God’s Love for His Created Order – Part One
What in the World is the World
At the end of my last post, as an addendum, I addressed a root thought. Immediately after doing so, it became clear that it deserved a much more thorough review. What resulted is a two (possibly three) part series that will delve deep into the question – sometimes spoken, often considered – as to how God looks at the vast and various peoples of this world that He created.
Below is a slightly edited edition of the tidbit that I mentioned – I will reuse it here as an introduction, but most of what was thumbnailed in it will be greatly expanded.
I would like to take this opportunity to express something that I believe will help to frame-in the standards and expectations of God for mankind at this place in history (in the original context I was touching on the Exodus, though I believe the principle equally applies today).
As points of reference:
Moses was born 2433 years after Adam was created and 777 years after the flood.
God’s call of Abram took place only 427 years after the flood – and so Abram likely spoke with Shem, Noah’s son, about life before and after the flood.
The generational overlap, despite fulfilling the covenantal commission to refill (the word means “swarm” in the original language) the earth, meant that there was only between 2 to 4 generations between the end of the flood and the time that Joseph went down to Egypt. For example – Eber likely knew Noah (his great, great, grandfather, who was only 701 when Eber was born and lived to be 950) and Isaac could have known both Eber (since he didn’t die until Isaac was 69) and Joseph (who was born when Isaac – who lived to be 180 – was 151). Which explains why Joseph was referred to as a Hebrew (or descendant of Eber) when he arrived in Egypt (called Mizraim in the original language) at age 17.
Moses was born about 65 years after Joseph’s death.
The fourth generation promise from God for the return of Abraham’s descendants to the land of promise was realized when Moses was 81, at the time that the sons of Israel spied out the promised land (Gen.15:16).
We are told (Gen.46:27) that there were 70 souls that went into Egypt (which includes Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh; but not the wives). We are then told that the census in Numbers 2 gives us a total of 603,550 sons of Israel (not including the women) plus 22,000 Levites after their first year in the wilderness, so about 216 years later – I think that qualifies as “swarming’!
[As I have often noted, I use the research done by Martin Anstey, whose faith in the accuracy of the Word of God encouraged him to draw only from the Bible in determining the times. And though Bishop Ussher and John Lightfoot have done exceptional work, their dependence on secular sources invite certain incongruencies. Philp Mauro took Anstey’s extensive research and consolidated it into a very easy to use volume. Though neither is easy to find, “The Wonders of Bible Chronology” by Mauro can be tracked down.]
So, what am I getting at?
We know that it took only about 130 years after the flood for God to divide the land and the languages – an event that was experienced by all of the named ancestors of Lamech, Noah’s father and was the consequence of man’s tendency to return to the very behaviors that warranted the flood. So we know that it didn’t take long for mankind, despite the creation altering interventions of God, to not only begin filling the earth, but to go their own way.
But man’s waywardness does not mean that there was no record of what was right and what was not right as determined by the Creator. And we have evidence of that by the description of Job (Job 2:3) and the statement to Abram regarding the Amorite (Gen. 15:16). Yes, God chose a line of people to preserve His oracles and from whom the Messiah would come – but to think that He did not also work with the rest of His children is a misunderstanding that causes us a narrowness of vision.
That idea (God continuously working with all of His children) speaks of promise, but it also speaks of responsibility. For the children of Mizraim the son of Ham who settled in what we now refer to as Egypt, God’s power and might was every bit as available in their oral history as it was for the sons of Shem or Japheth. That Mizraim had developed a complex mythology had not been their only option for explaining the creation in which they lived. They too could have been blameless and upright and fearing God and turning away from evil, as was Job – by God’s own testimony. And so, He sent Moses into Egypt not only to free the descendants of Abraham, with whom we know He had a covenant; but to also judge the idolatry of Pharoah and of Egypt as a whole, whom He also loved! (Yes, God loved the Egyptians!)
One of the most shocking revelations that I have experienced over the last few years is how sloppy, even lazy, I have been in how I have handled the Bible and so how I have understood it. A poignant example comes from my reading of the most well-known verse of the Bible, John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16
We all know what that verse is saying and the context, right? Jesus was telling Nicodemus, the pharisee, about the process and benefits of being “born again” (whatever that means) and shifts a bit between the “how” and the “why”:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” John 3:14-15
It was after telling him that, that it seems Jesus takes another run at the point He is making – maybe because of how confused Nicodemus looked – speaking our all-time favorite verse. Followed by:
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name (authority) of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment: that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” John 3:17-19
I will pause here in order to go back to how this passage revealed to me a sloppiness of handling His words.
When I have heard this verse read – either by me or someone else – I have, until recently, perceived that Jesus was speaking of all of the people that were, are and ever will be alive. That God’s love stretched throughout the expanses of time to be shared with everyone from Adam forward, is how I held that verse in my heart. What a shock it was, when while creating my own interlinear book of John, I find out that that is not what it meant! Yes, the idea of the expansiveness of God’s love, that it spans space and time, is in that verse, but the target, the recipients of that love, was not what I had always thought.
There is a word in the original language that is typically translated as “world” (some 14 times) and that transliterates as “oikoumenē” and which is best translated as “the inhabited earth”. (It is the present passive participle of the word seen as “oikeō” (to inhabit, dwell), which in turn is sourced from the Greek word for a house or dwelling seen as “oikos”.) My long held, so lazily unexamined belief was that this was what Jesus was referring to – the people of the earth – past, present and future.
The fact of the matter was the word He used was “kosmos” which is a primary word in the Greek that means “order, the world” – or by context His created order. And it is this word that is seen again (four times) in verses 17 to 19; as well as some 180 times throughout the New Testament, including over 60 times in John’s account of the Good News of Jesus. It is used to describe that which had its foundations laid after the Lamb was Slain as the sacrifice of the Everlasting covenant (Rev.13:8); and there is a form of the word which describes the city, the bride that John sees in the New heaven and earth in Revelation 21:2.
Why this matters, at least from my perspective, is that it reframes the extensiveness of God’s love – moving it from “just” all those whose roots are found in Adam to everything God created in the six days – all that He called “very good”! Which means the work that Jesus is describing to Nicodemus not only includes the Ransoming of every human life (though we each still get to choose whether or not we will accept it) but also the Restoration of everything that was lost when Adam fell! Those who believe, will have eternal life and they will have the joy of experiencing the created order as it was originally designed. Those who do not believe, well that in and of itself will result in the consequences of the choice (that is what the word in the original means when it is translated here as “judged”).
That eye-opening experience stirred in me a desire for a re-examination of much of what I had “settled” as being supported in the Bible. Not that I doubted His Word – exactly not that – I questioned my conformity to conventions and concepts that were not supportable when even a modest effort is put out.
Anchored in that discovery was also the recognition that the nuances of language (something I had trained my employees and team members for decades and on which I wrote two books) was as relevant and prevalent in the original languages of the Bible as in our specific language of translation. What I mean is, a word as seemingly innocuous as “world” can not only hold multiple meanings in English but can have multiple source words in Hebrew or Greek – each which also have subtilities of understanding within them.
Before I weave another tapestry in my wanderings, I will return to the purpose and premise of this particular post.
It is my goal to cover the concepts that underlie my (and maybe others’) understanding of the love of God for the created order. This will certainly consist of uncovering the thoughts and meanings behind the created order but it will also begin to identify the fullness of the list of recipients of His love.
The follow-up post(s) will then dig deep into the Word of God, His promises and the proofs of His interactions with those to whom the promises were made, those who lived outside of the narrowing that centered on the Messiah’s coming. I guess this could be seen as an effort to recognize more completely both the beneficiaries of the Everlasting Covenant, and the specific interactions of God with His creation that display those benefits. (To be sure, they have always been there – recognizing them is the goal.)
Since the created order that God loves is just that, it makes sense to look at what He created – though not on a day by day review, simply as a macrocosm of His palette. That said, to help prevent me from straying, I will use the concise description that Paul gave to those in Rome to provide us the extent of His order.
We first see the word “kosmos” in Romans 1:8 (btw – it is found over 40 times in Paul’s writings!) regarding the proclamation of the Good News of His Son. As he moves on in his explanation of the reasons for faith in Jesus, the Anointed One, he points out the unreasonableness of wickedness which seeks to “suppress the truth by injustice/unrighteousness” (this is one of those Greek words that, depending on context, is translated as a form of our word “right” or “just” and that comes from the idea that something deemed “right/just” is so because it is self-evident and therefore infers justice as a principle, a decision, or its actualization).
He then states:
…because that which is known about God is evident among [the wicked]; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world (kosmos) His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Rom.1:19-20
Paul, in what I think of as the universal evidence of God’s character and nature, describes as fact, that all that is, was not only created by God, but that within the very nature of that creation can be found proof of how He perceives and values what He created. Consider: we are told that Adam was made in the Image and Likeness of God, but, as Paul notes, Jesus IS the image of the invisible God…and then he goes on to say:
For by Him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. Col.1:16-17
Which reminds one of the worship in heaven both before and after the revelation of the Near Kinsman, Who is worthy to take the book from the Father’s hand, to open that book and disclose the terms and conditions (that which lies behind the seals) of the title deed of our inheritance:
“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and because of your will they are, and were created.”
And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.” Rev.4:11, 5:13-14
But I progress…I mean digress…
I mentioned that the idea that I thought stood behind the translated word “world” was that of the inhabitants of the earth – only to learn that it is the entirety of His created order that God so loves. And, that the word that transliterates to “oikoumenē” is translated “world” 14 times. I want to go back to that word; there are insights in that idea as well.
The first time (chronologically) we see the Greek word (that being in Luke’s account of the Good News, in our chapter 2:1 remembering of course that chapters and verses were not included in the original manuscripts but were added as a means to assure quality control of the translation and duplication processes) is the only time it as actually translated how it is best defined.
Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. Luke 2:1
Luke actually provides a service to the broader understanding of the timing of the manifestation of the Messiah by his diligence to connect the Biblical chronology to the secular kingdoms, something that was first seen when we were told that the first year of Nebuchadnezzar was the third year of King Jehoiakim of Judah – the year that Daniel and others were taken captive and the year that Jeremiah prophesied of the seventy years of captivity (see Jer.25:11-12).
(In fact Luke’s notation at the beginning of our third chapter of his book, regarding the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar’s reign, allows us to tie Jesus’ immersion in water by John to the beginning of the 70th week of years that Gabriel gave to Daniel as a word from the Lord (Daniel 9:24-27).)
We next see this Greek word when Luke describes the temptations that Jesus faced after His immersion in water which included the Father’s declaration of His pleasure and the Holy Spirit’s abiding. Jesus had not eaten for forty days and nights and then He, as our last Adam, was presented with the same challenge that the first Adam faced and failed – whether or not to eat. Jesus succeeded by the power of the Spirit and the Word of the Lord. The second attempt to tempt by the serpent was to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world(“oikoumenē”) in a moment of time; and then offer Him “all of this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish” (Luke 4:5-8).
Along with “kosmos” and “oikoumenē” there are two more Greek words that we, since we are digging deep, should note.
The first is the transliterated word “aiōn” which is used over 90 times. It is typically used to refer to eternity or a long duration of time or an age but is translated as “world(s)” 8 times. The most pertinent point here is the recognition (or reminder) that not all “worlds” in the Bible are the same – and being aware of that will aid us in understanding exactly how God chooses to interact with the created order He loves.
The last Greek word of note is not ever actually translated “world” in the NASB1995 but may show that way in other translations. It should, more appropriately, be translated and thought of as the earth or land – or what we might call “real estate”. It looks like “gē” and is used some 250 times – the pertinent point from above, applies here as well.
The words from the Old Testament are more straight forward but need to be include for the sake of the clarity of details.
The first word would be the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word “gē”, with the addition of the fact that it does translate as “world” 3 times. It transliterates as “’ereṣ” and is defined as “earth, land”. This is the word we see translated “earth” in Genesis 1:1 and is found well over 2200 times in the Old Testament.
The second is the most commonly seen source word (35 times) translated as “world”. It transliterates as “tēḇēl” and means “world, universe or inhabited world”.
The other Hebrew word is much more colorful (you’ll notice the pun in a moment). And though it is not ever translated as “world” it is germane to our topic. It transliterates as “’ădāmāh” and means “ground, land, earth”. This the word used in Genesis 1:27 describing everything that creeps on the “ground”. It is most renowned for the passage in chapter 2 of Genesis that notes that it is the dust of the ground (“’ădāmāh”) that God used to form man (“’ādām”). The connection between these two words can be found throughout the Old Testament and they both seem to have some etymological connection with the verb seen as (“’ādōm”) and means “to be red”. We find this particular Hebrew word some 200 times, most frequently translated as “land, ground or earth” – but never “world”.
This provides a natural segue with a shift from the ground from which Adam came, to those who came from Adam.
I will provide some insights on the various groups that God has chosen to interact with as defined by His own points of separation – heritage, geography and languages. These are seen in both the Old and New Testaments. The new song that was sung to the Lamb Slain who was found worthy and willing to be our Near Kinsman in Revelation 5:9 lists these as beneficiaries of His decision to purchase, with His blood for God: “tribe and language and people and nation”.
Considering that “people” is a general catch-all, the other three would indicate specific groups within the general category. And this foursome is found four more times in the Revelation – and always in the context of our eternal wages (the consequences of our choice) 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; and 14:6. The impact and implications warrant the inclusion of them here:
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” Rev.5:9-10
As noted, this is the new song which is sung at the very specific point in time that Jesus is revealed as our Near Kinsman – the One Worthy! He Who will exercise the rights of the redemption of our inheritance – which is, in part what Satan offered in the second temptation – restoring us to our lost legacy.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 1and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Rev.7:9-10
What John is seeing is the ransomed of the Lord referred to in the previous entry – including the last of the martyrs from the time of “war on the saints” (see Daniel 7:21) that will complete the last half of the seventieth week.
Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. Rev.11:9
In this declaration of a future event from John, which he was commanded to give after eating “the little open book” (see Rev. 10), he is again describing the end of the seventieth week, though from this vantage, it is those who rejected the offer of ransom and who are celebrating the “demise” of the two witnesses that the Father had given that he sees. (Spoiler Alert: there celebration is short lived!)
It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. Rev.13:7-8
John is again declaring the purposes of God before, in time; speaking of the same window of time as above – the time of war against the saints (who, here, are those who accept Christ rather bow their knee), the last 42 months (seen also as 1260 days and the Daniel-esque time, times and a half time) of the seventieth week. In particular he is referring to the kingdom of the beasts – what we know as the kingdom of anti-Christ.
And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal message of good news to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” Rev.14:6-7
This last occasion shows us the proclamation of the eternal message of good news. This is being preached during the same window of time as the previous two passages, only this time the view is from heaven and not a declaration from John of that which is yet to happen. It is helpful to note that the last three and a half years – no matter how it is delineated in the Revelation (or in Daniel, for that matter) is the time of both the great tribulation and the great harvest, which we are told in Rev.10:5-7, will be delayed “no longer” after the events of the six trumpet sounding. (Uh-oh – there I go again! For those interested, I do have a series on the Last Things that provides significant detail and proofs of the assertions above.)
What I believe is being demonstrated is the culmination, within God’s plan, of His interaction with ALL peoples.
We have the benefit of the divine focus on the coming of the Messiah, the manifestation of the Son of God, the Son of Man, as detailed in the Word of God; which I see as the template for how God has been interacting with ALL of these separate groups within and throughout the confines of time – not just the nation of Israel.
To be clear, what I am not saying is that there are multiple manifestations of the Anointed One – that was neither what was needed nor was it what was promised. What Jesus accomplished made the way for ALL; what we can count on is that God was true to His promises made within His Word and to the whole created order, even though the details of His workings with them are not as robust. But “not as robust” is not saying non-existent, as we will discover in the second part of this short series. In all events, it is undeniable that once the Messiah has been fully manifested and then returns to the Father, the focus is on ALL and EVERY!
Along with the culmination seen in the Revelation, we find the beginnings of the pattern in Genesis. The separations of heritage (or ancestry), languages and geography are defined after the flood. First seen in the genealogies of the three sons of Noah and then in the division that occurs in response to the tower of Babel.
We see this first aspect described as the “generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood” (Gen.10:1). The word translated as “generations” comes from the Hebrew word “yālad” which means “to bear, bring forth, beget” and is the word translated “born” in the second part of the verse. “Born” is first seen when the Lord explains to the woman what consequences her deception will bring about:
“I will increase your sorrow and your conception; in sorrow you will bring forth sons; yet your longing will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” Gen 3:16
What can be easily overlooked is that though all three of Noah’s sons’ genealogies are provided and in some cases geography is added, only Shem’s genealogy includes the chronological basis for the Bible, picking up where we left off in Genesis 5. It is here that the narrowing first becomes undeniable. And it is from this provided level of detail that we can know what is referred to as Anno Hominis or the year(s) of man – in other words, a marking of the years since Adam was made. From that record we know that we are seeing the descendants that were born after 1658 An. Hom., the year of the flood (for scale, Jesus, according to Biblical chronology, was born in 4041 An. Hom.).
There is reason to tie the names given in our chapter 10 to kingdoms and nations throughout the annals of history – I, however, will not be pursuing that endeavor. My point is solely to define and call out, for our understanding, the separations of peoples that are and were purchased for God by Jesus’ sacrifice. Here we clearly see the beginnings of those separations:
From these the coastlands of the nations (the word is “gōy” – it develops the implications that the word “gentile” has in the Greek, especially when modified as “gōyim”) were separated into their lands (“’ereṣ”), every one to his language (“lāšôn” = tongue), to their families (mišpāḥāh = a clan – first seen to define the after their “kind” of beasts who departed from the ark), into their nations. Gen.10:5
It is worth mentioning that though Moses calls out all three of the distinctions; the development of languages will be seen as being directly associated with the division of the land mass after Babel. What this verse does affirm is that the languages were assigned to the nations, the nations settled into geographic regions, and then were further distinguished by the families or clans or tribes.
To that point, the word for “tribe” (“maṭṭeh”) is an interesting one in that, from the etymological perspective, it means “a staff, rod, shaft, branch” but had by the time of Moses’ writing, developed into the designation of a family group, likely because it was by the staff or “scepter” that the leader of the clan was identified (this is reinforced by the first use found in Gen.38:17-18). Used 251 times in the Old Testament, over 180 of those are translated as some form of “tribe”.
We have the genealogies of the sons of Noah that divides the peoples of the earth into nations revealing those for whom Jesus lived and died. These tribes, nations, languages and people are on the earth as the result of the commission from God for Mankind to be fruitful and multiply and fill/“swarm” the earth – “for in the Image of God He made Adam.” (see Gen.9:6-7) It should be noted that the details of the chronology are given after the description of the dividing of land and languages in our chapter 11 – though of course the chapters and verses were added later. The dividing of languages and lands is forecast in 10:25 where we are told that the name of one of the sons of Eber is Peleg which means “division”, “for in his days the earth (“’ereṣ”) was divided”.
In the early verses of our chapter 11 we learn that the division is in response to man’s immediate tendency to revert back to behaviors that resulted in the judgment of the flood. This tendency is seen first in Ham’s mocking of Noah shortly after the flood. It is then Ham’s grandson Nimrod, whose kingdom was founded in Babel and was extended to the land of Shinar (which we know to include the land referred to as Ur of the Chaldeans (where both Job and Abram lived), as well as Assyria), who continues the tendency.
It was his and his tribe’s goal to reach to heaven – what might suggest, because of the consequences, that the motivation was “to be like God”. In that effort and in their attempt to not be separated over the whole surface of the earth, they begin burning bricks for stones and using tar for mortar, in order to build a city and a tower. And to prevent that, God separates the lands and the languages, in alignment with the sons of Noah and their families, tribes and nations.
(Behind this story is a truth about language and the power that comes when we can effectively communicate with one another. This thread winds its way into the New Testament, the fulfillment of Pentecost, and into the foundations of the House that the Lord is building for those He has called. What it points out is that words – the means by which God created it all – retain their power whether used for good or bad. But that story would be for another time.)
In summary, what we can confidently embrace is that God desired and encouraged there being a vast number of those in His Image and Likeness, with whom He would share eternity. That each of them, because of their existence being in His Image and Likeness, will be required to choose whether or not they will join Him in that eternal plan. And that that form of the creation of Man would require God to provide the Way of salvation by becoming Man Himself and laying down His Life – paying the price, by His sinless blood, for all of His created order.
That the branching out of nations happened is obvious. What is less obvious is that the branching out did not result in an isolation of God’s love; because the story narrows, at least for a time. So, why the focus on the sons of Jacob or Shem, for that matter?
The Son of God would become a man. For that to occur, He would have a mother – the one who would contribute the “X” chromosome while the Father created and contributed the “Y” and she conceived (I understand this to be a vast oversimplification, I trust the point I am making is not lost due to that fact). For her to contribute her part, she would first need to be a child of her parents – and that pattern would go back 42 generations to Abraham (Matthew 1:1-17), who was 18 generations from Adam (8 from Noah).
It only makes sense that the bulk of the Old Testament focuses on that line; and for all the right reasons. But we miss the depth and breadth of the heart of God if we skip over those pieces and places in His word that address the rest of the children of Shem, Ham and Japheth. His love for them was no less than that for the children of Jacob; and that is not just a casual remark.
The next post (or maybe two) will focus on the promises that we are given of His dealings with the rest of His children – the children that are noted in the bulk of the New Testament. As I see it, the focus narrows in alignment with the genealogy of the Son of God and then immediately shifts to the broadest expanse of the children of Adam. That focus, however, is one of story and disclosure, not of value or importance. Abraham was to be the means of blessing to all nations; the sons of Jacob were as well. And throughout (but on the edges of) the Old Testament, we cannot help to see His dealings with them all – if we choose to look.
God did not and does not change – He Loves His Created Order!