October 31, 2006 ©Homer Kizer
The Creation Account
One of the reforms of the Christian Church in the 16th-Century was the adoption of the creation account, and of Eve’s Temptation in Eden as “true history,” their expression. This adoption includes a differing understanding of Christ’s Millennium reign, of biblical prophecy, and of how the biblical text should be read. These reforms of the medieval Church required a new reading strategy, a new exegesis, a “literal” acceptance of sola scriptura as the entirety of the infallible Word of God. And it was through a new exegesis that Protestant and Radical Reformers figuratively escaped from spiritual Babylon.
The Roman Church had turned the narratives forming Scripture into allegories, and much of Scripture into an extended allegory, a practice perhaps necessary to theologically justify its historic ups and downs. But the Reformed Church in its many variations rejected allegory. Instead of seeing a similarity between ideas, they saw a similarity between events. They saw in the Old Testament the shadow of salvation; they had returned to using typology as a reading strategy, but they did not fully develop typological exegesis. If they had utilized typological exegesis, they would have arrived in spiritual Jerusalem before the time of the end; thus, God did not allow, especially, the Radical Reformers to theologically return to the foundation the Apostle Paul had lain in the heavenly city. It simply wasn’t time.
Since mid 18th-Century, biblical critics have turned skeptics as they entrenched themselves in academia. For them, biblical narratives can neither be read as allegories, or as valid history. These scholars described the Creation and Temptation Accounts as myths. And because of these critics’ inability to conceive of time as a fluid and history as a trace in that fluid revealed by narrative, they magnified the inherent authority of the patriarchal gaze to “fix” or fasten a myth to a particular region and peoples; thus, biblical creation accounts—there are two—became derivatives of Chaldean or Babylonian creation accounts. Unconsciously, these critics bottled the fluidity of time in a graduated beaker as they sought to enchain the wind so that everything could be measured and weighed.
Modern scholars, following the path of earlier critics, have continued to view the Creation and Temptation accounts as mythic, writing about these accounts such enlightened banalities as,
Since the extended descriptions of creation in the first chapters of Genesis similarly reflect this [mythic] background, they are not to be viewed as providing a scientific account of the origin of the universe. They are religious statements designed to show God’s glory and greatness, the result of theological reflection by which the older mythology was radically transformed to express Israel’s distinctive faith. (Porter, J.R. “Creation.” The Oxford Companion to the BIBLE. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger & Michael D. Coogan. New York: Oxford, 1993)
But myths are narrative segments developed to reveal a portion of the overall fluid that fills the universe and exists as the defining characteristic of the universe and by extension, of the creation. Like the literary concepts of the trickster figure or of faery, myths contain within themselves as much accuracy as do yesterday’s scientific theories. My mother was taught that ether occupied empty space, and I was taught that valence electrons orbited an atom’s nucleus in precise orbits as a miniature of the solar system. Both concepts contain observations that are themselves valid even though conclusions drawn from these observations are not. As such these former scientific truths are as true as are myths of a rainbow bridge leading to Valhalla. And the present scientific practice that will soon bite the dust is dating the distance between objects by light mass [photon] particle decay.
But the question that must be asked is, “Are the Genesis Creation Accounts religious statements reflecting older myths?”
Everything a person accepts as factual is based upon faith. Doctor Johnson’s refutation of Kant is for us revealed through narrative. We must believe the story that Johnson kicked a rock for it to become fact. We must place faith in that quantity of time during which Johnson kicked the rock really existing somewhere within the universe—and if that moment was created within a bowl of time, then that moment still exists somewhere presently removed from us by the fluid that is time. If that moment once existed, it still exists since time is continuing to be created and is not being recycled. And we can begin to understand an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God, who exists outside of time.
YHWH Elohim, the named Creator of the Genesis chapter one Creation Account, knows where each moment (swirl of time) is, and can view each simultaneously if necessary from the perspective of being outside the bowl of time in which human beings dwell as fish do in water. This concept butts hard against humankind’s innate sense of time being linear—and time seems linear for those who swim within this bowl. But God created the bowl.
Concepts that seem foundational to existence are social constructs that have, for Western cultures, developed from ancient Greek thought, with the pantheon’s schism between the sterile Apollonian eye and the dark, wet Dionysian womb being continued in the inherent contradictions of modern American thought. The amoral roving Apollonian eye appears in scientific inquiry, with its measuring of surfaces, lines, and edges. It also appears in the concept of linear time, regulated by tic/toc, the reoccurring sound with a difference, that difference causing what would otherwise seem circular [tic/tic] to straighten and lengthen itself into a line, the defining essence of sky-cults of the eye. Thus, when individuals in Western cultures think of time as linear, they must realize their perception has developed from a social construct that is itself artificial, the production of the prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2-3). And it is extremely difficult to initially grasp or accept how much of a person’s thought is supported by social constructs that come from the prince of this world, who has deceived the whole world (Rev 12:9), not just the portion with whom the person disagrees.
Some ideas outlive their usefulness. A creation of great antiquity is one such idea. But until the rate of heavy mass particle decay can be determined by observation, humanity is saddled with the obsolete concept of the universe being 13.5 or so billion years old. We will collectively muddle through this period of educated ignorance that began when Reformers in the 17th-Century didn’t apply the underlying principle of Newtonian mathematics to Scripture. These Reformers understood that the Old Testament formed a type of the New Covenant, but these Reformers didn’t apply what working with functions will do. They didn’t take their thinking vertically although the concept was available mathematically to them, and had been available in the Greek concept of hypostasis, which would have the visible world underlying the invisible spiritual world (Rom 1:20). They didn’t enter the spiritual realm, but rather, they limited themselves to a horizontal plane, and somewhat to a geographical plane. These Reformers hated the Roman Church so much that they felt compelled to find in Rome the seat of Satan’s activities on earth. If one were to lift Satan’s tail, the person could, according to Chaucer, find a nest of friars—that thinking hadn’t changed when Reformers contested with the Roman Church for political control of northern Europe. Energy that should have been put into seeing types as functions was dissipated in the day by day governance of cities.
When realization comes that the recognized history of the early Church recorded in the Book of Acts forms the shadow of the endtime Churches’ evangelism in the spiritual realm, then the Genesis account of creation should be recognized as equally valid history with greater narrative distance. And because the Books of Acts has not been widely accepted as presenting the narrative shadow of endtime evangelism directed at born again disciples that have actual life in the spiritual realm, the Book lends itself nicely to showing the applied concept of narrative distance. Being spiritually minded consists of more than professing that Jesus is Lord; it comes with submitting to God and living within the laws of God. It then elevates thoughts so that a person can enter the supra-dimensional realm usually identified as heaven where the born again disciple has actual life. Unfortunately, human thoughts are chemically generated within the creation, so a language compiler or interface is necessary, similar to what has been developed for computers that translate human language into binary code. This spiritual interface develops with use—and with faith. Thus, while the necessary concepts were available to 17th and early 18th Century reformers for them to do actual evangelism in the spiritual realm, recovering many lost sheep, they could not, themselves, escape from spiritual Babylon even though the spiritual sar [prince or king] of Persia had released them. The journey to spiritual Jerusalem was too far. Many of these reformers died in faith enroute to the city of God, but their spiritual offspring were taken captive by the prince of Greece and held in dungeons of form without faith. Religion became, for too many, ceremony without substance.
The phrase “narrative distance” as applied to Scripture and typological exegesis reflects the positioning of named entities on a vertical or mental hierarchy. This hierarchy has YHWH Elohim, now the Father and the Son on top followed by angels of all classifications, born again disciples with life in the spiritual realm, the rest of humanity, animals, plants, and usually considered lifeless objects. Such hierarchies have fallen out of favor with form-centric theologians and with scholars in general. Such hierarchies are based upon spiritual or mental characteristics. And no well-educated scholar without the Breath of God [i.e., not born of Spirit] will admit that ancient commercial fishermen with the Holy Spirit could have more spiritual understanding than scholars.
The greater the narrative distance of the antetype from its reality, the more steps removed on the scale of spiritual hierarchy are the shadows from the realities that cast these shadows. For example, the history of circumcised Israel that was the holy nation of God (Exod 19:5-6) without the Holy Spirit forms the shadow of the history of spiritual Israel, the holy nation of God (1 Pet 2:9) with life in the spiritual realm. The shadow is one step removed from its reality. Circumcised Israel had the Law & the Prophets, but as seen in Scripture, circumcised Israel lacked spiritual understanding with a few notable exceptions, King David and the prophets being the primary ones. Most of circumcised Israel was spiritually indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. They were as Gentile as Greeks, the concealed argument in the Lazarus and Dives parable. Yet outside of Scripture, some of the Dead Sea scrolls suggest that there were circumcised Israelites with spiritual understanding. So what Scripture represents is a distorted picture of circumcised Israel, but distorted so that the portrayal forms the actual shadow of spiritual Israel in the heavenly realm. Holy Writ is about the creation of heirs of God. It isn’t about the creation of cattle, or Chinese peasants, or cashew nuts. Literally, it is about one subject only: Elohim [Theos — from John 1:1-3] creating the Elohim-kind. And out of respect for His children, the Most High God has revealed to His children both the past and the future, since there is no time as humankind understands the concept in heaven. This revealing of the future should provide tremendous respect for, and give tremendous credibility to the Father. But too many of His heirs are presently juvenile delinquents, so these heirs need a missionary effort directed at them. Otherwise, they will be rounded up and pitched into the lake of fire when their judgment is revealed—they are the hated son that is still in the womb of the last Eve.
Following the Creation Account in Genesis is the Temptation Account, a separate narrative unit beginning with the marked second creation account. Here is where spiritual understanding is required: the genealogy of Genesis 2:4 denotes where one narrative account ends and the next account begins. Narrative units are separated in Scripture through the use of genealogy accounts. As described in the article “Typological Exegesis,” the first Adam is the actual shadow of the second Adam, Jesus of Nazareth. The Genesis narrative element known as the Temptation Account forms the shadow of Jesus’ ministry to Israel as recorded in the gospels and in Acts. The Flood Account, however, forms the shadow of the endtime ministry of Jesus to the seven named churches across the middle of the Tribulation, the transition from spiritual Babylon reigning over the mental topography of humanity to the Son of Man reigning over this same territory. Both of these accounts (the Temptation and the Flood) share similar narrative distance between the antetype and their reality.
The Flood narrative in distance is an interrupted continuation of the Temptation Account—and both are a full step farther away than is physically circumcised Israel’s relationship to spiritually circumcised Israel from Moses to Nehemiah. Noah and the seven humans form the shadow of Christ with the seven stars in His right hand (Rev 1:20). The seven pairs of clean/holy animals are types of the seven Churches (same verse), all Sabbatarian fellowships, and the single pair of all other animals forms the type of the remainder of Christianity that will cross into the second half of the Tribulation when the world is baptized by Spirit into life as the world was baptized by water into death during the days of Noah. So the narrative distance of the Flood account causes humans (specifically, Christians) to be represented as animals, whereas in the Temptation Account, physically circumcised Israel is represented by the animals Adam named (cf. Matt 23; Gen 2:19-20). In the Flood account, the animals that board the Ark foreshadow spiritually empowered disciples; in the Temptation narrative, the animals have neither been born of Spirit nor empowered by the Holy Spirit. Rather, Eve represents the Church, composed of disciples born of Spirit, but not yet liberated from indwelling sin in their fleshly members.
From the animals in the Garden of God no helpmate could be found for the first Adam. When Jesus of Nazareth comes as the last Adam (cf. 1 Cor 15:45; Rom 5:14), He finds no helpmate or spouse in the Temple at Jerusalem, thereby establishing a correspondence between the Garden of God and the Temple. Rather, Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites and vipers, naming them just as the first Adam named the animals in Eden. And as what the first Adam called animals would be their names, what Jesus called Pharisees has been how Pharisees have been identified ever since.
Noah as a preacher of righteousness forms the shadow of the glorified Christ during His endtime ministry prior to the birth of heirs. Noah’s wife, sons, and daughters-in-law form the shadow of the seven messengers [angels] to the seven Churches, with the ark representing the covenant: Noah’s ark foreshadows the ark of the covenant of circumcised Israel, and individual Christians as arks of the covenant upon empowerment followed by glorification. The laws of God written on the hearts and minds of drawn disciples form the walls of the spiritual Garden of God—the tree of life only grows inside of the Garden. The better promises of the new covenant have everlasting life, the gift of God, being given to disciples drawn to live within the walls of the spiritual Garden. So as arks of the covenant, individual Christians have everlasting life within each, as represented by Aaron’s budded staff. This everlasting life is expressed in the Apostle Paul’s pneuma (1 Thess 5:23), the Apostle Peter’s “imperishable seed” (1 Pet 1:23), and Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
But the disciple who climbs out of the Ark to go for a swim in the waters of the world will perish—not by drowning, but in the lake of fire. Even through a drawn disciple has everlasting life in the spirit realm by virtue of receiving the Breath [Pneuma] of God when drawn from the world, the disciple can lose his or her life by leaving the Garden of God; i.e., by choosing to live outside the laws of God. Just as the Father raised the disciple from the dead through a second birth, Jesus must give life to the disciple through the mortal flesh putting on immortality (John 5:21). Thus, judgment comes only upon those whom the Father has made alive, and all judgment is given to Christ Jesus so both the Father and the Son must give life to a person before the person will enter the heavenly realm.
Although the Flood narrative can be read as myth, the hard evidence of science better supports a worldwide deluge than not. The Flood narrative should be considered as valid history, but much more happened during the Flood and right afterwards than is recorded in Scripture. These details have been omitted for they do not represent the shadow of the reality that brings many heirs of God to glory (shadow used in its usual sense). Likewise, the history of the Maccabees is not canonical Scripture although the Books represent valid history; they are not canonical because they do not form the shadow of how Christ will depose the man of perdition when that demon-possessed man defiles the temple. In the same manner, the Roman Empire doesn’t appear in prophecy for its history doesn’t form the shadow of wars and conquests in the spiritual realm. All prophecy experts who insert Rome, the Roman Empire, or the Roman Church into canonical prophecy are uninspired. Frankly, they are carnally minded, and they have taken upon themselves the curses for adding to Scripture.
Simply put, all canonical historical narrative in Scripture form shadows of events and entities in the spiritual realm, these shadows reflected on the mental topography of humanity. They are not reflected upon physical geography, the theological problem the Reformers of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries faced and never solved even though Newton indirectly gave them the means.
Humanity lives in its mind. Physically, we are apes, differing in our genetic code from the other great apes by very little. Mentally, though, we are Elohim-like. Literally, with the Breath of God in us, we are actual children of God in the same sense that my wife bore me three daughters, my children. Their maturation process required a considerable expenditure of energy and money, but the process was really a joy to experience, which isn’t always the case for parents. But more than anything else, the process took considerable time to complete.
Again, time doesn’t exist in the heavenly realm as individual disciples mature in isolation to the maturing of the Body of Christ … this is an odd statement: within the context of the entirety of Scripture, the Tribulation represents the birth pains of the woman as she brings many heirs to glory. The birthing process concludes with the glorification of heirs as they are resurrected in incorruptible bodies at Christ’s return as the King of kings. No heir precedes another in birth order by more than the twinkling of an eye. All are resurrected at the same time. All form the collective Body of Christ. And let’s momentarily think of Holy Writ as describing a submerged rose in a goldfish bowl, with the moment of glorification forming the stem of the rose that protrudes beyond the bowl. As the bud opens, the flower emerges until it looks like the spotless Bride of Christ. Each of the petals were present in the bud, but required a maturation process to be revealed. Each of the petals represents a swirl of time, revealed as historic narrative. Each petal is connected to the stem so that glorification occurs for each disciple at the same time. Figuratively, disciples begin life at the outside edge of the petal and progress inwardly towards the stem, becoming more Christ-like in their individual maturing process, while collectively, the blossom is revealing itself by extending its petals. So the individual’s movement is towards the stem while the blossom’s movement is outward until the blossom seems to fill half of the bowl.
The events recorded in Scripture are real, but exist as shadows of the maturation of the children of God. Prophecy exists to reveal the shadows of additional events, or the events themselves in the spiritual realm that affect the heirs. For example, the shadow of the spiritual king of Greece (Dan chptr 8) is Alexander the Great. The shadow of this spiritual king of Greece’s conquest of the prince of Persia in the supra-dimensional spiritual realm is Alexander’s conquest of Persia, even though that reality of the conquest occurs during the time of the end. And the shadow of the man of perdition declaring himself god is Antiochus Epiphanes placing the statute of Zeus in the Holy of Holies. The man of perdition will declare himself God 1290 days before Christ returns as the Messiah. But on day 1260, Christ fights as on a day of battle (indefinite article), and deals the man of perdition a mortal wound. Michael fights in heaven against Satan and casts Satan out while Christ takes out the man of perdition. Same day. Nebuchadnezzar’s image ends with the man of perdition being destroyed. Spiritual Babylon has fallen. Humanity has been liberated to learn to live by faith for three and a half years as Satan is cast into time to come to earth as the reality of the Antichrist for which the man of perdition was the shadow. So Rome doesn’t belong in prophecy. The empire isn’t there—and to insert it into prophecy is adding to Scripture, a bad mistake.
Returning to the creation account of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 — this account forms the abstract or argument for Scripture. It is the rose bud, with most of its blossoming occurring in the heavenly realm and effecting humanity in the physical realm. And its narrative distance is a little greater than the Flood account’s, for it reveals an apparent third level of creation that concludes with the heirs of God putting on incorruptibility … this level of creation can barely be seen in the open blossom. But the shadows of this level are described in the Flood narrative, mentioned by Jesus, and in the Book of Acts. Taken together, the Temptation account and the Flood account form the shadow of the Gospels and of Acts and Revelation, a claim that will be further developed in later articles.
The third level or degree of creation begins with the Theos entering His creation as His Son, his only Son (John 3:16), being the light of the first day. All of the heavens and earth are created in the first verse (Gen 1:1). The lacunae between verses 1 and 2 moves the level of creation into the heavenly realm; so the division of water on the second day describes [from the perspective of the heavenly realm] human beings being born of Spirit and receiving actual life in the heavenly realm. Thus, the daylight portion of day one begins with the birth of the man Jesus and concludes at Calvary, when the dark portion of the second day begins. The light portion of the second day then begins with Jesus’ resurrection and concludes when He Ascends into heaven 40 days later. Humanity has been in the dark portion of the third day ever since. The light portion of the third day begins when Jesus fights on a day of battle halfway through the seven endtime years of tribulation.
In the typology of the creation account, the great White Throne Judgment is represented by the creation of humankind [adam] (Gen 1:27–31), male and female. The narrative distance is greater than in the account of the creation of Adam, beginning Genesis 2:4b, one reason why a different author has been credited with writing this account. But the purpose of the account is different. While still representing valid history, the Genesis one creation account [the so-called “P” account] presents the shadow of the entire history of the universe, from its initial creation to Christ’s millennium reign during the “day” of the Lord, in five days, with the sixth day presenting the judgment of humankind as spiritual beasts or human beings created in the likeness of Elohim. This “P” account is history from the perspective of God.
The generic time of the end begins in the darkness of the third day, near the midnight hour. At the conclusion of this night, disciples will have been revealed, and except for a remnant, slain either physically or spiritually. The kingdom of the world—the kingdom of darkness—will become the kingdom of the Most High and of His Messiah (Rev 11:15). And still three and a half more years of tribulation remain.
The narrative distance of the Genesis one creation account is relatively great, just as a budded rose hardly appears like its opened bloom, but this distance only seems great because of disciples have not yet become spiritually minded, preferring instead to cling to the social constructs that have produced the roving eye that sees only things with surfaces.
* * * * *
"Scripture quotations are from The Holy
Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a
division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights
reserved."