In The Beginning, Part 3
The Water
1 John 5:6-8 says this:
This is the one who came by water and blood—Messiah Yeshua. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
So who is this water that testifies?
Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Jeremiah 17:13 tells us, “Lord, You are the hope of Israel; all who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away from You will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.”
Again, John 4:10 says, “Yeshua answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.’”
John 7:37-39 says,
On the last day, the climax of the festival, Yeshua stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to Me! Anyone who believes in Me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When He said “living water,” He was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in Him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet entered into His glory.)
Revelation 22:1-2 tells us,
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
It makes sense now that even though God removed Himself, His glory—His living water—should still remain. When God made man, He made us to know just how important water is to our lives.
Scientists have now discovered that Mars had rivers, and even a body of water ten times the size of the Great Lakes. But what happened to the water on Mars and the other planets? Why did the water dry up on all the other planets and not on the Earth? There is no doubt that there are mysteries to God, and maybe one day we will know the truth about them all. But as we look at what God has for us to know, we must take everything at face value and have faith.
Psalm 104:2-3a tells us, “The Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of His upper chambers on their waters.” I think the answer is in this Psalm. When God created the universe, the universe was all together, and we know that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. We also know that God is fire, and He may have allowed the planets to be fertile and watered. But come the fourth day, when He created the sun, moon, and stars, He did just what the Psalm said He did: He stretched out the heavens. Like we read earlier, the galaxy grew into galaxies and the planets closer to the sun, well, the heat dried up the water and burned the vegetation; and the farther away from the heat of the sun the planets went, they grew cold and dark and lifeless, but the Earth was at just the right distance to maintain life.
We see that God begins to separate our waters here on Earth. Did you know that God is a divider? Let’s take a closer look.
God the Great Divider
Genesis 1:6-8 tells us,
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
Genesis 1:9-10 continues,
And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Psalm 104:5-13 tells us,
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at Your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of Your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place You assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth. He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the sky nest by the waters, they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from His upper chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of His work.
God has been dividing from the beginning. In the Havdalah (meaning “separated”) ceremony, at the end of the Sabbath, you say a blessing that goes like this:
Deserving of praise are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who made a distinction between holy and common, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the seventh day and the six working days. Deserving of praise are You, O Lord, who distinguishes between holy and common.
Matthew gives us the words of Yeshua in Matthew 10:34-36:
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.
Matthew tells us about another time when Yeshua speaks about dividing, in Matthew 24:40-41: “Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.”
And one last time in Matthew 25:31–42:
But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. Before Him all the nations will be gathered, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
As God continued to divide throughout Scripture, let’s continue as we examine how God divided the water. So how did God divide the waters? Well, maybe by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also known as the “wind.”
We see in the story of the flood that God sent a wind. Genesis 8:1 tells us, “But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and He sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.”
We see with Noah that he sent out the dove, and the first time the dove hovered over the water, for there was no place for it; and the second time the water had receded or parted, and the dry land appeared, and the dove came back with an olive branch. We will take a closer look at the flood later.
If the Holy Spirit was present then during the flood, did God also use the Holy Spirit, “the wind,” to separate the waters at creation like at the parting of the Red Sea? Yes, we see in the story of the parting of the Red Sea exactly the same thing as in the creation story. We know that Pharaoh was pursuing the Israelites and they feared for their lives. So let’s take a closer look.
Exodus 14:19-20 tells us,
Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
We see here that God divided, once again, the light from the darkness.
Exodus 14:21-22 continues,
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
Again we see God dividing the waters to form dry land, and He used the wind to do it. And so the people crossed on dry land.
Well, you may say, if the splitting of the Red Sea parallels creation, then where are the animals and the vegetation? The Israelites crossed with their livestock, and according to Jewish commentary it is believed that as they crossed there were fruit trees that lined their path so that they could eat from the trees as they crossed: a picture of the Garden of Eden. And you know that if you have the garden, you have to have the Adversary—which we do have in this story, for we know that Pharaoh’s army pursued, and they all drowned in the water.
So after all that, we can come to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit, the “wind,” was hovering over the water and dividing it. Scripture will always point to the truth.
We also see that Yeshua had complete control of the wind and the waves in Mark 4:37-41:
And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Shouldn’t the one who created have control over His creation? Yes, and all throughout creation we see that God had control as this great phenomenon was taking place with a fiery, fierce, and powerful exhibition of God’s Word and authority over His creation. He spoke and called those things that were not as though they were, as only He can.
God Separated the Light
But let us go back. As we continue we see in verses 3-5 that God continues His creation, as it says,
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
So God separated the light from the darkness. Now, many people feel that God was separating His kingdom of light from that of the kingdom of darkness, and that could be true, for 1 Thessalonians 5:5 tells us, “You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” We will see later that this could only have been done symbolically for we will discuss, when did the angels fall?
But for now you may ask, “How could God separate the light from the darkness, since the sun and the moon had not yet been created?” We see that verses 1-5 are all on the first day. We know that God is all light, and when He removed part of Himself to make space it left a void, and the light that once was, was now gone, so only darkness remained. God spoke light into that void. And what was that light? Nothing other than His Word.
It is believed that God spoke His Torah (teachings) in the 70 known languages at the time of Noah, at Mount Sinai, and then again at Pentecost. I believe that this was also the case at the time of creation. When God spoke His creation into being, it was His Torah, His great wisdom and understanding and knowledge, that caused all things to come into being. This is the Word that was made flesh, as it tells us in 1 Peter 1:20, “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.”
The rabbis also associate the light of creation with the Messiah:
The Torah tells us, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’” to reveal that God will ultimately illuminate Israel with the light of the messiah, of whom it is written, “Arise, shine; for your light has come …”—the light being, of course, the Messiah … The verse “Let there be light” teaches that God created the world through this light, for immediately after these words the creation began. (Tz’enah Ur’enah on Genesis 1:3)
We see in verse 2 that the Spirit of God was present as God was creating. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Messiah. Philippians 1:19 says, “for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Yeshua Messiah this will turn out for my deliverance.” And 1 Peter 1:11 says that the prophets were given insight into the future through the “Spirit of Messiah in them.” The rabbis believed that the Spirit of God that was hovering over the waters was the Spirit of Messiah: “‘The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.’ This was the Spirit of Messiah as it is written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him’” (Bereshit Rabbah 1:2, quoting Isaiah 11:1-2). It is interesting that the rabbis chose Isaiah 11 to make the connection between the Messiah and the Holy Spirit. Yeshua quotes a similarly phrased passage about Himself making this same comparison when he quotes Isaiah 61:1, recorded in Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor.” His Word and His Spirit were all a part of the creation.
If we look to the armor of God in Ephesians 6:17, we see that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word are one, and Yeshua tells us in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 1:1-5 tells us,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
And again, John 1:9-10 says this: “The true Light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him”
Not till day four did God create the rest of the universe as Genesis 1:14-19 tells us:
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Sound
We said all that just to say this: in verse 3 we see that God, for the first time, spoke when He said “Let there be light.” Up until now, there was no need for God to verbally speak because in the spiritual realm, well, do they even talk? Or do they communicate by telepathic communications, mind to mind?
We know that the speed of sound depends on the type of medium and temperature of the medium. We know that air is a gas, and not to go into a deep discussion, we know that our atmosphere and the whole galaxy for that matter is made up of gases. When God spoke, we know that His word went out like sound waves throughout the existing universe at the speed of sound, which is about 4.7 miles per second; or God may have spoken His words and they could have gone out like a supersonic jet that breaks the sound barrier, which was discovered many thousands of years later. So we see here that God not only created light but sound.
We also find that according to quantum physics (which is the study of matter and energy at very small, nanoscopic levels, beginning with nuclei, atoms, and molecules, also called quantum particles), the universe is made up of lightwaves, like a big safety net of light. Light speed is calculated differently than sound. Light calculated in a vacuum travels at a constant, finite speed of 186,000 mi./sec. This means that in one year, light can travel a distance of 6 trillion miles. An interesting consequence of the speed of light is that we do not actually see things as they currently are. The light reflecting off of every object on Earth takes some time to reach our eyes. For the objects we encounter on a daily basis, this delay is almost nonexistent: when you are looking at an object 1 meter away, the light reflected off of that object takes about three-billionths of a second to reach your eye. This delay becomes more significant on a cosmic scale. For example, the famous North Star, also called Polaris, is about 323 lightyears away from Earth. That means light from Polaris takes 323 years to reach Earth. When you look up at this star, you do not see it as it currently is. The light reaching your eye in that moment took 323 years to get to you, so you are actually in a sense looking into the past. To reverse this perspective, a hypothetical observer on Polaris in 2020 looking at Earth would not see you or me; instead, they would see Earth as it was in the year 1697. According to NASA, a traveler moving at the speed of light would circumnavigate the equator approximately 7.5 times in one second. By comparison, a traveler in a jet aircraft, moving at a ground speed of 500 mph, would cross the continental U.S. once in 4 hours.
So let’s read this again. Quantum theory tells us that both light and matter consist of tiny particles which have wavelike properties associated with them. Light is composed of particles called photons, and matter is composed of particles called electrons, protons, and neutrons. When God spoke, “Let there be light,” He also created sound and the foundation for the universe of light waves. Hebrews 11:3 tells us this according to the Amplified Bible:
By faith [that is, with an inherent trust and enduring confidence in the power, wisdom and goodness of God] we understand that the worlds (universe, ages) were framed and created [formed, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose] by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
So in other words, everything we see is made up of quantum particles, and light holds it all together.
God’s creation is so unbelievably awesome that every night we look at the stars and every day we see all that is around us, and all we can do is thank God that He so loved us that He created.
Naming Rights
Since the beginning of man, it has been thought that the one who gave a name had the power over that which was named. God named the day, night, and sky, and all of that gave Him sovereignty over time and space. We will see later that God allowed Adam to name the animals, and so God gave man dominion over them.
The Scriptures refer to named star constellations in Amos 5:8:
He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is His name.
Job 38:31-33 also mentions constellations:
Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”
So once again we see Romans 1:20 to be so evident: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
It is believed that God used the stars to tell the gospel. But we must be careful, because the constellations have been used for the sake of the horoscope and other things that are not from God.
The Calendar
In the creation account we see that first came the evening and then the morning. God created time along with space, but we see that God’s time started with evening, and then came morning. God uses a lunar calendar, and this separates God’s people who are light from the darkness of the pagans who are void of God. Throughout history, pagan empires have created calendars in opposition to God. But God from the beginning of creation meant time to be based on His lunar calendar.
We also see that God named each day as “day one” and “day two” and “day three” and so forth. He never called them “Sunday,” “Monday,” or “Tuesday.” These are all pagan names.
We also see that God created six days for man and one for Himself. Today we see that there are 24 hours in a day. That day is broken up into divisions: 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in every minute. All of these are based on the number 6. We also know that many calendars, going back as far as early Babylon in Mesopotamia to the 3rd millennium BCE, used a 360-day calendar with 5 extra days, and along with the leap year this gives the basis for the number 6. The early Middle Eastern calendars only had two 6-month seasons—summer and winter. But one thing they all had in common was that the new month started at the new moon.
Over history, man has not been able to get an accurate calendar to line up with the celestial and the seasonal, especially after the Flood. It was as though there was a movement between the lunar and the solar. Today the Jewish people still use a lunar calendar with each month beginning at the new moon, each month having 29-30 days.
Today the Jewish calendar does not come close to what is considered the correct date. They are about 200 years off. We know that today on our calendar we are in the third millennium. So if the Jewish calendar has the right number of years, then there was only 3,740 years before the Common Era instead of 4,000 years. Can this be right? No, it is not right, for no one’s calendar is correct. Over the decades and centuries and even millennia the counting of time has changed. Maybe God has made time fluid so that only He knows the times and the days. No one can calculate the coming of the Lord, for He will come as a thief in the night.
But we do know that the moon was designed to mark God’s sacred times, or in Hebrew, Moadim. These sacred times from creation are for all of God’s people. The new moon brought in these celebrated times, as it tells us in Numbers 10:10,
On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the Lord your God.
In Hebrew the new moon is called Rosh Chodesh, meaning, “head of the month.” We see that the new month celebration shall be continued into the reign of Messiah, for Isaiah 66:18-23 gives us this insight:
For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see My glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard My fame or seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before Me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before Me, declares the Lord.
So we see that all of God’s people will be celebrating the New Month celebrations and the Sabbath.
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