Declaring the End from the Beginning

 

 






Declaring the End from the Beginning

By David M. McNabb

Understanding the Prophetic Intent of the Scriptural Account of the Creation

(Introduction Cont.)

In the first chapter of Genesis, it is recorded how that God worked for six days and rested on the seventh.  He later made the Sabbath a requirement for Israel – the people of His covenant – revealing by His servant Moses.  (Ex. 20:8-11; Neh. 9:13-14)  Even today, most Christians set aside one day in seven (some Saturday, some Sunday) to worship the Lord.

Remembering that a day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years as  one day with God (Psa. 90:4; 2 Pet. 3:8), it is easy to make the connection to the history of man.  It is widely known that man has existed, since the creation of Adam, for nearly six millennia.  Equally common is the doctrine that the seventh millennium of the history of man is the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, being “the day of the Lord” foretold throughout the writings of the Holy Scriptures.

This seventh “day” is the day of rest of which Paul speaks in Hebrews 4.

Is this just a coincidence?  Jesus said, “All the law and the prophets prophesied till John.”  (Matt. 11:13)   Paul agreed in Heb. 10:1, “The law [has] a shadow of good things to come.”

The law, therefore, that “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God,” (Deut. 5:13,14) was not merely commandments for Israel, but a prophecy.  God has given man a full six thousand years to do what he will on earth.  The seventh millennium, however, is His.  His Son will rule and reign for 1,000 years, showing man how he ought to have done.

Even as the seventh millennium is foretold by the seventh day, so also do the elements of the other six days of creation signify the work of God in the corresponding millennia.  By understanding the symbolism used here, combined with scriptural support, we can see what God has done, is doing and will do for the 7,000 beginning with the creation of Adam.

Chapter 2: “Let There be Light!”

“And God said, ‘Let there be light:’ and there was light.  And God saw the light that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  And the evening and the morning were the first day.”  (Gen. 1:3-5)

After comprehending the assertion that God was declaring His works from the very beginning, one can break down this account into its individual elements, and see the prophetic symbolism of God’s work for the first thousand years revealed in it.

This passage begins, “Let there be light.”  In that He says “Let,” it is implied that God created light by allowing it to be.

Mankind, in many cultures, uses light to represent knowledge.  We are all probably familiar with the image of a light bulb over someone’s head signifying an idea, or a “light coming on” when one comes to some understanding.

In Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians 4:6, we read, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

In the Garden of Eden, the application is obvious.  God did not create man with the knowledge of good and evil, but provided the proper environment for it to occur.  If it had been God’s desire for man to never acquire the knowledge of good and evil, He could have simply not created the tree and put it in the garden.   On the contrary, God, on the first day of the actual creation, allowed light to be as an allegory of His work in the first millennium.

God may have forbidden their eating of the tree, but He did not prevent it.  Even as He “let” the actual light shine forth on day one, He foreknew that Adam would eat of the forbidden tree, thereby letting the light of knowledge into the world.

The scriptures go on to say, “And God saw the light, that it was good.”  It was good in that it pleased Him – it served His purpose.  Knowledge is a good thing.  The Scripture declares, “Ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge.”  (Col. 3:10)

God had every intention that we should obtain this knowledge and, although man acquired it by disobedience to God’s law, God saw that the knowledge itself was good.

With this knowledge, however, came not only good, but evil also.  When light was manifest, the darkness could then also be seen.  Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain and Abel.  As they brought their sacrifices, Abel brought “of the firstlings of his flock” (that is to say ‘the best’), while Cain brought also some of the fruit that he had grown.

When God expressed His displeasure at Cain’s offering, Cain killed his brother in a fit of jealousy.  When this darkness was revealed in Cain, God had to separate the light from the darkness, for “what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”

God sent Cain and his family away from Adam and his family, fulfilling the second work of the first day: the separation of light from darkness.

After this, God called the light “Day” and the darkness He called “Night.”  God was to mark, or to name, the two families that resulted from this separation.  How was this done? As we read further in Genesis about the events of the first millennium, God refers to two distinct groups: the “Sons of God,” referring to the lineage of Adam through Seth, and the “Daughters of Men,” denoting the children of the family of Cain.  (See Gen. 6:1-4)

Thus was completed the Work of God for the first 1,000 years, “and the evening and the morning was the first day.”