation was an act of divine love. This is the central truth that underlies the opening chapters of Genesis.

Unfortunately, that’s not what most people today focus on when they talk about the creation account. Instead, people typically approach these chapters to find out how the world came into being. They turn it into a debate of creation vs evolution, and argue over whether or not the world was really created in six 24-hour days, or if man evolved from lower life forms. This study will not weigh in on such debates. Why? Because it’s not a necessary debate, at least when it comes to the opening chapters of Genesis.

The creation account reveals the absolute origin of all things out of nothing. Evolution, on the other hand, is a scientific theory about the development of already existing organisms over time. The Church doesn’t require us to believe that the world was created in six 24-hour days. Nor does it require us to believe in the theory of evolution. What it does require us to believe is that God created the world and our first parents. In other words, we must believe that God is the original cause of everything.

Genesis was written to tell us what God created and why he created it, not how he created it. Basically, the creation account in Genesis shows us that the world didn’t just happen. Creation was God’s purposeful act of love. And that’s the focus of this current lesson.

Let’s look back more closely at what happened “In the beginning.” One of the first things we notice is the power of God’s word. When God talks, things happen. Several times we hear God say, “Let there be…” and things come into being. This is why the psalmist sings, “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made… For he spoke and it came to be” [Psalm 33].

That word, according to Christian teaching, was the Son of God. We know this from reading the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, which tells us that Jesus is the Word of God, the Word by which God created the entire world. Realize that in the speaking and creating described in Genesis 1, nothing is random. There is an order, a pattern to how God goes about creating the universe. We see that pattern starting with the second verse of Scripture: Genesis 1:2. There we learn that in the beginning the world was “without form and void.” Then, in the verses that follow, we see God solving these two problems in two stages.

First, he forms the world into separate realms; then, he fills those realms with created rulers. During days one, two, and three, God creates the realms. On day one, he creates day and night, on day two, sky and sea, and on day three, land and vegetation. Then, on days four, five, and six, God creates the rulers of these realms. On day four, he creates the sun, moon, and stars to rule day and night. On day five, the birds and the fish to rule the sky and the sea. And on day six, God first creates the beasts, then the man and the woman, who will rule as king and queen over creation.

At the end of each of the first five days, God declares his work “good.” But at the end of the sixth day, the day he created man, God declares his work “very good.” And on the sixth day, in Genesis 1:26-27, we learn something else of importance. Namely, that man was created in God’s “image and likeness.

But what does that mean? Genesis 5:1-3 helps answer that question with a literary clue. There, in Genesis 5 we’re reminded that God made Adam in his image and likeness. Then, we’re told that Adam has a son, Seth, who was made in his image and likeness. So image and likeness refer to sonship. Luke 3:38 confirms this in the last verse of a genealogy when it identifies Adam as the “son of God.” Luke 3:38 states, “…the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

On the sixth day, God creates man in his “image and likeness.” Then, on the seventh day, he rests. But why? Because he was tired? No, because the seventh day finishes God’s design for creation. By resting on the seventh day, God blesses that day and sets it apart as sacred. In the Sabbath, he gave us a gift – a holy day of rest from our labors, a time to worship him and remember his goodness to us. He also showed us that our work is ordered to worship. That’s what we’re working for. Worshipping him, having a loving intimate relationship with him is our ultimate purpose. Everything is supposed to lead to that.

God calls us to rest on the Sabbath and to keep it holy because it is a reminder of what our final destiny is – eternal rest with God. And by showing us that on the seventh day of creation, he showed us that he created the word, created us, out of love, out of a desire to be with us. That’s why the Catechism tells us that creation is [CCC 288] “…the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful love.”

That is why God created the Sabbath. But why in the creation account does the Sabbath fall on the seventh day? Why does the author of Genesis tell us that God created the world in six days, then rest on the seventh? Why not ninety-nine days and rest on the hundredth. Why does the whole act of creation, from start and finish, take seven days?

To answer that question, it helps to know a little Hebrew. In ancient Hebrew, the verb for swearing a covenant oath is sheba; which literally means “to seven oneself.” When an ancient Israelite wanted to say, “I swear a covenant,” he would say, “I seven myself.” Seven was a kind of covenant number. That is why, for example, in Genesis 21, Abraham makes a covenant with a man named Abimelech by offering a sacrifice of seven lambs. This passage also tells us that Abraham “swore an oath” or “made a covenant” at Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba translates in Hebrew as “well of the seven” or “well of the oath.” What we see here and in other places in Scripture is that there is a covenant significance to the number seven.

When ancient Israelites read the creation account they understood that by creating the world in six days, and resting on the seventh, God was sealing his covenant with creation. In this way, the author of Genesis shows us what the prophet Jeremiah later tells us: [see Jeremiah 33:25-26] that God created the world for a covenant relationship with himself. And God himself tells us the same thing when he gave Moses the law in Exodus 31, calling the Sabbath a perpetual covenant and sign [Exodus 31:16-17].

Let’s consider again the six days of creation. The seventh day serves to crown and complete the whole of creation. Remember, God calls man and woman to something more than just ruling over creation for him. He calls us to interpersonal communion with him. Which means that the world is not just a place for work, but also for worship. In other words, the world is a kind of temple a holy dwelling place where God is present and where men and women worship and offer sacrifice.

In the Book of Job, we see God’s work of creation actually described as the building of a temple. We hear about the foundation, the measurements, the bases, the cornerstone, and the bars, and doors. Further showing that creation is a kind of comic temple, Scripture highlights a number of parallels between creation and the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was the place where God’s presence dwelt, during and after the time of Moses. One of those parallels is that just as God blesses and hallows the Sabbath when he is finished creating the world, so also Moses blesses the Tabernacle when it’s complete. Another is that in both instances God declares that the Sabbath is holy.

And just as parallels exist between creation and the Tabernacle, so too do we see parallels between creation and the Temple built by Solomon, ancient Israel’s most illustrious king. 1 Kings 6-8 tells us that Solomon built the Temple in seven years, consecrated it in the seventh month on the seventh day of a seven-day feast, and offered seven petitions during its consecration.

So, the world was created in seven days, and you have all these sevens associated with the Temple. Part of the Temple was even decorated like a garden, tying it back to the Garden of Eden. Throughout Scripture, the relationship is clear. Creation is a macro-Temple; the Temple is a microcosm of creation.

Where there is a Temple, their must be a priest. And sure enough, once God completes the Temple of the world, he calls man to be a priest-king over it. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 give us two records of these events. And realize that these are not two conflicting accounts, but rather two complementary accounts. Each one offers a different emphasis on the story. In Genesis 1, we see God the Creator, Elohim in Hebrew, who makes a cosmic home, or temple, for himself. The crown of his creation, man and woman, are then made in his image and called to imitate him. They are to be “fruitful and multiply.” They are also “to have dominion over… and to subdue creation.” Essentially, the call they receive on the sixth day is a call to kingly dominion. On the other hand, in Genesis 2, we see God working as a Father, Yahweh in Hebrew, who lovingly fashions the man from the dirt of the earth… Breathes life into him… Creates a garden paradise for him… And creates a spouse from his side.

God then calls him to “till and keep” the Garden, to guard it from danger as a priest. It’s these two words, “till and keep,” that give us clues about Adam’s priestly call. These Hebrew words are only found together elsewhere in the Book of Numbers [Numbers 8:24-26 and 18:4-6], where they describe the duties of the Levites. The Levites were sacred ministers of worship in ancient Israel.

In these creation accounts, we see Adam established as God’s royal firstborn son, and as high priest of humanity. Both of these roles reflect an ancient understanding of father. In biblical times, the father as the head of the family, was also a priest who offered sacrifices and preformed acts of worship on behalf of his family. This priesthood was passed down from the father to his firstborn son. When that son inherited his father’s priesthood, he also inherited the mantle of authority over the family. Later in the Bible, we’ll see another firstborn son inherit what was Adams – both his kingship and his high priesthood. But the kingship and priesthood he’ll inherit are of a kind far greater than what Adam first possessed. We’re talking, of course, about Jesus, the New Adam.

As high priest and king, Adam was to lead his people, beginning with Eve, to holiness. Similarly, Jesus, the New Adam, calls his people, the Church, to be a “holy nation and a royal priesthood.” In terms of salvation history, Adam is the very beginning and the first covenant is a marriage covenant with Adam serving as the covenant mediator in his role as husband. Now let’s look more closely at that first covenant which takes the form of a marriage.

From the beginning, God gives marriage a special place in salvation history. He created man and woman to live in a covenant relationship, both with him and with each other. And he established marriage as a sign of his covenant love for us. This sign is there at the beginning of Scripture, in the Garden. And it’s there at the end, in the marriage supper of the Lamb that takes place in the last chapters of the Book of Revelation. God establishes marriage as a sign of his covenant love for us because it reflects the nature of God himself. Marriage makes families, and as Pope St. John Paul II said, God is family. He said: “God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since he has in himself fatherhood, sonship and the essence of the family, which is love.”

God is a family. And the image of the Triune God is reflected in human families. In the Trinity, the love of the Father and the Son is so real, so much a complete gift of each to the other, that from it proceeds a third person, the Holy Spirit. We see something similar in marriage. When two people become one – when they give of themselves to each other – their love leads to a third person as well, a child. More than just a sign, marriage is an image of who God is. From the very beginning, its been a sign of the Divine Family for which we were made.

In our next lesson we’ll continue to look at God’s first covenant with mankind. We’ll discuss how and why our first parent’s lost paradise. The story of Adam and Eve and the original sin has immense implications for us. But thankfully, the story ends on a happy note. God promises a savior who will undue what Adam did, a savior who will redeem creation and bring salvation to the entire world.