Tue, Oct 20, 2009
ORIGINS - In The Beginning
God and Time
“The creation of the Universe is also the creation of time.” This is a remarkable notion – in creating the universe, God created time. “In the beginning” can also then be rendered “at the start of time.”
The Hebrew name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush is YHWH, yod-heh-vav-heh. Eh’yeh asher eh’yeh. I AM, I WAS, I WILL BE. He was, He is, and He will be. He is outside the constriction and limits of time. God has no beginning, but from Him all that is created came forth. In Him, all that is had its beginning. Everything created has a beginning, an "Origin."
“It thus follows, as the night the day…” as William Shakespeare said [or “as the morning follows the evening” Genesis 1:5], that only people who are created in the image of God can know time and be cognizant of memory. Of all creation, only human kind can celebrate special days, can recall yesterday, and try to change tomorrow for the better by using today for good.
To quote Lazer Brody, “Your neshamah [soul/spirit] is timeless. Your actions will affect the world long after you have left this life.” Our spirits are not constricted by time in the same way our present physical, time-bound bodies are. Our lives leave imprints on the world in deeper ways than we maybe realize.
If we grasp the implications of this from an eternal perspective we will take far more care in the way we behave and relate to others, particularly those close to us, and in establishing our priorities in life.
“The more we consider the long-term influences that our actions bear on our souls, the better we act. The better we act, the better we feel about ourselves and the more we attain inner peace.”
The Image of God
On the sixth day of creation God said, “Let us make man in Our image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Verse 27 stresses this fact three times, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
Tzelem (image) refers to the personal relationship that can only be found between ‘persons’… Only as long as man is a person [growing in his unique God-given personality, and doesn't sink to the level of being ruled by animalistic like appetites] can he preserve his relationship with God.
Jesus, in answer to the devious question posed by the spies of the chief priests regarding the validity of paying taxes to Caesar, gives a brilliant teaching based on man’s unique creation in the image of God. When he sees the denarius (coin) they produce He asks them, “Whose likeness (tzelem) and inscription does it have?” When they reply, “Caesar’s!” He stuns them with the comment: “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” This is a clear illustration of the fact that the powerful, materialistic system of the world robs people of their uniqueness and stamps them with the hollow, look-a-like images of the Caesars, or Pharaohs, or those promulgated by multi-media advertisers.
God created mankind in glorious variety; no two of us are exactly alike. Mankind is finally beginning to understand the unbelievable effort that God devotes in making each of us a special individual, via the discovery of DNA, RNA, chromosomal combinations and genetic maps. In addition, we each have a spirit for God is spirit (John 4:24). This commonality, this stamp of likeness (tzelem) in us responds to His Spirit of holiness. It is this internal image that the enemy of our souls violently, and yet so subtly, attempts to blur and then extinguish.
In the Mishnah [a collection of Jewish wisdom, or Oral Torah], Pirkei Avot (Sayings/Ethics of the Fathers) 3:14, we are reminded: "Beloved is man since he was created in God’s image; But it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in God’s image."
We are God’s, and beloved of God. He has given us the responsibility to value and cherish His image in ourselves and in one another. We are never to give up hope but, in the spirit of Messiah, we are continually to fan the flame of the eternal ‘spark’ of God’s image within. “…A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:1). May we persevere until we and all mankind learn to know the Father more fully and to serve and worship Him in the holiness of His Spirit and in the truth of His Word (John 4:24).
“The creation of the Universe is also the creation of time.” This is a remarkable notion – in creating the universe, God created time. “In the beginning” can also then be rendered “at the start of time.”
The Hebrew name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush is YHWH, yod-heh-vav-heh. Eh’yeh asher eh’yeh. I AM, I WAS, I WILL BE. He was, He is, and He will be. He is outside the constriction and limits of time. God has no beginning, but from Him all that is created came forth. In Him, all that is had its beginning. Everything created has a beginning, an "Origin."
“It thus follows, as the night the day…” as William Shakespeare said [or “as the morning follows the evening” Genesis 1:5], that only people who are created in the image of God can know time and be cognizant of memory. Of all creation, only human kind can celebrate special days, can recall yesterday, and try to change tomorrow for the better by using today for good.
To quote Lazer Brody, “Your neshamah [soul/spirit] is timeless. Your actions will affect the world long after you have left this life.” Our spirits are not constricted by time in the same way our present physical, time-bound bodies are. Our lives leave imprints on the world in deeper ways than we maybe realize.
If we grasp the implications of this from an eternal perspective we will take far more care in the way we behave and relate to others, particularly those close to us, and in establishing our priorities in life.
“The more we consider the long-term influences that our actions bear on our souls, the better we act. The better we act, the better we feel about ourselves and the more we attain inner peace.”
The Image of God
On the sixth day of creation God said, “Let us make man in Our image and likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Verse 27 stresses this fact three times, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”
Tzelem (image) refers to the personal relationship that can only be found between ‘persons’… Only as long as man is a person [growing in his unique God-given personality, and doesn't sink to the level of being ruled by animalistic like appetites] can he preserve his relationship with God.
Jesus, in answer to the devious question posed by the spies of the chief priests regarding the validity of paying taxes to Caesar, gives a brilliant teaching based on man’s unique creation in the image of God. When he sees the denarius (coin) they produce He asks them, “Whose likeness (tzelem) and inscription does it have?” When they reply, “Caesar’s!” He stuns them with the comment: “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” This is a clear illustration of the fact that the powerful, materialistic system of the world robs people of their uniqueness and stamps them with the hollow, look-a-like images of the Caesars, or Pharaohs, or those promulgated by multi-media advertisers.
God created mankind in glorious variety; no two of us are exactly alike. Mankind is finally beginning to understand the unbelievable effort that God devotes in making each of us a special individual, via the discovery of DNA, RNA, chromosomal combinations and genetic maps. In addition, we each have a spirit for God is spirit (John 4:24). This commonality, this stamp of likeness (tzelem) in us responds to His Spirit of holiness. It is this internal image that the enemy of our souls violently, and yet so subtly, attempts to blur and then extinguish.
In the Mishnah [a collection of Jewish wisdom, or Oral Torah], Pirkei Avot (Sayings/Ethics of the Fathers) 3:14, we are reminded: "Beloved is man since he was created in God’s image; But it was by a special love that it was made known to him that he was created in God’s image."
We are God’s, and beloved of God. He has given us the responsibility to value and cherish His image in ourselves and in one another. We are never to give up hope but, in the spirit of Messiah, we are continually to fan the flame of the eternal ‘spark’ of God’s image within. “…A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:1). May we persevere until we and all mankind learn to know the Father more fully and to serve and worship Him in the holiness of His Spirit and in the truth of His Word (John 4:24).
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