Day 2: The Sky			Genesis 1:6-8     4-7-2002 

Why This Study is Important
(The Meaning of Origins)
There are some of you who seem to have already lost interest in this study, and we have only gotten through day one!  For that reason I want to take a few minutes and talk about why this study is important and worth our time.

You may have heard about the little 4-year-old who came to her mother and said, “Mommy, where did I come from?”
The woman was caught a little off guard.  She hadn’t planned on giving the “birds and the bees” talk quite this soon, but stumbled her way through the best she could.  

When she finally finished explaining about human reproduction to best she could to a 4-year-old mind, the little girl shrugged her shoulders and said, “Jimmy says he came from Indiana.”  

When we ask the question about origins, there are a number a different ways to answer, and some are more helpful than others.  A description of origins that is only physical leaves out that which is most important.

The birds and the bees information isn’t what makes you who you are.

If my kids want to know about their origins, I could say, “You are the product of a sperm and an egg.  Your body is about 80% water and it is made up of trillions of cells which comprise tissues, organs, systems…”

But I would be telling them a lot more if I said, “You are a Ferguson. Your dad is a pastor and your mom is a homemaker, and we are a family that fears the Lord.  We serve the Lord Jesus Christ.  You exist because God thought of you and designed to be part of the Body of Christ and to advance His kingdom by means of your spiritual gifts, and to reign with Christ forever.” 

You see, there are different way of thinking about origins – some more meaningful than others.  And Genesis one tells us where we came from in the way that God deemed most meaningful.

So what is the best way to think about origins?  What indication has God given us from the creation account to tip us off as to what is the best perspective to think about it from?

The answer to that question can be summed up in three words: the most important thing about creation is that the creation is God at work.

John Walton: “As Christians our theology would be much improved if we could make a slight change in our terminology.  Instead of proclaiming that “the cosmos was created by God” (using past tense as if the job were done) we should rather proclaim, “The cosmos is God’s creation.”  We may thus lay claim to the dynamic role of God in a perpetual act of creation.  Additionally, we may see Genesis 1 not as “the story of creation” but as the beginning of the “Story of the Creator.”  (Application Commentary on Genesis p.105)

The creation is God at work.  When you watch the movements in the sky you are watching the activity of God.  

If all you see in Gn.1 is the origin of matter, you are missing most of the point of the chapter.  

This chapter describes the meaning of creation.

On the other hand that’s not to say that the physical reality is not important.  We make a mistake when we mythologize it so that it doesn’t address physical structure at all.

If my son asks where he’s from and I tell him he was conceived of and designed by God and placed by God into this home, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t physically born.  It acknowledges the physical birth but also attaches additional meaning to it.

The key to understanding the creation account is knowing the connection between the physical reality of creation and the meaning.

On day one (the Sunday of the creation week) God created light and the sequence of days.  On day two He makes the sky.

We understand this to be the actual origin of light, and the actual origin of the sky – the actual physical reality that you see when you look up.

You have probably heard someone tell you that Genesis one is not a science textbook.  I think it is.  It’s a text that tells us about the physical world.  

Anyone who tells you the Bible doesn’t address science doesn’t understand that in the ancient near east they didn’t distinguish between science and theology.  The two were intertwined in their thinking. 

In modern thinking we have put theology and nature in two separate categories.  

The correct approach is the ancient approach.  If we learn anything from Genesis one it’s that there is no separation between nature and theology.  You cannot make that separation and still understand the true nature of the world.

Nature: Cause or Effect?
The basic difference between us and the naturalists is the naturalist thinks of nature as an ultimate cause, but the biblical worldview is that nature is an effect.

Nature is only a secondary cause.  If the question is “Why does an apple fall to the ground?” and you answer “Because of gravity” you have skirted the issue and haven’t answered the question.

Gravity isn’t the cause, because something had to cause gravity.

That’s like if Tracy asks one of our kids, “How did these toys get all over the living room floor?” and they answer “Forces were exerted on them that caused them to be lifted from the toybox and be carried to their present spot.  They remain there because an object at rest tends to stay at rest.”

I can tell you right now that’s not the answer Tracy was looking for.  

The question wasn’t about secondary causes.  The question was about primary causes – who exerted those forces and why are the objects still at rest?

Nature doesn’t ultimately cause anything to happen.  Nature is just a name we have come up with to describe what we see with our physical eyes when God causes things to happen.

So the difference between a modern science textbook and the Bible is the modern textbook spends all its time talking about the way the world is, and the Bible spends a little time talking about the way the world is, and a lot more time talking about why it’s that way.

Function
We have been raised in a culture that wants more than anything to know about the physical structure of things.  They think that’s the most solid kind of knowledge. 

In our scientific day we want to know all about physical structure, and we think that’s the most important kind of information, because we have been trained to think that function is a product of structure.

Things end up with some structure, and from there develop a function related to that structure.

For example, the world tells us that the rivers developed their present physical structure by means of various purposeless natural processes, and as a result they just happened to end up being useful for us after the fact as a source of transportation, recreation, energy, etc.

In the naturalist’s world – absolutely everything in nature is an unintended consequence.  

So they think function is a consequence of structure.  The sun happened to end up with its present structure, and so it ended up fulfilling the function of heating the earth.

But the correct way to think about it is structure is a product of function, and function is a product of purpose. 

God started out with a purpose in mind – to illumine and heat the earth.  To achieve that purpose, He made a sun with just the right structure to fulfill that function.

So the function dictated the structure rather than the other way around.

And so it would be pointless for Genesis to go on and on about physical structure, because what is important is function.

That’s why Genesis 1 focuses so much on functions and names and assigned tasks – and so little on physical structure.

Structure points your attention to the object.  Function points your attention to the Creator.

Naturalism and evolutionary theory - just like the magicians in Egypt who counterfeited Moses’ miracles, can offer alternative explanations as to how the physical structures came to be.  

But what they cannot do is offer any explanation of intended function, purpose and meaning.  

So even if evolution could explain where our bodies came from, it can’t even begin to address the question of where we came from.

They don’t even understand that statement, because the naturalist reduces everything to matter.  They don’t even understand the difference between our bodies and us.

Genesis won’t tell you how many metric tons of rock make up the moon, but it will tell you the reason the moon is there – to help us mark seasons and years.

The audience Moses was writing to didn’t even believe something existed by their definition until it was named.  It could physically be there, but it wasn’t really anything until it was assigned a function. (Walton)

There is a great line in C.S. Lewis’ book Voyage of the Dawn Treader – two people from different worlds are talking and one says “In my world, a star is a huge flaming ball of gas.”        

Then the other person corrects him and says, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.”

That’s not what it is – that’s just its structure.

If all you know are the physical properties of something, you know very little if anything about what that thing is.  But if you know its name – if you know its function and for what purpose it was made, then you know what it is.

So God is telling us about what things really are, but we live in a time when in the name of pursuing knowledge society is turning its back on knowledge.  

In the name of seeking to learn the true nature of things, they are focusing on matter and physical structure alone and almost completely ignoring the full reality of the world around us.

Let’s make sure we don’t fall into that.  If all we do is look at Genesis to tell us about structure, we will find much less than God wants us to find in that chapter.

During the period of the Enlightenment, we reached the conclusion that material structure  is the most important reality.  Then Darwinism took it a step further and insisted that material structure is the only reality – it’s all there is.

Ravi Zacharias was right when he said, “First the world was denuded of transcendence, then the Scriptures were rendered irrelevant, and finally human kind was made nothing more than matter.” (Deliver Us From Evil p.52 Dallas: Word 1996) 

If my kids come and ask where they came from, whatever answer I give, they will assume to be the most important and meaningful perspective on their origins. 

Let us make that same assumption.  It’s not just that God gave us information about origins, but He gave us the most pertinent, relevant kind of information, and we should assume it to be important. 

So regardless of whether or not you were interested or curious about Genesis one, let’s discipline ourselves to study it with the kind of diligence that would be fitting for a people who really believe 2 Tim.3:16. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. 
Why make a sky at this stage?  Why not make that later?   What is so foundational about the sky?  If some ancient writer were making up a myth about how God made the earth habitable, you would think the sky would be last.

6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse
KJV firmament = a strengthening or support.  NIV and NAS expanse  
How can these translate the same word?

[;yqir'
 Comes from a root that means “to spread out” either by hammering (like metal) or stretching (like a tent).

The word refers to something that has been spread out.  Expanse is an OK translation, but the problem with it is we think of an expanse as an empty space - they probably would have thought of a [;yqir' as something - something with some substance.

Critics: “See, they thought the sky was made out of some solid material.” 

No - not solid, it is called, “sky.” (heavens) - It is the place where the birds fly around in v.20 

The sky - the area between the ground and the water up there - that empty space is actually not empty space - it is some substance - something that God spread out, something that actually supports all that water up there.

What is the expanse?  (KJV firmament)

The word just means “something that has been spread out” so that doesn’t help much.

Some have suggested it is the atmosphere.  The problem is, the sun and moon and stars are in it.

Others say, “Moses was a product of his day.  He believed there was a solid dome up there.”  

But that can’t be, because it’s the place where the birds are flying around in v.20.  Anyone who has ever seen a bird take off or land knows the birds fly through the air.

So what does this mean?  What did God create that contains the stars as well as the birds?

Phenomenological Language 
There is no physical structure that does that, but there is an entity that does – an observational entity: the sky.

The expanse is not any physical structure.  It’s just what you see when you look up.

There are two valid ways to describe things – you can give a physical description, or a phenomenal description.  A physical description describes physical structure, and a phenomenal description describes the way something appears.

And many times the most accurate form of communication is the phenomenal kind.

If I’m trying to tell you how embarrassed someone was at a joke for instance, if I say, “As soon as he told the punch line, the blood vessels near the surface of her facial skin became enlarged…” – that’s not very accurate, informative communication.

I do a much better job communicating the idea if I give a phenomenological description – just tell you how it appeared.

“He told that joke, her face turned red.”

A meteorologist will stand there in his studio surrounded by millions of dollars of sophisticated high tech scientific equipment and tell you about tomorrow’s “sunrise.”

Do we call the station and say, “Why do you have that caveman on there giving the weather?  Doesn’t he know the sun doesn’t rise, but the earth rotates?”

Phenomenal language only claims to be describing the way things appear, so if it does that, it’s true.

When the meteorologist says, “The sun will rise tomorrow at 6:30,” if we see a phenomenon tomorrow morning at 6:30 that looks like the sun rising in relationship to the horizon, then the meteorologist was correct.

Scripture speaks in phenomenal language not because it is primitive, but because that is the perspective from which the various phenomena have meaning. 

It’s of minor consequence to me what the earth is doing in relation to the sun from the perspective of a fictional observer looking at a scale model of the solar system in a time warp that enables him to see movement.

What is helpful to me is knowing when it’s going to be light outside.

From the perspective of outer space the movement of the earth and the sun have no meaning or significance.  From that perspective it’s just a mass in space rotating and orbiting another mass.

That movement only becomes meaningful and significant when you understand that God designed it so that from the perspective of earth you get a period of daytime followed by a period of night time every 24 hours, which enables us to manage our lives and mark time.

So the Bible gives us the most valuable kind of science, because it tells us not only the way things are, but the theological meaning of the fact that they are that way.

The meaning of what happens is tied to the human observational perspective.  And so in a chapter that is teaching us about the meaning of creation, phenomenal language is exactly what we would expect.

So the expanse is the sky.

We speak the same way.  We might talk about the birds in the sky or a shooting star in the night sky going right through the Big Dipper.

The view we have from earth is not the unintended consequence of the way everything happened to turn out.  Everything is specifically designed just so that it would appear a certain way when observed from earth.

-------------------------
Is there any physical structure that is involved?  Yes.  There is a physical structure that has the task of separating the waters.

Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. and it was so.

Again we see God separating.  He his bringing about order and structure.  

But how do you separate water from water just by making a sky?  That doesn’t seem to make any sense.  It doesn’t say God placed the water above up there.  

There is an unusual structure in the grammar here. When it says to separate water from water it literally reads this way: to separate between (!yBe) water and to (l') water” 

That formula is used to make a distinction between 2 different kinds of the same thing.
Dt.7:8 "If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between homicide to homicide, between lawsuit to lawsuit, and between assault and to assault,
The NAS correctly translates this way:
"If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another

That construction is used when two kinds of the same thing are being separated.  Other examples are Ez.18:8, 34:17,22, 41:18  - see Hamilton, p.122.

The Hebrew idiom literally says, Let there be an expanse to separate one kind of water from another kind of water.

The ancient Hebrews would not have concerned themselves with how this happened physically.  The point is that God was making a sky and getting some water up above and other water down below.

If we want to make a physical analysis of it, it’s not too hard.  To separate one kind of water from another kind of water you just make a sky that is lighter than the one kind of water and heavier than the other kind.  

If you make water with properties so that it can be liquid or vapor - and when it turns to vapor it becomes lighter, then all you have to do is make the sky lighter than liquid water and heavier than water vapor.  

That way as soon as liquid water turns to vapor, the vapor will float to the top of the air!

Then, when it turns back to liquid, it becomes heavier than the sky and drops down to the ground on your crops.

So God made the expanse
This is a reminder of God’s direct agency in the creation.

Is it Good? 

Do you notice anything missing from day 2 that we see in the other days?   This is the only day He doesn’t say “It is good.”

Why? Isn’t the sky good?  It seems to have all three elements of goodness. 

1. Excellence (order, structure, complexity)
The sky is complex - just the right combination of many ingredients: nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapor, neon, helium, methane, krypton, and ozone.

It’s just right for us, it’s just right for the plants.   It is very complex.  It is made up of the Troposphere, the Stratosphere, the Mesosphere, the Thermosphere, the Magnetosphere and the Exosphere -- then the Van Allen radiation belts which protect us from radiation.

The atmosphere is not empty space.  It has mass and weight.  Anyone who has ever been in a wind storm knows that.

The sky is a mass.  Just like you can set a rock on top of the ground and the ground will hold it up, and just like you can set a piece of plastic on top of water, and the water will hold it up, so you can set things on top of air - things that are lighter than air like helium or clouds, and the air will hold it up.

Just like when you put a beach ball full of air (lighter than water) at the bottom of a pool, that heavy water presses in on it and squeezes it out of there shoving it up to the top, and that thick, heavy water is dense enough to support that ball sitting on top of it, in the same way the heavy air presses in on the water vapor and squeezes it out of there shoving it up to the top, and that thick, heavy air is dense enough to support that water vapor (cloud) sitting up on top of the air.

Right now billions of tons of water are being held above our heads by the sky.

The sky also has weight (at sea level a cubic foot of air weighs about .08 pounds). 

“If air has weight, why doesn’t it all fall to the ground?”  That’s like saying if water has weight, why doesn’t it sink to the bottom of the ocean?  It does.

In fact, the weight of the air squishes the air down at the bottom.  All the weight of the air in the sky presses down on the air down here and presses it together so it is real thick.  And that thick air is just right for breathing.

“If the sky has substance, how much does it weigh?”
5.8 million billion tons.  
There is about 5000 tons of sky just above this building.

So there is excellence and complexity to the sky. 

2. Beauty
Is the sky beautiful?  Sunsets, sunrises, clouds (infinite variety), the color (the sky is blue because the blue light waves tend to zig zag), the night sky, etc.

3. Beneficial

On day one, before there was a sky, the earth was really a long way from being habitable.  

For one thing, judging from the moon which has no atmosphere, in the day time it was about 220 deg. F, and about -240 at night

The atmosphere is the only shield we have from the deadly conditions in outer space.  God made a protective blanket that surrounds us for hundreds of miles up - penetrates every crevice - between the pages of a closed book -- covers every inch of the 197 million sq mi. of area on the earth.

Before there was a sky there was no sound - everything was absolutely silent (even huge waves crashing in the sea).  No weather. 

The sky is essential if there is going to be a sun.  The earth is constantly being blasted by rays from the sun that would destroy any life if it did exist.  The earth needed a blanket. - a sky to protect it and make the earth habitable.  

It’s also necessary for the hydrological cycle

Ecc.1:7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

God made water so that when the sun shines on it, that energy hits those water molecules and they start moving faster and faster and crashing into each other.  

When a molecule gets hit, it goes bouncing off even faster.   They all get to moving so fast that every once in a while a molecule will get bumped into 2 or 3 times in succession and it goes flying.  

It goes with so much energy that it breaks free of the surface of the water into the air.  That little molecule, when it is not stuck to the other molecules of water is lighter than air.

That’s important not only for the hydrological cycle but for us as well.  It’s why we perspire when we get hot.  

God made your body so when it got hot it would put water on the skin.  The heat on your skin is energy.  That water heats up and evaporates.  Each molecule of water that leaves, leaves with a whole bunch of energy (heat) - that cools your body.  

So the sky is excellent and complex, it’s beautiful, and it’s beneficial to us.  It has all the elements of goodness, so why doesn’t God say, “It is good”?

Some have suggested it was because this was a Monday, and not even God likes Mondays.

But that’s not it.  So why is it?

Remember the summary of the definition of TOV?   The way things ought to be.  As wonderful, beautiful, beneficial, complex, well-arranged, it was, it still wasn’t quite as it should be.  

God wasn’t finished separating the waters.  He separated the water on earth from the water above by making the sky, but there was some more separation of water to do, and that took place in day 3.  

After that He pronounced it good in v.10.

1. God’s Authority

8 God called the expanse, “sky.”  And there was evening and there was morning the second day.

God names it.  The sky belongs to God, it is His, it is under His full control and sovereignty, and it is to function as a sky.

About now some of the pagans would get real agitated reading this.  “Wait a minute - our highest gods live up there in the heavens.  They are dependent upon the heavens.  And you’re saying your God has supremacy over the heavens?”  

Exactly.

Every place that the pagan deities lived was created by God and was under His authority to name and divide up as He pleased - and without any struggle or difficulty - just by speaking a word.

V.8 shows us God’s supreme authority over everything.

If God has authority over the heavens, then He has absolute authority, since the heavens are the greatest reality we can see.  And God Himself uses that argument when He is talking about His decision to raise up Cyrus to save Israel.

Isa.45:12-13
My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts. 13 I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness

In other words, “When I do something that is alarming to you and different from what you would choose, keep in mind My authority.  I’m the one who stretched out the heavens.  So don’t question my use of a pagan king to save Israel.” 

This is important, because it’s the beginning of a pattern we will see throughout Scripture that uses the sky to lay the foundation for the uniquely high theology of true religion.

Man has always felt helpless in relationship to the sky.  If there is no rain for a long enough period, we all just die.  If a hurricane comes, the only thing you can do is hide.  

And throughout history man has been uneasy with being so powerless, and has sought a way to gain some control.  

In the ancient world, they believed the things that happened in the sky had to do with various activities of the gods.  So if the people reenacted those activities in view of the gods, the gods would start doing the same thing.

So if you need rain, you do what the gods do that causes rain, and maybe the gods will catch on.

That’s why it was so important that the Bible begin with an accurate creation account.  Because the primary error of the people of Moses’ day was this twisted view of the nature of God, and the most fundamental thing that separated Israel from the surrounding nations was Israel’s understanding of the relationship between God and the creation.

There is no disputing the fact that there are many significant similarities between Genesis 1 and the surrounding creation myths – myths that existed before Genesis was written.

The critics’ response to that is to say, “Israel just borrowed the common myths and adjusted them a little.”

But since they use the same basic structure, and the same terminology, and roughly the same order of events – since there are so many similarities, the differences stand out all the more.  

Waltke: “It is certain that Israel knew these myths and it is also possible that having borrowed them they demythologized them. Moreover, the biblical writers elsewhere tell us that they did use sources. In spite of these facts, this explanation does not satisfy because it offers no explanation for Israel’s higher theology. Where did Israel get this higher theology? Why did it not appear among any other people? Neither the brilliant Greek philosophers of later ages, nor Israel’s Babylonian and Egyptian contemporaries, so far ahead of them in the arts and science, attained to it. All the world was steeped in mythical thought except Israel. Her religion was like the sun compared to the night. No umbilical cord attached the faith of Moses and his successors with the other religions of the ancient Near East. Furthermore, any religion that even approaches the Mosaic faith, such as Islam, borrowed it from Israel.
Moreover, this religion did not arise from Israel itself. Over and over again they confess that they are stiffnecked and prone to conform to the religions around them. No, Israel’s religion did not originate in the darkened mind and heart of man. Instead, as the prophets consistently affirm, it is a revelation from God.”  (“The Creation Account in Genesis 1:1-3” Bsac123 & 133)

So in Genesis 1 we learn that the things that happen in the sky are not the unintended result of some activity of God.  It’s nothing more or less that an intentional act of God’s will.  And understanding that is the basis for a high view of God.

So we don’t have rituals or rain dances.  We just ask God to make it rain, knowing He can if He wants to.  

And if we pray for rain and it doesn’t rain, we know for sure God didn’t want it to rain – rain wouldn’t have been the best thing at that moment, and we rejoice, then, that it didn’t rain.

Understanding this is critical for your prayer life.

So the sky illustrates God’s supreme authority.  And that’s not all. According to Ps.19 the sky pours forth speech about God.  The heavens are constantly shouting information to us about what God is like.

Let me show you a few other examples of how Scripture uses the sky to illustrate and lay the foundation for truth about God.
2. It displays God’s glory
There is nothing on earth big enough or awesome enough to do much justice to illustrating God’s glory, so He gave us the sky.

The heavens declare the glory of God (Ps.19:1)  

Only a glorious God could be the Author of the glorious, spectacular scenes we observe in the sky.

3. It illustrates His power.  

Jer.32:17
"Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

If He made the heavens He can do anything.

What could be more difficult than managing the heavens?  It maxes out all our technology just to develop a telescope powerful enough to look at them.  

How would you like to have the job of maintaining all the movement in just one galaxy?

There is nothing we can think of that would be more difficult and require more power than that.

Job 9:7-10
He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. 8He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. 9He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south. 10 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. 

Isa.40:26-28 is written to Jews who were beginning to fret about whether God would take care of them:
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?  He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.  27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"?  28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

It’s irrational for a child of God to worry, considering His awesome power displayed in the skies. (Chicken Little’s problem was he didn’t understand Gn.1:6).

God is totally sovereign over the biggest thing we know.  He has full mastery over the greatest reality we can conceive of – the heavens.  

4. It illustrates the cataclysmic nature of the coming judgment.

Hag.2:6
"This is what the LORD Almighty says: `In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

People say when you are in a major earthquake, there is no more helpless feeling.  What about a heavens quake?

Isa.34:4
All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree. 

When that happens, I don’t care how brave or courageous someone is – every person who is still subject to judgment will be reduced to a terrified, quivering mass of fear.  And that’s exactly what happens when it takes place in Rev.6 – men’s hearts melt inside them.

Joel 2:10-11 describes God coming in judgment with His army:
Before them the earth shakes, the sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine. 11The LORD thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty are those who obey his command. The day of the LORD is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? 

2Pe 3:10-13
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 

When we look up at the sky and realize the Maker of all that must also have the power to destroy it, we are staggered at the thought of the inexpressible catastrophe connected with the final judgment. 

5. It illustrates God’s transcendence 

God is not part of the creation.  He is not the sum total of the creation.  He is infinitely above and beyond it.

Ps 113:6 says God is so far above the heavens that He has to stoop down just to see the heavens.

Isa.55:9
"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

1Ki.8:27-28
"But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. 

A few time in Scripture we see this phrase The heavens, even the highest heaven.  
Lit: The heavens, even the heavens of the heavens.  

When we look up we see the heavens.  The sky and everything in it – the sun, moon and stars – all that is our sky.  So what functions as their sky?

The cosmos out there transcends us.  What is it that transcends it?  

It’s not talking about a physical place necessarily.  It’s just the way the Hebrews expressed the superlative of an idea.

Take the thing that is the biggest, highest, most transcendent thing you can conceive of – the heavens, and think of something that is that much bigger and more transcendent that it – something that would function as the heavens for the heavens, and God transcends even that.

6. It illustrates God’s omniscience & justice. 
The heavens get to “see” everything that happens.  Nothing is hidden from them.  God uses that as an illustration of how every fact will be considered on Judgment Day.

Ps 50:4,5
He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that he may judge his people: 5"Gather to me my consecrated ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice." 6 And the heavens proclaim his righteousness, for God himself is judge.

The heavens see everything that happens, and they will be able to testify that God’s judgment is perfectly just.

7. To illustrate God’s supremacy.  
Rev. 20:11
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

Eph.4:10
He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.

Hebrews 7 says He has been exalted above the heavens. 

So when Scripture wants to highlight the supremacy of God, it talks about Him being beyond even the heavens.  He’s higher than the highest thing.

And that stands to reason – obviously the Maker of the heavens would be higher than the heavens.

No matter what other god or power you come up with, none of them made the heavens.  And since God did, He reigns supreme over all.

Dt.33:26
"There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. 

1Ch 16:26-27
For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.  27 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy in his dwelling place. 

Even the great, powerful beings who live in the heavens bow before God.

Nh.9:5,6
"Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. 

8. It illustrates the infinite measure of all God’s attributes.
Ps.103:11
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 

Ps.108:4-5
For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth. 

Ps 57:5-11
5Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. 
9 I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. 
10For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 11Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. 

Ps 113:4-6
The LORD is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. 5 Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, 

Ps 148:13
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. 

9. It gives us an orientation to think about God.
We never worship the sky or anything in it (Dt.4:19-20), but it is a wonderful thing to lift your eyes to the heavens and think – Just beyond that is God.

I find that when I am out on my walk praying, during those moments when I find myself crying out in desperation over some great concern, I look up at the sky.

Isa.38:14
My eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens. I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!" 

The result of that is the development of the most essential and valuable of all virtues – humility.

10. It teaches us humility before God.
Job 38:31-33
"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? 32Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up [God's] dominion over the earth? 

And Job’s response was to say I am unworthy – how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth.” (40:3)

The fact that we are so far from being able to do what God does in the heavens humbles us, but in doing so, it teaches us about God’s grace.

11. It illustrates God’s grace.
An infant is never surprised that someone loves him.  He fully expects everyone to be completely devoted to him and meet his every demand.

As you get a little older, you begin to notice there are other people in this world who also have needs.  The older you get, the larger your world gets, and your perspective expands.  

You begin to understand what a vast place the earth is, and among the staggering masses of people on this planet you realize you are not even a blip on the radar screen.

The bigger your world is, the tinier you feel.

So when we look out into the heavens, the effect that has on a thinking person is to make him feel utterly insignificant.

There are billions of galaxies and each one has billions of stars, and who knows how many planets orbit all those stars – we are not even a spec of dust in our galaxy much less in the universe.  

You don’t have to think long about that until you find yourself saying with the Psalmist, 
Ps.8:3-4
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 

And yet… 5 (You) crowned him with glory and honor. 6You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: 

Job 35:5-7
Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. 6If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? 7If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand?

By gazing at the sky we realize we are too tiny to do God any good or any harm.  We are not even specks of dust.

and yet…

Dt.10:14-15
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you

The heavens belong to Him, yet He condescended and chose you!

-----------------------

What an amazing reality the sky is!  It helps shape not only our understanding of God, but also our response to Him.

When Job reached the end of his rope, God talked to him about the sky.  And that brought Job back to the right perspective.

Job 38:14-18
"Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God's wonders.  15 Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash?  16 Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?  17 You who swelter in your clothes when the land lies hushed under the south wind, 18 can you join him in spreading out the skies?

The sky is the biggest thing we know of.  It’s the biggest thing God ever made.
There is something about contemplating things that are far bigger than you, and understanding that they are infinitely smaller than God, that brings comfort.

Mountains are big, but you can climb a mountain.  Oceans are huge but we can cross the ocean.

But the sky is utterly beyond our reach.  And when we finally developed technology that allowed us to shoot something out of the atmosphere, and we began to contemplate the vast reaches of space, we realize now we are not closer but farther from being able to transcend beyond the night sky than we ever dreamed 

Job was demanding an answer - we do that when we lose sight of God’s goodness and power and wisdom - Elihu (and then God) remind him that God is God.  Sometimes the best thing you can do for depression is just literally look up.

Sometimes the best council you can give someone who is struggling is to read them Gn.1:6 – and God said, “Let there be an expanse.”

Application
It’s important that you understand this principle in order for you to live the Christian life.  If all you see in Genesis one is God making things – bringing things into existence, that will cripple your ability to live the Christian life.

Here’s why: Genesis one could have just said, “God brought everything into existence” and then moved on to chapter two.  What it does instead is show us that God not only made everything, but named everything and is the Creator and Sustainer and Ruler and Upholder of what He made.  

The perspective will effect your whole approach to life and to thinking about God.

The beauty in a sunset is not just a fluke of light reflecting at an angle off the atmosphere.  A sunset is God intentionally painting a beautiful picture…for us!

Nowhere else in the universe does a sunset have any meaning whatsoever.  It’s just something God does specifically for us to reveal His beauty.

Sunshine is from Him, rain is from Him, snow is from Him…

And that perspective is vital for living the Christian life.

Here is a way to test your perspective: What do you think would happen if God turned Himself off for a moment?  What kind of a picture comes to mind?

Would there be no noticeable difference?  Or do you picture a gradual deterioration?  Or would virtues begin to disappear?

If any of those things are what come to mind, you don’t have a Genesis one mindset, and you are going to struggle to live the Christian life.

If God stopped His activities everything would instantly go out of existence.

If you see this world operating on autopilot, and you can only see God in miracles, you have a non-Christian worldview, and you’re never going to make it through the book of Esther.  

Esther is a book that never mentions God explicitly.  It’s a book that describes terrible circumstances in which God is nowhere to be seen.  His people would be tempted to think, “Where is this covenant keeping God?”

But through providence God saves them.  People end up at the right place at the right time and the Jewish people get real “lucky.”  

And it’s obvious when you read Esther that God is just as active as He is in Exodus, when He does all the miracles.  But Exodus gives us the full perspective, Esther is purposely written from the human perspective only, so that we understand providence.

Understanding Gn.1 is the key to making it through those times when for the life of you you can’t see God.  During those times when He seems absent, it’s essential that you understand that every time you see nature you are seeing God actively at work.

To cultivate your relationship with God you have to see Him at work every day.

The reason Gn.1 is crucial for living the Christian life is because we live our lives in Esther not Exodus.  

When you read about Joseph’s troubles or the life of David or Moses or Abraham or Job,  some difficulty will happen and the narrator will explain, “Here is what the Lord was doing…”

But when you lose your job, or you experience some painful ordeal in your family or other relationships, or when disaster strikes… you don’t have a narrator step in and explain, “The Lord God is doing this to accomplish this plan and to set up this wonderful thing…”

Gn.1 prepares us to live life without the narrator.

People come to me all the time and want me to be the narrator.  “Why is God doing this?”  Scripture gives us a lot of reasons for trials, but the specific reasoning behind a specific trial is part of a grand plan that is invisible to us right now.

You don’t have to know the details of the plan, but it is important that you see God constantly working His plan in every detail of life.

There are people who are so desperate to seek out miracles because they want so much to see God at work.  They think God is more present in Exodus than in Esther.  They want to see God working directly, they aren’t satisfied with providence, and so they are always on the lookout for miracles.  

But you don’t need a miracle to see God in action.

Science is nothing more or less than the study of the visible work of God.  It’s the study of the normal way God does things.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 
“Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes, 
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”  (Aurora Leigh)

It’s all a matter of whether you have learned to live in the book of Esther – learned to live life without the narrator.  And it’s Genesis one that is the foundation for learning that.

Once we learn that, where everyone else just sees a bush with some berries, you will see the holy work of God, and when they are just enjoying the physical creation at the most basic level, you will have your shoes off in the awesome presence of Holy God.

Where everyone else looks around and sees nothing but mundane, normal circumstances, you will see the reality – those mundane circumstances are the perfect, wise, brilliant, creative, redeeming acts of a transcendent, sovereign holy God.

And while everyone else is just rolling with the punches of what they think of as random chance, you will be humbled before your Creator.

While they curse their bad luck you will marvel at the inscrutable wisdom of the outworking of God’s perfect plan.

While their souls become more and more attached and locked into this present world, yours will be drawn with an ever increasing longing for the one to come. 

Benediction:
Heb.7:24 Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.  25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 6 Such a high priest meets our need-- one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

Review Questions:
1. What is the expanse? 

It is what man sees when he looks up.

2. Name as many truths as you can that are taught, displayed or illustrated by the sky?

1. God’s Authority
2. God’s glory
3. God’s power.  
4. the cataclysmic nature of the coming judgment.
5. God’s transcendence 
6. God’s omniscience & justice. 
7. God’s supremacy.  
8. the infinite measure of all God’s attributes.
9. It gives us an orientation to think about God.
10. It teaches us humility before God.
11. God’s grace.