Page 23 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

III. THE ADAMIC ORDER

GENESIS is a book of beginnings. It is chiefly concerned with the history of
things since the appearance of the order of being known as man. It is widely agreed
among Bible students that only the first verse refers to the original beginnings of
universal creation and that the waste and emptiness were an aftermath, a catastrophe
that Jehovah God brought on His primeval creation. It is thought that Jer. 4:23-26

refers to the visitation of his judgment when it is recorded that those things “were
broken down at the presence of the Lord and by His fierce anger.” The Divine anger
inevitably flames forth in the presence of sin, so it is safe to conclude that this

judgment was directed on account of some manifestation of sin and that the dethroned
cherub had something to do with it.

We are not inclined to enter the realm of speculation and have no desire to “be
wise above that which is written.” Suffice it to say that the internal textual evidence

from the original Scriptures and the external evidence in the crust of the earth are
sufficient to provide almost undeniable proof that this earth of ours existed for an
unmeasured period previous to the Adamic era, a period which terminated in darkness

and waste. These matters have been ably and extensively dealt with by numerous
writers.

The first chapter of Genesis deals largely with the rehabilitation, or restoration of
an order previously existent. In chapter two, verse two, we read, “And on the seventh

day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from
all His work which He had made.” The use of the word “made” indicates that
materials were already present, but the phrase which appears in the next verse, “which

God created and made” seems to indicate that creation of some things new also took
place in those six days. The word “create” recurs only at Gen. 1:21 in connection with
the bringing into being of the animal and human creation. God restored what could be
restored, and created anew (if they had ever existed before) what could not have

possibly survived a period of waste and darkness. In this cosmogony we find roughly
four classes of products of the divine hand: the inanimate, or inorganic; the vegetable;
the animal; and the human. The vegetable creation contains life (but unconscious life),
in a body. The animal contains conscious life and thus a soul in its body,…man, who

in addition to self-conscious life in his soul possesses God-consciousness as the
function of his spirit.

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