For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them (Eph 5:8-10).

Every component of God’s salvation done for us is creation. Just as this universe was created from darkness to light, we were saved from darkness to light. We were made light to live as children of light doing good works of light.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10).

God first started a good work in us, and has prepared in advance for us to do the same good works. In fact, the same God will carry it on to completion.

… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).

As we have already seen, Paul, in writing this letter to the Ephesians, had in mind the stories of creation in Genesis. The metaphorical analogy you find in the expressions he uses as well as the contents of his arguments cannot be ignored, and you can see easily that it is not accidental, but intentional. The story that lies behind chapter 3 of this letter is the story of Noah. Apparently, Paul sees himself as Noah. Note that this letter was written when he stayed in his own rented house in Rome as a prisoner preaching the kingdom of God to those who visited him.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles-- Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly (Eph 3:1-3).

A mystery was revealed to Noah concerning the flood and how his family together with the animals would be saved. In the same way, it was through God’s revelation that the mystery of the salvation of the Gentiles was made known to Paul.

This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power (vv. 6-7).

A part of the revelation given to Noah was the blueprint of the ark—its length, width, height, etc. (Gen 6:15-16). In the same way, Paul discusses the blueprint of the ark—the house and the temple in which Christ dwells with his love. He prays in the following way:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (vv. 17-19).

It is important to realize that the Noahic covenant is the third one of the seven major covenants in the Bible. Just as the earth was created in six days, which were divided into two sets of three days (the first set consists of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and the second one Day 4, Day 5, Day 6), the first six covenants can be divided into two sets. The seventh one was the special covenant through Jesus Christ just as the seventh day was a special day, which was set apart from the rest. There was a break between the third one and the fourth one as the Noahic covenant was the renewal of the first covenant in Gen 1 (see Gen 8:15-9:17), and the world came to have a new start with that covenant. In the same way, Paul ends, in a rather unusual way, the first part of his letter at the end of chapter 3 with a doxology in the middle of his letter:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (vv. 20-21).

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient (Eph 2:1-2).

The whole process of the salvation of humanity after the Fall of Man can been seen as creation processed in cycles of destruction and creation just as the whole universe was created and is still in the process of destruction and creation. The same power used to create this universe operated to redeem us who were once dead in our transgressions and sins. God has restored us in Christ to the original state in which we humans are once again without blemish or defect. Try to see the similarities between what Paul discusses in Ephesians 2 and the story of creation in Genesis 2.

When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens--and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground (Gen 2:5-6) …

Creation is God’s act of love. It was by his love and mercy that he sent his Son to save us who had become insignificant as dust, and were on our way to the ground.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved (Eph 2:4-5).

… the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (Gen 2:7).

Having been formed and made alive with God’s breath of life, the first man was put in the Garden of Eden. In the same way, having been raised with Christ, we are now seated with him in the heavenly realms.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6) …

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed (Gen 2:8).

“Eden” was a mountain where God sat, and in the “east” of it was the garden where the first man and woman lived. After the fall, they were driven out of the garden eastward, and lived there (Gen 3:24, 4:16). They moved even more eastward, and tried to build the tower of Babel there (11:2). Note that the tabernacle and the temple were built facing east. But Abraham, for the first time in Genesis, moved from Ur, which was in the east, westward to the land God showed him. It was the beginning of God’s creation for our human race, and he himself was created so that he could do good works God prepared for him.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph 2:10).

What lies behind the passage following Eph 2:11 is the story of Cain and Abel with the former representing the Gentiles and the latter Israel, the chosen people. In Christ, these two kinds of peoples have come to be united together as one family.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations (Eph 2:13-14).

The blood that once cried out from the ground for an unjust death causing hostility between the Gentiles and the Hebrews is replaced by the blood that now cries out for God’s unchanging love to create one man bringing peace and unity upon the earth.

His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. … Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household (Eph 2:13-19), …

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. " … God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Gen 1:26-28)."

At the time of creation, God created men and women to let them rule over the world. Since ruling is only possible with authority, God must have given them the authority to rule. It is important to realize that this authority is spiritual in nature, and is given from God, not that we can earn it with any human effort. It should not be confused with earthly kind of authority, which is often misused with arrogance and selfishness. It was by this spiritual authority that every evil sprit surrendered to Jesus begging him not to cast him away, and the same authority was given to his disciples. We find the following words in the letter to the Ephesians:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3).

The most important of all the spiritual blessings we receive in Christ is this authority—the spiritual power to rule over the world. It has been given to us, of course, by God’s grace and love. Although it was ours already at the time of creation, Satan deceived us and took it from us. Since then, he became “the prince of this world” as Jesus called him (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). So, Christ came in the flesh, and through his death and resurrection, he took the authority back from Satan. And as soon as he was raised from the dead, he delegated that authority to his disciples, and sat at the right hand of the Father.

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come (vv. 19-21).

And if it ends here, it would mean nothing to us today. But it goes on to say:

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (vv. 22-23).

Christ has been given to the church—not to the world, or to all people on earth. If you want to get any benefit out of this truth, you need to belong to his body—the church. Note that God placed all things under Christ’s feet. Since the feet are under the body, all things are placed under the body, too.

The church today needs to be wakened to realize that all things are placed under her with authority to rule over them. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to the church, the body of Christ. Such was God’s plan before the creation of the world, and it has neither changed nor wavered even on the fact that we sinned. It was completely by God’s grace and love that we have been restored to the original state of creation.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus (vv. 4-7).

So, let us stand together firmly upon this truth by faith, and do the kind of creation work that God has prepared for us.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (v. 10).

… and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-- (Gen 2:5-6).

The creation story in Gen 2 begins with the ground that was watered by streams coming up from the earth. As we have seen, this is one kind of metaphoric image that is frequently used to express the creation work of God. The noteworthy part of this story is the forming of the first man Adam from the dust of the earth, for whom a woman was made out of his rib while he was in a deep sleep. Meditate upon it and try to see how it comes to be connected to what happened to humanity through Christ—Christ being the husband, and humanity the wife. Note that a helper was first sought by Adam:

So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found (v. 20).

God’s creation is not merely physical, but it rather originates in a spiritual realm. God saw that Adam was lonely, and wanted to give him a suitable helper. That was where this creation began.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man (vv. 21-22).

Since this was before death came into the world, God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep—not death. In the case of Christ, since he came to the world into which death had already come, he died, and out of him, the church—his body—was created.

Now, look at the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4, and compare it with the creation story of Gen 2. Both stories are told in the similar setting—a dry land out of which water comes up. Surprisingly, it was Jesus himself who first asked for a drink. Water in the Bible is a symbol of love (Prov 5:15-20), and all humans are thirsty for true love. Jesus said:

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14).

Indeed, this woman met her true husband—her spiritual husband—that day, and her search was over. She became a new creation in Christ just as Eve was created from Adam. This woman symbolically represents the church, which is metaphorically expressed as Jesus’ bride, or wife in the New Testament. Jesus went on saying:

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (vv. 23-24).

Worship is a form of the love and fellowship we have for God. Note that God himself seeks such worshippers, and this woman was called to be one of them.

The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he (vv. 25-26)."

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people (v. 28), …

According to the New Testament, love fulfills all the requirements of the Old Testament.

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14)."

God has already poured his love into our hearts through Christ. It is the spring of water welling up to eternal life. There, you have the source of all of God’s creation.

My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words.

Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart;

For they are life to those who find them

and health to a man's whole body.

Above all else, guard your heart,

for it is the wellspring of life (Prov 4:20-23).

Nobody imagines that the tree of life, which is said to have been in the Garden of Eden, is in his/her own heart. Yet, the Bible teaches that you can still eat from it today, if you know how. “The wellspring of life” in the above scripture signifies the same as the tree of life. While the tree of life is for the fruit you eat, the wellspring of life is for the water you drink. It was this water that was watering the Garden of Eden.

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters (Gen 2:10).

At the beginning of creation, rain had not yet fallen on the earth, and the ground was watered only by springs that came up from the earth.

… and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground (vv. 5-6)—

With this water that came up from the earth, “all kinds of trees”—“trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food” were produced. Among them were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

An interesting analogy can be drawn between this story of creation and the story of John 4:

Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour (John 4:6).

Jesus was tired from the journey, and was thirsty. There, this woman came to draw water from the well. This setting of dryness is similar to what is seen at the beginning of the story of creation in Gen 2. Jacob’s well, however, is a man-made well representing the lifestyle of seeking water under the old covenant. Jeremiah spoke of this lifestyle and said, “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water (Jer 2:13).” Compare it with what Jesus said:

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:13-14).

Jesus pointed out to her that she was seeking her water from a wrong place and a wrong partner. Now the right partner appeared to her, and he taught her how to get the right water from the right place.

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth (vv. 23-24).

Do not think that it is difficult for you to be one with God. As husband and wife become one flesh in marriage, you become one with God in spirit when you worship him.

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit (1 Cor 6:16-17).

You are a very spiritual being, though you may not think or feel so. Without spiritual fellowship with God, you would never be happy or satisfied. Your satisfaction comes only when you worship your spiritual Father in spirit and in truth. This way of worship has now become available to you through Jesus’ death and resurrection. You do not need to drink from Jacob’s well or broken cisterns any more. With Jesus living in you, you are now being created daily as the wellspring of life coming up from your spirit waters your soul and body.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life (Prov 4:23).

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code (Rom 7:6).

We have seen so far that the stories of Gen 2-3 deal with the spiritual state of a human heart, not merely what happened to the first humans, Adam and Eve, but what happens to us in our hearts spiritually when we sin. Now, we want to know what the two trees planted in the middle of the Garden of Eden mean to us: what does it mean to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and how can we regain the access to the tree of life and eat from it? Unfortunately, believing in Jesus does not automatically make you eat from the tree of life. All believers in Christ are given the right to eat from it, but are not necessarily eating from it.

According to Paul, to eat from the tree of life is to live according to the spirit, and to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to live according to the flesh. Those who live according to the spirit listen to the voice of God who speaks to them through the spirit, but those who live according to the flesh live according to their own decisions and ideas contained in the flesh (soul) about what is good or evil. The problem with the latter case is that the soul is not powerful enough to carry out what it thinks good due to the sin in it, and when they try to do it, they find themselves not doing it.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me (vv. 15-17).

For Paul, “what I want to do” is the law in the Old Testament, but for the Gentiles, it is the conscience that every human has, and for Christians, it is all that the Bible says is good and is summed up as a single command—to love one another. We all desire to do what is good, but the moment we try to do it, we fall into Satan’s temptation, and find ourselves not doing it. Rather, the Bible teaches us to listen to the voice of God we hear in our hearts.

The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. … Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites (Exod 25:20-22).

Note that the location of the ark in the tabernacle along with two cherubim on top of its cover is related to the description of cherubim and a flaming sword placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden:

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24).

Here, the expression “to guard the way to the tree of life” should be understood in a positive sense: one day the access to this tree would be restored. The tree of life for Moses was the voice he heard between the two cherubim above the atonement cover of the ark. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was obviously the Ten Commandments written on the stone tablets that were placed inside the ark, which was covered and sealed with “the atonement cover”: in a sense, the access to the stone tablets was prohibited. This pointed to the time when the access to the stone tablets would be no longer necessary:

… for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, (Phil 2:13-14)…

God’s voice you hear inside your heart is not actually a voice any more, but a “will” that he puts in you. Note that “it is God who works in you to will” directly—not through the process of teaching you so that you try to do it. You do what you want to do, and end up doing the will of God.

She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her;

Those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov 3:18).

In the middle of the Garden of Eden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when man ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was driven out of the garden and lost the access to the tree of life. What does this mean to us? Is there a way still for us to regain the access to the tree of life?

In order to get answers to these questions, you will need to understand certain facts. First, it should be realized that the word “adam” in Hebrew means “man,” “human,” and is not used as a proper noun—a person called “Adam”—in the stories of creation, at least in the first three chapters of Genesis. It rather refers, as a type, to human beings in general—both the ones who lived in the past, and those living today. So, if a person sins, he/she sins as this “adam” sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Second, you need to know that the Garden of Eden symbolically represents a place where God and man meet—the point that connects the heaven and the earth as the tent of meeting, the tabernacle or the temple functioned the same way for the people of Israel. Note, for instance, the way God’s appearance before the “adam” and his wife is described:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking (would walk) in the garden in the cool of the day…(Gen 3:8).

Therefore, it can be said that the “adam” in the Garden of Eden was a priest.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (2:15).

The verb ‘to work (‘avad)’ also means “to serve, worship,” and is sometimes used together with shamar ‘to keep, observe’ (here translated as “to take care of”) for the services and duties that priests performed in the tabernacle (Num 3:7, 8, 8:26, 18:7). The “adam” did not need to work the ground for living that time (cf. 3:23).

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (3:22-24).

From this description of cherubim placed on the east side of the garden, we can easily draw the analogy between the garden and the tabernacle (or the temple).

There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites (Exod 25:22).

Note how the ark of the covenant was covered with a lid, and two cherubim were placed on it. In the ark were the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written. Why was the ark sealed with such a cover so that the tablets could not be seen? Furthermore, why was the cover called “an atonement cover”? And why were the two cherubim placed on top of it so that it was even more difficult to open it and see inside? We have the following passage in the New Testament:

… for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing (Phil 2:13-16).

From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled;

With the harvest from his lips he is satisfied.

The tongue has the power of life and death,

And those who love it will eat its fruit. (Prov 18:20-21)

The heavens and the earth were created as God “said.” This universe was formed by God’s word, and all things were made through “the Word,” and without it (him) nothing was made. As the word is confessed and spoken with your mouth, creation occurs in your life, giving you life, as the Bible says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

We, having been created as images of God, rule over the earth. And it is with our mouth that we rule. That is why God has given us languages together with the ability to speak them. And with our mouth, we not only rule, but also participate in God’s creation work as the above scripture in the book of Proverbs says.

We Christians believe in God and his only Son, who came to this world as Christ, died and rose from the dead. Through Christ, God delivered us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the dominion of the Son. We were all transferred from the world of destruction to that of creation. We as citizens of God’s kingdom of creation, we are all new creations. Death no longer reigns over us, and we reign instead over death and the world of destruction by doing the same work of creation that God does.

We Christians all know the importance of believing: we all believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and the Bible is God’s Word. But when it comes to the importance of confession, we do not know it enough. Because of our negative confessions—those of unbelief, worries and anxiety, we see the work of destruction happening everywhere in our lives. Jesus said:

I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him (Mark 11:23).

Pay attention to “what he says”—not “what he believes,” or even “what the Bible says.” It is “what he says” that happens. That means, first of all, that if you do not say, nothing happens. God’s word is active and powerful, and you believe in it all right, but unless you put it in your mouth and say it, you will have no result.

God’s word is not only something that you need to believe with your heart, but also something that you need to say with your mouth, and do with your body.

No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction (Deut 30:14-15).

We modern people are so used to abstract ideas and principles that we often do not care whether they materialize or not as reality. We listen to God’s word, and are merely satisfied with the fact that we listen. Then, we say, “Amen,” to show agreement with what we hear. But God’s word is deeper than the metal level of agreement. We need to believe it in our hearts, and confess it with our mouths.

Having been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, we lost the access to the tree of life. But God has restored this access for us.

She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her;

Those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov 3:18).

Meditate upon this scripture. It will be no use if you only have it in your heart. You need to take its fruit, and eat it with your mouth. And it is with the fruit of your mouth that your stomach is filled, and there, is your tree of life.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground (Gen 2:4-6)--

As you have learned already, there are two types of creation stories in the Bible: type 1 in Gen 1 (1:1-2:3), and type 2 in Gen 2 (2:4ff). In type 1, the earth was created from chaos with darkness and light being separated from each other, and waters being divided into waters above and waters below. In type 2, our world was created as the ground was watered and became a fruitful and productive land. And when it comes to the creation of humankind, the difference is even more significant: man was created in the image of God as a king who rules over the earth in type 1, while in type 2, he was formed from the dust of the ground as a worker who is to obey and serve God.

… then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (vv. 7-9).

The word “eden” in the Semitic languages means “luxury.” Note that man was created to live in such a luxurious place where all trees were pleasant to the sight and good for food. This can be compared with the way that, in type 1, man was created at the end of the sixth day to rest on the seventh day (the Sabbath).

In the book of Isaiah, the following passage is found regarding God’s chosen people, Israel.

But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! 
Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: 
Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen. 
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; 
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, 
and my blessing on your descendants. 
They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. 
This one will say, “I am the Lord's,” another will call on the name of Jacob,
 and another will write on his hand, “The Lord's,” 
 and name himself by the name of Israel (Isa 44:1-5).

Here, it says that Israel was “made” and “formed” by the Lord. Think about how Israel was created by God among all the peoples on earth, who were also created in a natural sense. In what sense was Israel made and formed by the Lord? In the same way that Israel was created, you, being in Christ, are a new creation while all the people around you are also God’s creatures in a natural sense.

You need to realize that creation occurs first in the spiritual realm, and then, it comes to be manifested eventually in the physical world as well. So, if you think of creation merely in the realm of physical world, what the Bible says will make no sense to you. The way Israel was created applies to you who are in Christ today because you were born again and have become a new creation in him. Look at the following words, which were originally spoken to the people of Israel whose nation and land were totally destroyed and deserted by their enemies. The same words now apply to you.

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; 
and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! 
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? 
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, 
and delight yourselves in rich food.

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6).

The salvation we receive through Christ is a work of creation. The above scripture tells us that the same light that shone over the darkness at the time of creation in Genesis has shone in our hearts. Paul believed that the gospel he preached had that kind of creation power. In fact, Jesus said to Paul at the time of his conversion:

I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Acts 26:18).

The following words are also found in his letter to the Colossians:

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:13-14).

This type of God’s creation, needless to say, is first seen at the beginning of the book of Genesis.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty,

darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

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 (Gen 1:1-5).

As for the same type of creation, John in the New Testament writes in the following way:

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made;

without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness,

but the darkness has not understood it (John 1:1-5).

We need to keep in mind that creation not only occurred for this universe in a physical sense at the time it was created, but also occurs today for anyone who accepts the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do not limit yourself by thinking that God’s creation is only for physical things. He can, of course, creates things physically out of nothing, but he also creates you spiritually. Read, for instance, the following story as such creation—creation of God’s people:

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. And there was (the division of) the cloud and the darkness. And it (the cloud) lighted up the night; so neither went near the other all night long. 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 w (Exod 14:19-22, the translation of italicized part is mine).

This cloud was shining all the time, though it did no look shining during day due to the sunlight. The cloud was the light shining over the darkness of night. The Egyptians were chasing after the Israelites, but the cloud stood behind the Israelites to separate them from the Egyptians. Compare this story with that of Genesis 1. Note the way that the sea was divided by a wind (ruach in Hebrew meaning “spirit”).