Covenant Structure in Genesis 1 – Day 2

The second day of Creation might be the most mysterious of the seven. Perhaps that is why the firmament was represented by a sacred veil.

Read Covenant Structure in Genesis 1 – Day 1.

The “firmament” is the element of the Creation Week that causes the most debate. For unbelievers, the discovery that there is no actual “heavenly sea” above is proof that the Bible cannot possibly be the Word of God. For many believers, it indicates that the Creation account is not actual history but merely a Mosaic polemic (either invented or inspired) to counter the mythological cosmologies of the surrounding pagans—a holy fiction instead of an unholy one.

But neither the incredulity of unbelievers nor the lazy cognitive dissonance of believers seems to take seriously the fact that the Bible deliberately makes the creation and destruction of the waters above a spectacular set of bookends to the history of the original “lost” world—an opening of the curtains at the beginning of the play and a closing at the end. These “watermarks” are replicated “liturgically” in Israel’s crossings of the Red Sea and the Jordan. The Red Sea put a barrier between Israel and the nations, and the opening of the Jordan put a refined Israel back among the nations. Each crossing in isolation was itself also an opening and a closing of the waters.

The two primeval events were also memorialized architecturally in the Tabernacle (as the Veil and the Laver), agriculturally in Israel’s holy festal calendar (as Passover and Atonement), and liturgically in the ingress and egress of the High Priest into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement. Since the Veil of the Temple represented the firmament, and the Veil that was opened on the Day of Atonement was torn at the death of Christ, then the firmament serves a far more important purpose for the entire biblical narrative than as a mere literary device in some Ancient Near Eastern dreamtime story.

The Great Flood narrative is extant in the histories of over five hundred cultures across the world, so the academics who paint the story as a local myth cooked up for religious purposes in the ANE are misrepresenting recorded history. They do so because they are blinded to the physical evidence of the event by a deliberate misinterpretation of the data. The face of the entire globe, when observed honestly, is clear evidence of an unimaginable catastrophe which occurred over a relatively short period of time. Recent studies of the nature, character, and sequence of events depicted in the deposits have revealed the swiftness and brutality of this mass extinction event—the sudden destruction and burial of all “breathing” life.¹There are now plenty of resources available, but this video packs a lot into a few minutes. Biology itself continues to defy the narrative peddled by evolutionists, who, despite the continued exposure of their fabrications as just-so stories, keep the faith through deceit and intimidation.

Of course, since such an admission would entail accountability to a higher god than modern man, we have been given no choice but to suffer the devastating fruits of their blatant historical revisionism. Disguised as science, the philosophy is now a herd-mentality, a universal acid that has poisoned and corroded our culture in every sphere of thought and action. Survival of the fittest is just “might is right” writ large. Compounding the guilt of its proponents is a refusal to blame this belligerent fantasy for the murder of millions of innocent people through genocides, abortion, and euthanasia. Since this delusion is the foundation for the entire secular humanist worldview, instead of allowing new data to challenge the theory—which ought to be a no-brainer since every one of its fundamental tenets contradicts empirical science—the establishment has simply doubled-down on the lie, hardening this philosophical death-cult into a bigoted dogma that must be protected from anything—and anyone—that might call it into question. It is a bloodthirsty religion with a sacred text that cannot be criticized, especially by scientists, who must kowtow to its antiblasphemy laws or lose their careers.

Even worse are the Christian academics who ride roughshod over the Scriptures in their attempt to reconcile the Word of God with this false philosophy. God did not bring order out of chaos or life out of death. He created something that was formless and empty, and He then formed it and filled it. And He continues to follow that pattern through the entire Bible. Chaos and death were the results of sin, and did not exist until God pronounced curses instead of blessings. The Spirit gathers, integrates, and brings harmony. When God withdraws in any measure, things fall apart according that measure. He truly does uphold all things. Like cancer cells, autonomy causes disharmony, conflict, and death. This means that the claim that chaos and death are in any way agents of creation is straight-up blasphemy against the work of the Spirit and the character of God. As our teachers, the blind guides who promote this unscientific and unbiblical rubbish will face a stricter judgment for their compromise.

So much for the unquestionable evidence of what occurred below. The question of the missing waters above, however, remains. Even when we understand its symbolic counterparts in the Tabernacle and other divine constructs, how do we account for its description as a physical element of the world which contained the greater and lesser lights of the heavens?

On Day 4, God created the governing lights and put them in the firmament. If this refers to a space below some sort of “water canopy” that later came crashing down in the Great Flood, the description of it as a home for stars is then phenomenological, that is, the language of visual appearance. It is no more unscientific than speaking of “sunrise” and “sunset.” After all, Man was the crown of creation and Genesis was written for his kind. James B. Jordan writes:

By writing in terms of visual appearance, the Bible sets up categories of visual imagery. Unfortunately, modern readers often have trouble with this. We who live in the post-Gutenberg information age are unfamiliar with visual imagery. We are word-oriented, not picture-oriented. The Bible, however, is a pre-Gutenberg information source; while it does not contain drawings, it is full of important visual descriptions and imagery. This visual imagery is one of the primary ways the Bible presents its worldview. There is nothing to indicate that Genesis 1 is merely symbolic. At the same time, however, by using the language of visual appearances, Genesis 1 sets up a worldview grid that is used later on in Scripture for symbolic purposes.²James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes: Developing a Biblical View of the World, 12.

Regarding the apparent problem of how we can see distant starlight if the universe is only as old as the Bible says it is, the solution is a tweak to modern cosmology. If the universe has a center of gravity, and gravity slows down time, then time at the center of the universe is slower than it is at its extremities.³For more discussion, see Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time.

Many say that a water canopy dense enough to provide enough rain to flood the earth would have caused the planet to overheat, but let us remember that uniformitarianism is not a reliable foundational assumption. If one fails to include the historical events recorded in the Bible in one’s calculations—especially regarding the history of the global climate—they are going to be way off the mark. Moreover, God miraculously shortened human lifespans, just as He had miraculously altered the nature of the cosmos and all life after the Fall, and He also stopped the sun from setting in the time of Joshua. Based on the text and on the later replications of the same pattern, the canopy concept is the most logical and feasible.

There is a further analogy for this inbuilt obsolescence, and it relates once more to the fact that God likes to work in cycles and in layers, shifting the goalposts, moving things from creation to glorification, from childhood to maturity. Just as the Law of Moses was “trainer wheels” for mankind in our immaturity, rules for childhood that would ultimately become obsolete, it would seem that this sphere of water bounded a “trainer wheels” heavens, something that would likewise become obsolete, a curtain to be torn when man reached the equivalent of the “godhood” intended for him as a wise judge between good and evil. Noah was the first to fully qualify as a legal representative of God, a priest-king who could not only offer sacrifices (Garden) but also execute those who shed human blood (Land), and populate all the dry land (World).

In some sense, the destruction of this canopy was a “breaking of the waters,” a rising up from immaturity to maturity, from the Adamic “one” to the bridal “host.” Likewise, just as the Great Flood transformed the single continent into many, the singular light of the sun was now accompanied by a bridal “many,” its pure light refracted in the banner of the rainbow. And the symbolic “ascension” of Israel from Egypt (watered from below) to Canaan (watered from above) was an image of the transition from the land watered by the springs and rivers of Eden to a world watered by rain from above. This imagery is repeated numerous times throughout the Bible.⁴For examples, see Zion as an Ascension.

It seems logical that this removal would also increase the visibility of the “next” heavens. Since the Lampstand in the Tabernacle represented the seven lights that move across the sky (sun, moon, and five bright planets), it would make sense that these were the only lights visible while this primeval “shell” remained around the planet. God could not have shown Abraham the stars of the heavens as a great multitude at this time. Joseph would not have known about the twelve stars (possibly, constellations) that he saw in his dream. For Noah and his family, this greater revelation of the beauty of the heavens would have been like the contrast between the Lampstand in the Tent of Moses and the ten “bridal” Lampstands of Solomon’s Temple. Although it was now no longer a protected “kindergarten,” having become a more demanding place to live, the world was also now a temple of greater kingly glory.

The created order is thus replicated in the “growth rings” we observe in sacred architecture. Whereas the Tabernacle had no windows and would have been completely dark inside without the light of the Lampstand, the Temple of Solomon had small windows and more lamps. Ezekiel’s Temple (an architectural representation of the Jew-Gentile social construct between the exile and Christ) had many windows, indicating a greater revelation of God’s mind and increased access to His heavenly court for the surrounding nations of the oikoumene. Of course, the final iteration of the temple is a city that is completely transparent and open to all nations. All veils are removed, and the crystal sea has been lifted up as gates and walls that the saints might cross over and the wicked might be judged. Like the Red Sea and the Jordan, this spiritual architecture is a gateway to the promises of God.

Noah’s voyage from the old world to the new also corresponds to the journey of the High Priest from the bloody Bronze Altar (the violence of the antediluvian earth) via the Bronze Laver (the Great Flood, as a “lake of fire,” presumably with its initial fountains being comprised of superheated water) to the Incense Altar, and Noah’s fragrant ascension offerings. This path takes man from the altar of natural offerings to the altar of eldership and spiritual offerings, so the transition from this first age pictured the shift from the Old Covenant sacrifices and Israel’s wrestling against flesh and blood to the New Covenant sacrifices of prayer and praise. The same occurs in the historical transition from Moses’ to David’s Tabernacles, from Solomon’s to Ezekiel’s Temples, and from the era of the tents to the era of the temples as a whole.

So, just as the Creation Week was a microcosm of this first sequence of history, so also this primeval sequence serves as a microcosm of all history. The removal of this watery “proto-veil” as a fuller revelation of the physical heavens was a type of the yet-future removal of the spiritual divide between heaven and earth at the end of history. Since the union of heaven and earth is imaged in the marriage of the Man and the Woman, the tearing of the flesh of Christ fulfilled the circumcision (Hebrews 10:20) and the removal of the “veil of Moses” in the destruction of Jerusalem was a symbolic breaking of the “hymen” of the Church in the marriage feast of the Lamb. That apocalypse, which Jesus said would be like the days of Noah, was a “Land” picture of the final “World” event. Noah’s ascension offerings, as a pillar of fire and smoke, were a type of the full Shekinah of God filling the earth at the last day upon the completion of the kingdom of Christ, just as the glory of God had filled the Tabernacle and the Temple upon their completion. Covenant history is thus a construct of concentric circles on earth and concentric spheres in heaven.⁵See Cosmic Language and Cosmos and Covenant [PDF].

“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9)

The Adam-to-Noah pattern puts the floodgates of heaven and earth at “Atonement,” which means the opening of this original “proto-veil” brought men face-to-face with the rainbow-encircled Ark-throne of God and washed away the sin of the world, quite literally. All flesh was cut off. All sin was covered. This global day of reckoning brought about the end of the previous administration and its sacrifices, and a change in the priesthood brings a change in the law (Hebrews 7:12). The end of primeval history was the end of a story, so “the sky was rolled up like a scroll.” God established a new covenant that would mitigate against the failures of the old. In Noah, God founded a new heavens and a new earth, thus making promises concerning the seasons and agriculture, a more mature mandate than that given to Adam. Since Genesis 2 describes the establishment of the “social order” after the exact pattern of Genesis 1,⁶See Covenant Structure in Genesis 2. the human “sun, moon and stars” (the “mighty men” rulers of the earth) came crashing down. God had put new rulers in the firmament: a body of men and animals in a covered vessel.

Have graduated from this primeval “womb” or kindergarten into elementary school, we are enabled to see into what corresponds to the Holy Place of the the cosmic temple and study it in increasing detail. Providentially, our planet is situated in the best possible place to observe the universe. Although our understanding of the very nature of the cosmos has a long way to go, the Word of God must be our guide.

The word translated “firmament” means something flat, beaten out like metal. It is architectural. God speaks of the mediatory Land as flat because it is an altar, with four horns as compass points. Space is a veil between men and the throne of God. When God visits, for the purposes of worship and judgment, He “bows the heavens” down to earth, and the two courts become one (Exodus 24:10), having been designed for each other, like Adam and Eve, as a mutual indwelling.

Each domain consists of three “states.” Cosmologists now tell us that the universe may well be both spherical, hyperbolic and/or “flat.” This means that its “triune” nature corresponds not only to the three domains of the Tabernacle (and its three states: Word – flat tablet; Sacrament – flying scroll; Government – Noahic globe) but also to the apparent immediate flatness, distant horizon, and spherical curvature of the earth.⁷See Shape of the Universe.

DAY 2

Overview

The covenant-literary arrangement of the text describing the events of Day 2 is itself unusual. Analysis reveals an implicit emphasis and a deliberate omission within the explicit sevenfold structure.

• The overall pattern is a hybrid between the covenant pattern and the creation pattern. The former fivefold legal pattern becomes the latter sevenfold historical pattern through the “opening up” of the central point into three stages. A fivefold pattern is thus a command that is yet to be fulfilled, a blueprint that is yet to be built, a vision that is yet to become incarnate. In this case, we have a fivefold pattern within a fivefold pattern, but the central point is missing. The architecture deliberately omits the thesis of the sequence to leave a space for the governing lights in the heavens. Notice that the waters below appear at Ascension and the waters above appear at Maturity. This was thus a global model of the social and ethical processes that would be given to mankind.

Analysis

What we find on an internal analysis of the stanzas is that arrangement of the words shifts the missing element to the center of the Laver step of the Ethics section.

• The first stanza which corresponds to Creation, places the empty space of the firmament at its center. The “sword-word” (Oath/Sanctions) is what divides the waters in this imperative.

• The second stanza, which corresponds to Division, shifts from the form of the firmament to its function. This is also the Exodus step of the pattern, so the divided waters look forward to the parting of the Red Sea and the breaking of the “waters” of Egypt to bring forth Israel, God’s “firstborn.”

• Taken word-by-word, Ethics expands the content of stanzas 1 and 2 into a complete sevenfold Tabernacle, pushing the missing center to the Laver step (Day 6, Atonement), the place of mediation between heaven and earth. The space allowed in the overall pattern for the rulers of the heavens to fill is now a space for the rulers of the earth on closer analysis. This lack is the reason why God does not proclaim this construct as good. In architectural terms it is a necessary boundary, like the circumcision, a temporary Division put in place that there might later be a Conquest.⁸For more discussion, see The End of Israel – Part 2.

• The naming of this space appears at Oath/Sanctions as an investiture for office. Made in God’s image, Adam would later name his animal subjects and also his wife.
• Since there is no blessing upon the firmament, the text is a simple threefold “above, beside, below” construct patterned after God’s throneroom.

• The Succession step once again describes a transition from darkness to light, death to life, father to son.

If you are new to this method of interpretation, please visit the Welcome page for some help to get you up to speed.

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