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Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
YOUNG’S LITERAL TRANSLATION
Gene 1:1-3 In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth-- the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness is on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters, and God saith, `Let light be;’ and light is.
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As the literal translation informs us, the Hebrew sense of the moving of God’s Spirit upon the face of the waters is understood as the Spirit fluttering as with wings, over the waters.
When God’s Spirit moved in Genesis, it moved in a manner that God chose to describe as a bird fluttering its wings over the world.
• God is obviously not a bird.
• But the gentleness of the fluttering of a bird’s wings and its hovering, as Darby’s translation renders it, over something shows His love and concern for it.
And after we read of the Spirit fluttering over the earth, we read that God began speaking forth His word into the earth and creating things through His spoken word.
• Its as though the Spirit brooded over the world in readiness for the work with the Word that would begin to be spoken.
• God’s Spirit was in readiness to take the planet and commence a creation in it that would end up with there being present a man made in the very image of God Himself.
• That world was being tenderly taken into God’s care and ready to receive a force of creation that was God’s Word itself.
• As though God gathered the state of the earth beneath His wings to cause His word to speak forth to it and rework it over for the better.
• Beneath those wings would the work be accomplished.
• God’s word would work beneath those wings.
• The picture of God’s wings, as it were, in representation only, combined with His spoken Word working beneath them in that world over which He fluttered and hovered and brooded, is held throughout the Bible in various places.
• The change God would render in that world would be called a creative and a remaking work.
From this outset of the entire Bible we can see where the word of God is prominent in effecting change and bringing light and life where there was darkness and chaos.
• It is therefore a little wonder that we believers who have been made from the Earth have been taken by God’s Spirit and caused to be changed and conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, according to Romans 8:29.
• Jesus’ baptism occurred and the Spirit fell upon Him like a dove with wings, when He was in the water, and God’s Word spoke forth declaring Him to be the Son of God, beginning a ministry that would result in many people brought into new creation.
Later in the Bible, God’s word is found to be beneath wings in the following scriptures.
Exodus 25:10-11 And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about.
Exodus 25:17-22 And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
Get the picture.
• And ark of the covenant with a lid referred to as a mercy seat, that had cherubims with wings overstretched atop the seat.
• And God said from between the cherubims, beneath their wings, His WORD would go forth to the people.
• He would speak or commune to them beneath the wings.
Numbers 7:89 And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him, then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubims: and he spake unto him.
Notice a reference made to the cherubims atop the mercy seat in the New Testament.
Hebrews 9:4-5 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.
And then in the same chapter we read this:
Hebrews 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
That holy place where the ark was is said to represent as a figure, the true and the actual holy place, which is none other than Heaven itself!
The mercy seat in that representative room, represents the very throne of God, the genuine and original holy and most blessed and precious mercyseat!
Blood was sprinkled on that representation of this throne in OT times.
Leviticus 16:14 And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.
Blood was sprinkled on there from a sacrifice that was offered up in order to deal with the sins of the people.
• That blood points back to the death of a sacrifice.
• And more than just a death.
• It points back to a killing and an unnatural death.
Ephesians 5:2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Christ is our sacrifice for sins.
So we see the same God who spoke in Genesis 1 and created and made an entire world over anew, climaxing His work on the sixth day when He made a man in His own image.
• By the time all His speaking was completed, there stood a man in His image.
• This God said He would also speak from beneath wings on a mercy seat.
Hebrews 9:8 says that all of this signified something.
• From one end of the Bible to the other, there is this thought spanning testaments of God’s life-changing and life-creating Word speaking beneath wings.
And with all of this in mind, read Paul’s words:
Ephesians 2:5-6 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
We are made to sit in heavenly places together with Christ!
• More specifically, Paul said IN CHRIST JESUS.
• There can be only one conclusion.
• We are on the mercy seat in the Heavenly realm beneath the wings of the Spirit, where God’s life-creating word speaks and works, when we are IN CHRIST JESUS.
• The thought of being in Christ Jesus is all-crucial in this message.
• Everyone has got to know what it is to be in Christ Jesus, because that is where we can exist in the position of blessing where God’s creative Word works and changes and brings the result of a man after His own image.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Paul also said that we are to be conformed into Christ’s image.
• And we are finding out how this all makes sense and fits together with the very way He did things in Genesis 1!
When a person is saved, they are “in-Christed”, and figuratively seated precisely where God’s Word speaks forth and creates and remakes our lives.
Christianity is the beginning of a work of God in our lives that starts at new-birth salvation and continues in working upon us through the preached word of God until we are changed into His image.
The planet has nothing on us!
• We’ll be personally changed as the word of God speaks to us and lets there be light, and life, and warmth in our lives!
• We are being conformed into Jesus’ image here.
• By the time His Word has it full work accomplished in us, we’ll enter into a rest, just as God rested the seventh day after making a man in his image on the sixth day.
Hebrews 4:1-4 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
Here we read of a Word of God given to us in the form of a promise, that will cause us to enter into a rest.
• And just as in Genesis, this chapter even mentions the seventh day, after God created everything by speaking His word, wherein God rested!
• The word is preached in our approach to the image of God and the rest.
• And this chapter of the Bible informs us that we have a responsibility to play in this work.
• We must mix this word that we have preached to us, with our faith, and not just hum-and-haw, twiddling our thumbs and stepping in and out of service during the word.
• This preached word, friend, is the only thing God chose to conform you into His image, and to bring you into a rest with God.
• And this preaching of the word is highly exalted by the Bible and spoken of in just such a manner that God encourages us to actually “fear” missing what its purpose is for you lives.
Mix this word with faith.
• That is our part.
• And believing this spoken word will bring you into a rest with God.
• Those who heard it but passed it off and did not mix it with their heart’s faith, were said to have missed the entire purpose of God for their very lives.
It shakes me to think of how so many people pass off the preaching of the word in our day as an insignificant thing that they can take or leave at their behest.
• Necessity restricts many due to work and unexpected situations.
• However, with many it is simply a care-less attitude towards the importance of the preached word of God.
Love this preaching of the word!
• Crave this preaching of the word!
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Believing the word is associated with baptism towards salvation.
• Baptism puts you into Jesus’ death.
Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
His death becomes our single experience of death that we are all appointed to meet.
Hebrews 9:27-28 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Isn’t it good to know that we can get our appointment with death over with by being baptized into Jesus’ death?
• Hebrews 9 says that He took the death we were appointed to experience and thereby bore the sins of many people.
• The only explanation is that many people’s deaths were taken care of through His death.
We noted that death is made evident and indicated by the blood.
• When blood was put on the mercyseat, the evidence of a death was provided.
• The picture of the blood on that mercyseat beneath the wings, where the Word speaks, is trying to relate to us the truth that the only people privileged to experience this working by the word are the ones who died with Christ.
Somehow, these people were put into vital union with Jesus’ death.
• Jesus’ death was the great sacrifice that all the former sacrifices prefigured.
• Somehow people get connected with that death.
• They died with Him.
• That is the reason that we read they are seated in heavenly places In Christ.
• Before we can be seated with Him, Eph. 2:6 says that we are raised with Him.
• And before we can be raised with Him we must be buried with and.
• Before burial with Him one must be crucified with Him.
• And that is precisely what Romans 6:3-6 teaches us!
Romans 6:3-6 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
That is the reason God had the blood sprinkled there in that signifying picture of the tabernacle.
• The death of Jesus is the whole focal point of the Bible.
• Dying with Him is the only means to getting into that kind of position where new creation occurs upon our lives.
We know that we require faith in order for God to work in our lives.
• This picture of blood beneath the wings where the creative word works and speaks is further clarified by the thought that our faith in our unions to Jesus’ death, signified by the sacrificial blood, causes us to receive God’s word, and allow God to work through that word in our lives.
His blood was shed in death as my death.
• That should immediately come to the mind of a believer in Christ, due to the teaching of it in the Bible.
• So the picture of His blood on the mercyseat should connect myself to being there.
• We need to think of Jesus’ death whenever we read anything to do with sacrificial offering of blood in the Bible.
• But more than that, we need to also think of our union to Him in His death.
• We can say, “Hey, that blood on the mercyseat is a picture of me seated in heavenly places in Christ. I am beneath the wings of God’s Spirit, where the word creates and reshapes my life. There is blood on that seat and that speaks of Christ’s death. And I also know that I died with Him because I was baptized into His death!”
Jesus said that He would draw all men to Himself in His death on the cross – John 12:32.
• What happens, though, to those who are not drawn to His death?
Matthew 23:33-39 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
God sent His word through the means of prophets and wise men to Jerusalem.
• They rejected that Word.
• And Christ said that nothing but doom and judgment was prepared for them.
• An enemy was on its way.
• That generation would experience a devastation of its city and temple 40 years later in 70 AD.
• Jesus said that he would have gathered them under HIS WINGS!
• I think by now we realize what He implied.
Being beneath His wings speaks of His concern and shelter.
• But we also see it connects to the thought of being put into a place where His word can work in our lives.
• And NEW CREATION CAN OCCUR!
• It was creation and remaking that occurred beneath God’s wings in Genesis 1:2.
• And if Israel had accepted Christ, and been gathered beneath His wings, they not only would have been spared destruction by Rome, but also been baptized into His death along with all the disciples Jesus already had.
• They would have entered what Paul called in 2 Cor 5, a NEW CREATION.
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
OLD THINGS PASSED AWAY.
• That refers to DEATH.
Jerusalem’s chief priests, Rabbi’s and Pharisees and Saducees would have been baptized into His death, placed beneath His wings, and been part of the new creation, but THEY WOULD NOT.
• That means that they WILLED NOT TO DO SO.
• They chose not to do so.
People, we face destruction if we reject Christ.
• Like Jerusalem of old, eternity without God awaits us.
• Its your choice.
But if you accept His Word and mix it with Faith, He will save you, and make you a new creature in Him.
• And what a wonderful changed life He will begin to work in you, until you come into the very image of Himself!
Beneath the wings of His Spirit!
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