Read Genesis 1:1-2:3 For today, Trinity Sunday.
On Mount Sinai at the giving of the Ten Commandments, of the Sabbath Day Moses’ recorded God’s command as “ for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. In this way the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy,” (Exodus 20:11).Considering that Moses also recorded the account of creation in Genesis, it’s not surprising that the summary in Exodus 20 follows the same pattern as the days of creation week. What’s interesting is how closely that summary matches Genesis 1.
We know especially on the basis of the writings of the evangelists and apostles in the New Testament that God is the triune God. This isn’t as clear on the pages of the Hebrew scriptures but it becomes more and more clear as Scripture goes on. For example, the Savior is promised as the seed of the woman whom God would send to crush the serpent, the devil’s head in Genesis three. But throughout the Hebrew scriptures more and more detail is revealed over the course of roughly a thousand years so that we can see how Jesus was born a descendant of Abraham, Genesis 12:3; born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2; born of a virgin Isaiah 7:14; enters Jerusalem on a donkey Zechariah 9:9, just to name a few of the predictions that the Gospels especially point out to us that Jesus fulfilled. In the same way, throughout Scripture, God’s nature as a three-persons-in-one-God Being are revealed. This truth primes the pump to see in the creation account similarly, that what’s stated in Genesis dovetails and doesn’t contradict what the New Testament especially reveals.
Within the Genesis account there are interesting patterns of God’s words or activity. For example, ten times it is stated that “God said …”, ten being a number of a complete thing that God does. Ten plagues, ten commandments illustrate that. Six times the days are enumerated by it stating “there was evening and there was morning” and the number of the day then listed. After God said let something be done, also six times it is stated “and it was so” following the pattern begun on day one that when God says something, it gets done. Six times it states that as the creation developed “God saw that it was good,” which is capped off by a seventh time when it states He saw it was “very good,” notably after completion of the sixth day. Only when that pronouncement is recorded, however, does it go on to state about the establishment of the sacred, seventh day, and the focus is all about God a) having finished His work, b) God resting on the seventh day from all the work He’d been doing and c) a separate blessing upon just that day.
What stands out is that there are three phrases describing that seventh day. As believers in the Triune God, we can see that as evidence after the fact that the God who is creating indeed has that three-characteristic to Him. But that’s not the only three pattern that shows up in this creation account.
We usually attribute to God the Father the creative work in Scripture. Within the opening verses it says “God created” the heavens and the earth. We can see that as an allusion to the Father. Within a few more words it mentions the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. We can see that as a mentioning of the Holy Spirit. And within a few more words the creating Father speaks, “let there be light.” A student of John’s gospel in chapter one the opening verses and later on in verse 14 sees that that speaking of God is an allusion to the Son of God, whom John identifies with another title, “the Word.”
Another three that shows up is with the phrase “according to its kind.” This one is interesting in its construction. On day three God says the plants and trees are to produce seed in it according to its kind, then when it announces that it is so, it states twice, once each that the plants were made to produce “according …” and the trees were made to produce “according …” On day five, only after God declares that the seas were to swarm and the sky was to have birds, it states that once each for the fish and then for the birds “according ….” On day six God declares the earth is to produce living creatures “according …” then He continues with the division of the animals, domestic, wild and creeping “according ….” Then after it says that it was so, it goes on to state that God made the animals, domestic “according …”, wild “according …” and creeping “according ….”
This phrase “according” is used then ten times, with its last use in a triad of land creatures. It is almost as if in the way it’s being announced that in the next act of whatever next would be created is going to be created with the specific interest of the three persons of the Trinity. Interestingly enough the next thing God says is, “Let us make man in our image.” We can see this easily as an allusion to the Trinity. But, although man is made also to produce according to his kind, that phrase is not used of people. What is interesting is the manner in which it speaks of how man is made. He is made in God’s image, “as His likeness.” or, as the Evangelical Heritage Version translates, “according to His likeness.” Now it is true that the word “according” in regard to the animals is different from the word “as/according” in reference to God’s likeness, which is as it should be because man is not in the category of animals. He is God’s own special creation. And he is that special creation in a most unique triad of phrases.
We see this in the use of the word for create. It’s used only four times in this account. Once at the beginning when it says God created the heavens and the earth, as if to say of God, “He is the Maker of all stuff.” And then three times in repetition after God says, “let’s make man in our image, as our likeness,” because the text goes on to state that “God created man in his own image. In the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.” This is as if to say, “He is the Maker of all humanity.” This juxtaposition of and only use of the word create in this account, once for everything in verse one and three times for all humanity in verse 27 is a startling allusion to our three-in-one God!
On this Trinity Sunday today close with a word of thanks how our Triune God began to reveal Himself from the very beginning not only as the One who made all, but the Triune One who has been, is now, and always will be interested in us, His topmost creation.