Joseph’s Alabaster Box

It is encouraging to study the great book of Genesis, meditating upon the LORD God creating step-by-step all of the elements that make up the great system we call the universe. We have now come to the dawn of the fourth day, and the Creator Christ prepares to add more parts to the system He is making for the habitation of man. Today He will make the stars and other objects that inhabit the reaches of the universe, nearly all of which are still an enigma in this so-called scientifically enlightened age. So many people are fearful that science will discover something to prove that the Bible is wrong. This fear has existed for over a century, but such worry and fretting are unnecessary. He Who created the universe knows what is therein, and after thousands of years of attack from all sorts of people the Word of God stands steadfast and sure as the best reference on how things got to be the way they are.

Under the leadership of the prince of darkness the world is attacking the book of Genesis more fiercely today than ever before, because Satan knows that the book of Genesis is the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if Genesis can be weakened, then a multitude of souls will be everlastingly lost. It is for that very reason that the author has decided to use his life to counterattack at the point of greatest conflict. We must contend for the faith. The Bible needs no defense, but to save the souls of many people, it is necessary to respond to the accusations of the God-haters.

The dogma of evolution proclaims that the stars and all other heavenly bodies are fragments of a small “cosmic egg” that exploded 14 billion years ago. This is a classic myth, having no substantial basis in scientific evidence. The law of conservation of angular momentum states that if an object explodes in space that the fragments of that object will continue to spin in the same direction that the object was spinning before it exploded.

That being true, then all of the objects in the universe must spin in the same direction if it did originate from an explosion of a spinning object such as the cosmic egg. That did not happen. Uranus and probably Venus rotate on their axes in the opposite direction from the other seven planets in the solar system. Out of the sixty known satellites (“moons”) in our solar system, eleven of them rotate about their host planet in the opposite direction from the direction of the others. Our own satellite, the moon, goes in the direction of the majority. There are many other things in our solar system, and outer space that demonstrate the impossibility of the big bang being the origin of the universe. The big bang is just a dud. And the big bang is the best explanation evolution can give for the origin of the universe.

And, we’d like to know, where did the cosmic egg come from?

Our text for today tells us how the stars, sun, and moon, and other things in the universe got there. Genesis 1:14-19: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:” 15 “And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.” 16 “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” 17 “ And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon theearth,” 18 “ And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” 19 “And the evening and the morning were thefourth day.”

Unfortunately; Dr. Scofield in his notes, is again in error about the heavenly bodies. In the heading for these verses he says, “. . .the sun and moon, and stars become visible.” Of course, they become visible, but not for the reason that Dr. Scofield implies. The sun and moon and stars are just now made. They have not been in existence for millions of years, and hidden from view by clouds or darkness as the gap theory teaches. Much remains to be learned about these verses, but we can be certain that the idea of a catastrophe between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 was only a bad theory that ought to be discarded now. In verse 3 when God said, “. . Let there be light. . .” the physical light just then came into being. God is light, and so there has always been spiritual light. In verse 6, when God said, “. .. Let there be a firmament. . .” the firmament just then was formed from the matter that was in God’s stockpile of atoms. In verse 11, when God said, “. . . Let the earth bring forth grass. . .” the grass just then came into existence. Later, God will say, “. . Let there be. . .” and there will be other things that will form out of the stock of atoms in obedience to the Creator’s spoken word. Notice Psalm 32:9: “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast.” The Creator commanded matter and it responded positively.

It is puzzling to think about the truth that there was day and night before the sun and moon were made. This light was of the same sort that the sun would give off during the day, and stars would give off at night, and the moon would reflect. God provided this light in ways known only to Himself, and that light was in place when the sun was created and began to put out light, and so there was light between the sun and the earth the instant the sun was created, and the same is true for the stars, and the reflected light of the moon. No need to wait 8 minutes for light to come from the sun to Earth. No need to wait for millions of years for the light to come to Earth from the stars. The light was already in place and functioning. There had to be light from the sun and stars reaching the earth from the first day of their existence, just as there had to be fruit on the trees, and full grown

animals. Scoffers claim that the Bible teaches that there was a metal roof over the earth, and that the stars were set in this metal canopy.

Words are cheap. Words are easy to produce. When a person decides he is not going to believe something, then he can proceed to say whatever he wants to say about it.

Today, scientists are making many assertions about the universe that have little sound reason for belief. Man actually knows very little about deep space, or what effect the heavenly bodies have on the speed of light. Our solar system is a very tiny part of the universe. We don’t even know how to discuss the universe. It is only a word that carries the meaning of “unlimited,” but that does not advance our understanding of space. Man is trapped in his little solar system. He is like an ant standing on Pike’s Peak, trying to figure out how the Taj Mahal was built. The sun and moon, the “lights” God made in verse 14, took over the task of dividing day and night. They were also for “signs and for seasons, and for days and years.”

It is interesting to note that in the perfect paradise of the original earth, that there were seasons. Seasons vary in intensity from the equator to the poles. Even at the equator, however, there are seasons. Seasons are salubrious to life on the planet. Changes in the weather, no matter how small, add pleasure to our lives. Winter time can be very bitter for folks who live in northern climates, and sunnier times can be very harsh for people who live in southern climates, but the changes make life more interesting, and the body more vigorous. The signs of the stars are more difficult for us to understand, but there is a strong belief that the signs of the zodiac at the first were signs to man of the works of God, especially of salvation. One strong reason to believe this is because theses signs, like everything else, have been corrupted by man, and are now used for evil purposes.

Spiritual light cannot be measured in candlepower, and has no photons or other evidence of existence like physical light has. Spiritual light, like the light of God’s presence in the tabernacle, is called “shekinah” glory, even though the word in not in the Bible. The shekinah glory of God is the evidence of His presence, and conceals Him, just as darkness does when He chooses to conceal His presence in darkness. The light that lit the universe before the fourth day was no doubt specially created physical light that could have been scientifically measured just like the light of the sun today.

“The heavens declare the glory of God . . .” the psalmist wrote, and there are many signs still in the cosmos revealing the Creator to mankind, but we need no other signs today than the precious Word of God which informs us clearly and rationally that God created the universe, that man sinned, and that God went about to redeem him. The truth that man must be saved, and that God provided the way for him to be saved, is supported by the Bible, and the result of its teaching in the lives of believers. It is so clear that God has declared that unbelievers are without excuse. All of man’s excuse making and rationalizing will fall on deaf ears in that awful day when Christ judges the world.

When the third day of creation dawned the earth was still covered with water, but it now had an atmosphere and a great ocean of water above the atmosphere. As Christ looked at His work that morning, He must have felt a sense of satisfaction with what He had accomplished, even though at that moment there was not a living cell on the earth. This was the day He would bring to life certain elements of the soil, and make them grass, herbs, and trees — triune — to honor their triune Creator. First, though, He must move the waters into one place, and allow some dry land to appear.

Let’s read the account of it as the LORD gives it to us in Genesis 1:9-13: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” 11 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”

We must note, of course, before the scoffers begin to snort, that on the same day that God removed the water from off the land, that the land appeared, and it was dry. The problem of the scoffer is that he is intellectually immature. He is unable to handle the complexities involved with the character and personality of God Almighty. We must think in absolutes when we think of the existence of God. Either we must accept a God Who is unlimited in knowledge and presence, or we must believe in no god at all — or a counterfeit god. God can do everything He needs to do to be God. If He can remove the water from the land, why would one not believe that He could remove it so thoroughly that it can be dry enough for plants to live on it? It was not parched desert land, but it was not mud either. It was dry just as my garden is dry when I work in it.

The water was gathered together into one place which leads us to think that the land also must have been in one great land mass. Of course, all of the oceans and seas join one another now, but that is not what is meant here. The passage speaks of seas in the plural, but think of the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and others which penetrate into the land masses, and you can visualize what the earth probably looked like at that time. There was a great sea with fingers of water going inland making smaller seas. The seas were doubtless fresh water at the beginning, and were not like so: (Isaiah 57:20) “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”

No one can be dogmatic about things that are described to us so briefly, and with so little detail, and so I am not being dogmatic. It does seem necessary to see the earth in some similar form as I have described, however, because man and animals had to scatter over the entire earth before there was ever a seagoing vessel. They almost certainly had to walk or swim. And there is also that verse in Genesis 10:25 that speaks of the earth being divided nearly two hundred years after the flood. This may be a reference to the dividing of the landmass into islands and continents, but probably not, because it was too soon after the flood. God called this dry land “earth.” In the first verse we are told that God created the earth on the first day. We understand that to mean that He created all the matter in the universe on the first day. At that moment there were no other planets or anything in the universe except Heaven, and the earth spoken of in verse 1 had no form to it. (It is interesting to note that the earth is the oldest object in the universe, created four days before the planets and stars.) After making our planet out of this material called “earth” in verse 1, God named it specifically “Earth” with a capital “E.” (1:10) From henceforth the home of mortal humans would be Earth. The first man, formed from the dust of the earth by the LORD Christ Creator with infinite love and care, was named “Adamah.” Adam means “red earth,” and so the earth must have been some shade of red. Some of the finest farmland in the world is in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and it is a reddish or pink color. Red earth seems unnatural to me because I was raised in the part of the country where the finest soil is black.

We must ever remember while studying Genesis that we do not live on an Earth as it was created. There is a curse and a flood between us and the original earth that changed it. The word “land” in our text refers to all the land surface of the earth, but the word “land” is used in places in the Scriptures to refer to a certain portion of the earth’s surface such as when it speaks of the “… land of Canaan …” in Genesis 11:31.

Dr. Scofield wrote in his notes on page 4 of the Scofield Bible, “It is by no means necessary to suppose that the life germ of seeds perished in the catastrophic judgment which overthrew the primitive order. With the restoration of dry land and light the earth would bring forth as described.” I have preached and taught out of the Scofield reference Bible for nearly fifty years, but I have known for a long time that some of the notes in the Bible are not correct. Dr. Scofield believed the gap theory to be the best explanation for the origin of the universe, but if he lived today when we know more about it, I believe he would have been a Bible literalist, rather than being influenced by evolutionary thought.

The earth did indeed “… bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind,” but only when God commanded it to. The earth did not bring forth plants just because the water was removed from it and the sun shone on it. The earth, or anything else except man, never acted except by God’s command. The Bible is not a book that can be adjusted to the social or economic or religious or scientific ideas of man. All of the ideas of man must be adjusted to the Word of God. When man tries to make the Bible fit some current popular notion of the world. He always falls short. Bible believers may often look naive or foolish in the eyes of the world, but over the centuries, they have always been right while the world changes constantly about them.

Every living thing, in a sense, are living mud. I used to say that to boys and girls in school, and it would always get a rise out of them.

Plants are more nearly living mud than animals and man because they have no consciousness. Verse 12 tells us that “…the earth brought forth grass, and the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. The earth brought forth these plants because God commanded it to, not because the seeds were already in the ground from some previous creation that had been destroyed. Dr. Scofield continues in his note to say, “Relegate fossils to the primitive creation, and no conflict of science with the Genesis cosmogony remains.” Dr. Scofield made a very serious error when he launched out to accommodate evolution, because nothing in the creation story will lie down and rest with the evolutionary dogma. If we relegate the fossils to the primitive creation, that might eliminate conflict with “science,” as Dr. Scofield says, but it will certainly raise plenty of conflicts with the rest of the Scripture. Dr. Scofield was evidently unaware that evolution is what God calls “. . .science falsely so called:. . .” (I Timothy 6:29).

Notice that there are three classes of plants listed in our text: grass, herbs, and trees. Botanists would probably argue that there are other classifications of plants, but it would be hard to prove, I think, if we placed vines in the category with herbs. There are living things on the planet that scientists actually don’t know what they are, but God knows, and they will fall into the categories He has established. Plants are unconscious life which God created for the purpose of converting the energy of the sun into energy for other living things, and when a plant dies, it is not considered death in the sense of an animal dying. God did many things to point man to Himself, the triune God, and this is another one of those things.

Also note that these were mature plants with seed and fruit ready for use. It goes without saying that God would have to create a working system, including all things, in order for it to survive. Adam could not live for several years without fruit. If God had created an egg, what would have hatched it, and cared for the infant chick? The creation, then, fully grown and working, would have had an appearance of age.