What verse four tells us is that we are moving from a
general account of creation to a more specific account of something else. "These are the generations of…" is
a formula that essentially says, this is what became of… Certainly a perfect world begs an explanation
considering what we have today doesn't it?
The story that begins in verse five tells why things are the way they
are but it gives us a very focused account of things, centering on the creation
of man and woman, the ones responsible for the world no longer being either
good or very good. The order of creation
here is somewhat different. Man is
created before bushes and small plants of the field have sprung up. Judaism sees these as different from the
plants created on day three in Genesis 1, these required the activity of man
for cultivation and/or refers to thorny plants that make cultivation and
maintenance more difficult in the garden.
The creation of mankind isn't accomplished by fiat the way the rest of
creation is done, it is a deliberate act of taking what is left over from
creation and carefully forming it into something. We are just debris from creation formed into
a particular shape into which God breathes to give life. It is an amazing thing to reconcile those two
ideas into humanity. There is a tension
between what we are physically and what we are spiritually that makes the
incarnation even more stunning.
Eight little words, "The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us." John spends the first
few verses giving us a build-up of the Word that makes it ethereal and eternal,
a cosmological idea of the Word, existing from all eternity with God and
co-extensive with God, the Word was God.
From that idea, that begins with the same language as Genesis, "In
beginning", to those eight words is an amazing journey, the most
remarkable idea in the history of mankind.
From this we get the idea expressed in the creeds as, "of one being
with the Father." The Greek word
chosen at Nicea was one that says, whatever God is (and who can know), Jesus
is, in every way. Somehow whatever that
is substantively took on human form, literal flesh, and dwelt among us. God who created us from dust, took on that
same flesh and lived as one of us. Not
only that, He did so with the sole purpose of redeeming us and making us like
Him by the indwelling Spirit. If you can
wrap your mind around that truth fully in the limited span of life we are
allotted in the flesh you will know that there is much to celebrate.
"He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." That is what would be termed high
Christology. As I have said before,
there is nothing more than Christology, high or low depends only on what
specific aspect of Jesus is being talked about.
Here, the writer of Hebrews is doing what Paul does in Ephesians, but what
we also see in John's Revelation, Jesus high and lifted up, seated on the
throne. He is not only that but is also
the "exact imprint of His nature."
Again, that goes back to the language of the Creed. He has come to redeem us and save us from
certain death but He has also come to do as John said, to make known the Father
and to enflesh the Word, to reveal what life lived according to the will of the
Creator looks like. The writer,
throughout the first part of the epistle, is telling the church that nothing
compares with Jesus, beginning here with angels. He is nothing less than God incarnate and
therefore deserves what is ascribed to Him in John 4 and 5, blessing and honor,
glory and power.
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