Yahweh – The Unique God
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
1 Peter 4:10
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
1 John 1:5-7
“This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Please open your Bibles to Genesis 2:4-17
Why are there two creation accounts? Have you ever wondered?
Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 tells us:
- Who is in charge here – God is
- Who God is – the Creator
- How does God relate to humanity
o God is the Giver of Gifts to sustain humanity (food)
o God is the provider of food for the animal kingdom as well
- How is humanity to relate to the created order
o Fill the earth and subdue it
o To rule over all non-human living creatures
So, what about Genesis 2:4-17? Why is there a second creation account?
Let’s see … Genesis 2:4-17
(Prayer for help)
In Genesis 2:4-17 we see God doing some things that we would normally see humans doing. We see God planting a garden, we see Him building. In this case He is building a human, which of course we could not do.
But what is really going on here? Are there really two different and perhaps conflicting accounts or is something else going on?
Is the first account a literal, chronological telling of the creation account?
And, is the second account a figurative account with a distinct purpose?
The Lord chose to place Israel in the ancient near east. Now that area of the world had been populated for literally hundreds of years by the time Moses wrote the Genesis account. And that area had been inhabited by people who worshipped idols and these people had created rituals intended to make these idols “alive”.
In ancient Babylonia and Assyria they believed that they could animate their idols using a specific religious ritual. The main ritual used in that area at that time was called Mis Pi (miss pee).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gssQ56kmx8
In a brief overview this is how it would go.
A highly skilled craftsman would make the idol from wood, stone or iron and then decorate the idol with silver, gold and precious gem stones. These works of art were used to represent their unseen deity in the realm we inhabit; the realm of space and time.
The pagan priest(s) would then take the idol to a special garden before sunset and leave the idol there overnight. In the morning the priest(s) would return to the garden and say, “Behold, the gods have given us a deity, they have given us an image of themselves.”
The ritual fiction, which they all knew to be untrue, was that the god had been birthed in that garden overnight.
Then, employing the Mis Pi ritual, they would “animate” the statue by washing out its eyes and its mouth. This of course is very similar to how a delivery nurse would remove any mucous from a newborn’s eyes, nose and mouth after birth.
Once the statue was “animated” it would be taken and installed in the temple where it would be worshipped.
Then the craftsman who created the statue would ceremonially “cut off” their hands and gather up the tools that were used to make the statue. These would then be placed inside the carcass of a sacrificed sheep and thrown into the sacred river. All of this was done to metaphorically “erase” the memory that this statue had ever been created by a human being.
Why did they do this final step? Because even the ancients knew that humans should not be making gods, gods should be making humans.
So, take that ancient process and compare it to the creation account found in Genesis 2.
Mis Pi
Humans plant a sacred garden
Humans craft an image (god)
Humans “animate” the image (using the Mis Pi ritual of washing)
Humans install the statue in the temple to be worshipped by men
Humans dispose of the evidence that they created the statue
Humans offer sacrifices to the statue and worship it
Genesis 2 (compare each point with its counterpoint in the Mis Pi list)
God plants a garden
God crafts a human in His own image
God animates the human (He breathes the breath of life into him)
God installs the man in the garden (creation) for His enjoyment
God leaves all of nature as evidence that He is the creator
In the fullness of time God offers Himself as a sacrifice for our sin
Was this second creation narrative necessary?
Apparently God thought it was necessary or it wouldn’t be there.
What was its function? Was it to draw a dramatic contrast to all of the religions that existed in the area at that time?
And what a dramatic contrast it was!
That was certainly true in the Old Testament.
Yahweh the God of Israel was certainly different than any of the gods of the surrounding nations.
Yahweh was the creator. Other gods were said to be creators of some things or may have even been created themselves.
Yahweh, the LORD God of Israel was a warrior.
Some of the other gods were said to be warriors.
Yahweh, the LORD God of Israel was a provider.
Some of the other gods were said to be providers.
Yahweh, the LORD God of Israel was complete, needing nothing.
He alone was and is God.
All of the other gods were reported to have some godlike attributes but were far from being complete.
What was one thing that was frustrating to the Israelites?
They had no God to look at! They had no image to bow before.
For 400 years in Egypt they had seen the Egyptians bowing before their statue gods and many of the Israelites had participated in worshiping idols as well.
Even as they went into the promised land they encountered the “Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites”.
And they knew of the idols of these nations because they saw them as they destroyed the temples where they were worshiped. (Deuteronomy 7:1)
But … Israel had no statue of God to look at. They could not come and kneel before an idol as the other nations could. Their God was invisible.
Of course during their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land they did have “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night”.
Nehemiah 9:19-21 says of Yahweh, The LORD God of Israel,
“Because of Your great compassion You did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst. For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.”
But they did not have any idols to bow down to.
They tried, of course to have some …
When the Israelites rebelled against Yahweh, the LORD God of Israel, He sent venomous snakes into the encampment and many died.
Then in Numbers 21:8-9,
“The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”
Awesome, right? Not so awesome …
Hundreds of years later Hezekiah, “broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.” 2 Kings 18:4
And, of course, the epitome of the wanting an idol to bow down to in worship happened when Moses was coming down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments in his hands.
The first commandment:
Exodus 20:3 “You shall not have any other gods before Me”.
“before Me” seems to have a connotation of ranking like, “You can have other gods as long as I am your favorite.”
“Before Me” is used in sense of, “Come over here and stand before Me.”
Yahweh, the LORD God of Israel, is omniscient; He sees and know everything and He is saying, “I can see you just as if you are standing before Me. Don’t have any other gods but Me!!!”
And then to back it up the second commandment says in
Exodus 20:4-5a
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God …”
OK, now back to Moses coming down Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments in his hands.
What have the Israelites done? These people who have been led with great power and miracles including a pillar of cloud by the day and a pillar of fire by night? What have they done?
The created an idol in the image of a calf; A CALF!!!!
Not resembling a pillar of cloud or fire but a calf!!!
And, what did they say about this fashioned lump of metal?
Exodus 32:4b
“This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
They wanted a God they could see. “All the other nations have gods they can see, why can’t we?”
The answer to that question is because any, and I mean ANY, representation of Him diminishes Him in our sight. There is nothing, I mean absolutely NOTHING that we could reproduce that could in any way even begin to represent His holiness, His power, His majesty, His omniscience, His eternal presence, His perfection.
I know that people are always trying to create pictures of what they think Jesus might have looked like and that in itself might be possible if we had some way to know. But that was just the physical form He took on as the Son of Man.
But what is it that we DO know about this totally unique Creator God?
What is it about this Eternal God that we cannot fathom in our wildest imagination? What do we actually know about Him?
He created us in His image.
He loves us.
He wants to be reconciled to us.
He made the way of reconciliation possible through the life, death and resurrection of His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ.
He is extending His grace to all who are eternally lost so that they may be saved.
He adopts everyone who responds to His grace by placing their faith and trust in Him for salvation.
He makes them one of His sons and daughters.
He gives them the Holy Spirit as a gift to dwell in them so that they can live lives pleasing to Him.
He gives us eternal life.
He WANTS us!
NO OTHER god DOES THAT!!!
Only OUR GOD DOES THAT!!!
The Unique Creator God of Genesis 2 is STILL the Unique today as the God of Redemption!
Every other god has to be pursued. Check it out. Take a look at the other religions that are around. Their gods do not pursue; they wait to be pursued.
Our God pursues us! (Grace)
LET HIM CATCH YOU TODAY!!! Place your faith and trust in Him!!!
Final thoughts and prayer.
