This is part 3 of a continuing series, which will not make sense if not read in order.
Part 1 can be read here
Part 2 can be read here
Quick Recap of days 1 and 2: On the first day God first created matter. He then created moral and visible light, and chose to embody the light, irreversibly. He left and returned, marking the beginning of the second day. In the second day he caused the universe to expand, causing the bodies of matter to form into clumps, and the vacuum of space to exist between them. He caused the gases to emerge from the matter on earth, and to form the atmosphere. He then left, and now returns for the third day.
Genesis 1:9-10
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Here we see what has happened in the second 'night', that is, the time in which God left the universe for a while before returning to bring the dawn of the third day. The planets have begun to settle and the solid matter in them has begun to lay as sediment. At this point, the focus of the story zooms in to focus on the earth specifically. During the second day the planet was suspended in space, and the atmosphere for the earth was established, and now by the dawn of the third day (which can be seen to represent God's return to the universe), the solid matter and liquid in the 'waters' are settling and taking set locations. The solid matter forms into land, and the liquid matter into the oceans and seas. Again we see God's command in the development of the lands, and his intentional involvement in how they developed, not allowing things to just be random but rather guiding them intentionally. He gathers the water under the sky into one place (as opposed to the many different places they are gathered today, post-Noah), which gives the impression of one great vast ocean, and the resultant one great land mass.
We can also see evidence from elsewhere in the Bible of God's direct involvement in the shaping of the earth, rather than purely natural unguided processes being the cause; in Job 38:1-11 God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind, and informs him that God 'laid the earth's foundation', 'marked off it's dimensions', 'stretched a measuring line across it', and 'laid it's cornerstone'. This is poetic language, but it nevertheless gives the clear impression that He was completely and intricately involved in the design of our planet on every level and layer. God set the earth's core in it's place (the foundation), determined the size of the planet (dimensions, measuring line), and laid the first metaphorical brick (the cornerstone), which could be seen as the inner layers of the planet surrounding the core. It was all carefully designed and planned by Him, presumably so that it would provide the specific and exact conditions which would allow earthly living beings to exist.
In Job 38:8-11, God continues to talk to Job about his creation on day 3 (having already discussed days 1 and 2 in the preceding verses), saying;
After the falling of thick darkness (when God left His creation again for a while at the end of the second day), He returned on the third day, and 'set limits for [the sea]', personally establishing and designing the shape of the land and the ocean on earth when he commanded that the seas 'be gathered into one place', telling them ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’.
At this stage in creation we get the first hints of some of what God might have been doing elsewhere, outside of our universe, during the first and second nights. We see the first created life appear, but by the time we have our first glance of it, it is already fully formed and in glory. On day three we first see the angels appear: Job 38:7 tells us that when God laid the earth's foundation, 'the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy'. Morning star is believed to mean 'archangel' (see Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:14). So we see that by this point, the angels and archangels have been created. We are told nothing about the story of their creation at all, they enter our story as spirits who are referred to but never fully explained. They are the first living things which the Bible shows to have been created by God. We can also see that although angels inhabit a separate dimension of reality to humanity, they can nevertheless inhabit our dimension too in some measure (for the angels to be able to shout and sing for joy at God laying the earth's foundation, they would have to have been able to observe it). So, we can see that the first (recorded) created life that God made was the pan-dimensional angelic race.
There are however no demons at this stage, as the fall of Satan has not yet occurred. Ezekiel 28:13 tells us that Satan was in the garden of Eden before he became evil, and by this stage the garden of Eden had not yet been planted, so he was not yet a fallen angel. Revelation 12:4,9 and John 8:44 show that it was Satan who began the first sinning, and caused other angels to fall, and as he had not yet fallen into evil yet, it can be assumed that no others had either, and so the angels were universally good at this stage.
Genesis 1:11
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
Now we come to the next forms of life to be created after the angels; vegetation, plants and trees. Gen 2:5 states 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground', showing that the plants and trees were created in seed or bulb form, and did not immediately grow. Plants need light and water to grow. They had light, because God and / or the angels were there (it was 'day' without there being any star or sun yet as a light source), but no rain to bring about the growth of the plants, and no man yet either to fetch the required water. Verse 2:6 tells us how God remedied this situation so that the plants would grow; 'streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground'. So, God created the springs. Some of the water which at that time was only in the one great ocean, was routed through the underground to burst forth in springs, which formed streams and rivers (the names of some of these are given in 2:10-14).
Genesis 1:12-13
The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
We see from God's creation of the springs to enable the plants to grow, he was not just waving a magic wand to make them grow, he was setting up the sustainable system of nature which would enable the plants to be properly watered. The text leans toward the assumption that it was this system of springs (and the light from God) which caused the plants to grow. If they were growing by natural means (water and light) then this day had to be long enough for trees to grow and to bear fruit. This indicates that the day was not literal, but figurative, meaning 'era'.
Verse 2:8 states 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden', telling us this in retrospect. 2:9 continues describing Eden, stating that God 'made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.' It doesn't tell us specifically when God planted the garden, so we may therefore make an educated guess. It seems the most likely that here on the third day when the rest of the vegetation was made, He also made His garden. This also fits with the pattern and theme of His creative activity on this day. The planets were settling into fixed forms and shapes, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one of them; earth. Then on earth wild vegetation, plants and trees were springing up on the great continent He had made, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one area; the Garden of Eden. It gives the impression of zooming in to his area of special interest in the universe, then zooming in again even closer to greater detail on the part of that planet which held his special interest. He created great fields of natural process, with small areas of personal design.
The Garden of Eden was an area of joy and privilege for the angels too. When God speaks to Satan in Ezekiel 28, we learn that before he became evil, he walked in Eden. In Ezekiel 28:12-14, God reminds Satan of what he once was;
It is not clear whether the holy mount of God and Eden are the same thing here, nor is it clear what the fiery stones are, but the prophecy goes on to say that when Satan became fallen he was 'expelled' from among the fiery stones, and we see that 'every precious stone' adorned him. Was he a fiery stone? Did he wear these stones as a signal of his rank and station? This could have been a reference to his rank as archangel, from which God cast him out. This theory could be evidenced by Ezekiel 1, where the prophet has a vision of God with four angelic beings directly beneath him, who are described as follows;
'Burning coals of fire' sound like fiery stones don't they? I think, as 'the fiery stones' are referred to nowhere else in scripture, it is certainly at least a possibility that the fiery stones from among which Satan was 'expelled' represented his rank as a very high archangel, quite possibly the same ones which Ezekiel sees directly below God Himself in his vision. Perhaps 'walking among' the fiery stones, meant he was one of them, a member of their order, the lost fifth archangel? He is described in Ezekiel 28 as the 'seal of perfection', which to me implies that he was possibly the greatest of them, second perhaps only to God. Isaiah 14:13 tells us Satan's thoughts which lead to his expulsion from Heaven; 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God'. It can be seen from that verse that he had a throne that he wished to exalt even higher than the prestigious station God had already given him. If he had a throne, possibly he was the 'king' or chief of the 'fiery stones', the living creatures that were adorned with precious stones and shone like fire. The archangels directly beneath God himself.
This being, the un-fallen Satan, whose name the King James Bible renders as 'Lucifer, son of the morning', walked in Eden for a while. We know that after the six days of creation when Satan instigated the fall of Adam and Eve, he was fallen, but we also know that at the time of the planting of Eden, he was not fallen into demonhood because the Bible states that he walked in it as an angel. Therefore at some point after the third day, Satan became evil. Verse 1:31 states that on the sixth day, 'God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.' God made Satan (as an angel of light) and so Satan must be included in this pronouncement over all things made. His fall therefore must have been after the sixth day too. He was therefore around for quite a while as a good guy. Interestingly, this shows that Adam and Eve probably first knew him as an angel of light in Eden, and at the time of their temptation they might not have been aware of his changed nature.
Revelation 12:7-9 describes some of what happened between day 6 and the fall of man:
Jesus remembered seeing him fall, telling his disciples in Luke 10:18 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven'. The reference to lightning here made by Jesus again links back to the possibility that Satan was one of the winged guardian angels which were directly under God, and was their chief. In their description in Isaiah it states 'Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.'
It is therefore a credible hypothesis that at this stage in the third day, Lucifer was the leader and fifth member of the great guardian angels directly under God, and in this form he walked the newly formed Garden of Eden.
Part 1 can be read here
Part 2 can be read here
Quick Recap of days 1 and 2: On the first day God first created matter. He then created moral and visible light, and chose to embody the light, irreversibly. He left and returned, marking the beginning of the second day. In the second day he caused the universe to expand, causing the bodies of matter to form into clumps, and the vacuum of space to exist between them. He caused the gases to emerge from the matter on earth, and to form the atmosphere. He then left, and now returns for the third day.
Genesis 1:9-10
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Here we see what has happened in the second 'night', that is, the time in which God left the universe for a while before returning to bring the dawn of the third day. The planets have begun to settle and the solid matter in them has begun to lay as sediment. At this point, the focus of the story zooms in to focus on the earth specifically. During the second day the planet was suspended in space, and the atmosphere for the earth was established, and now by the dawn of the third day (which can be seen to represent God's return to the universe), the solid matter and liquid in the 'waters' are settling and taking set locations. The solid matter forms into land, and the liquid matter into the oceans and seas. Again we see God's command in the development of the lands, and his intentional involvement in how they developed, not allowing things to just be random but rather guiding them intentionally. He gathers the water under the sky into one place (as opposed to the many different places they are gathered today, post-Noah), which gives the impression of one great vast ocean, and the resultant one great land mass.
We can also see evidence from elsewhere in the Bible of God's direct involvement in the shaping of the earth, rather than purely natural unguided processes being the cause; in Job 38:1-11 God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind, and informs him that God 'laid the earth's foundation', 'marked off it's dimensions', 'stretched a measuring line across it', and 'laid it's cornerstone'. This is poetic language, but it nevertheless gives the clear impression that He was completely and intricately involved in the design of our planet on every level and layer. God set the earth's core in it's place (the foundation), determined the size of the planet (dimensions, measuring line), and laid the first metaphorical brick (the cornerstone), which could be seen as the inner layers of the planet surrounding the core. It was all carefully designed and planned by Him, presumably so that it would provide the specific and exact conditions which would allow earthly living beings to exist.
In Job 38:8-11, God continues to talk to Job about his creation on day 3 (having already discussed days 1 and 2 in the preceding verses), saying;
'Who shut up the sea behind doors...
wrapped it in thick darkness...
when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?'
After the falling of thick darkness (when God left His creation again for a while at the end of the second day), He returned on the third day, and 'set limits for [the sea]', personally establishing and designing the shape of the land and the ocean on earth when he commanded that the seas 'be gathered into one place', telling them ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’.
At this stage in creation we get the first hints of some of what God might have been doing elsewhere, outside of our universe, during the first and second nights. We see the first created life appear, but by the time we have our first glance of it, it is already fully formed and in glory. On day three we first see the angels appear: Job 38:7 tells us that when God laid the earth's foundation, 'the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy'. Morning star is believed to mean 'archangel' (see Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:14). So we see that by this point, the angels and archangels have been created. We are told nothing about the story of their creation at all, they enter our story as spirits who are referred to but never fully explained. They are the first living things which the Bible shows to have been created by God. We can also see that although angels inhabit a separate dimension of reality to humanity, they can nevertheless inhabit our dimension too in some measure (for the angels to be able to shout and sing for joy at God laying the earth's foundation, they would have to have been able to observe it). So, we can see that the first (recorded) created life that God made was the pan-dimensional angelic race.
There are however no demons at this stage, as the fall of Satan has not yet occurred. Ezekiel 28:13 tells us that Satan was in the garden of Eden before he became evil, and by this stage the garden of Eden had not yet been planted, so he was not yet a fallen angel. Revelation 12:4,9 and John 8:44 show that it was Satan who began the first sinning, and caused other angels to fall, and as he had not yet fallen into evil yet, it can be assumed that no others had either, and so the angels were universally good at this stage.
Genesis 1:11
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
Now we come to the next forms of life to be created after the angels; vegetation, plants and trees. Gen 2:5 states 'Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground', showing that the plants and trees were created in seed or bulb form, and did not immediately grow. Plants need light and water to grow. They had light, because God and / or the angels were there (it was 'day' without there being any star or sun yet as a light source), but no rain to bring about the growth of the plants, and no man yet either to fetch the required water. Verse 2:6 tells us how God remedied this situation so that the plants would grow; 'streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground'. So, God created the springs. Some of the water which at that time was only in the one great ocean, was routed through the underground to burst forth in springs, which formed streams and rivers (the names of some of these are given in 2:10-14).
Genesis 1:12-13
The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
We see from God's creation of the springs to enable the plants to grow, he was not just waving a magic wand to make them grow, he was setting up the sustainable system of nature which would enable the plants to be properly watered. The text leans toward the assumption that it was this system of springs (and the light from God) which caused the plants to grow. If they were growing by natural means (water and light) then this day had to be long enough for trees to grow and to bear fruit. This indicates that the day was not literal, but figurative, meaning 'era'.
Verse 2:8 states 'Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden', telling us this in retrospect. 2:9 continues describing Eden, stating that God 'made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.' It doesn't tell us specifically when God planted the garden, so we may therefore make an educated guess. It seems the most likely that here on the third day when the rest of the vegetation was made, He also made His garden. This also fits with the pattern and theme of His creative activity on this day. The planets were settling into fixed forms and shapes, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one of them; earth. Then on earth wild vegetation, plants and trees were springing up on the great continent He had made, but he took particular care, interest and involvement in cultivating one area; the Garden of Eden. It gives the impression of zooming in to his area of special interest in the universe, then zooming in again even closer to greater detail on the part of that planet which held his special interest. He created great fields of natural process, with small areas of personal design.
The Garden of Eden was an area of joy and privilege for the angels too. When God speaks to Satan in Ezekiel 28, we learn that before he became evil, he walked in Eden. In Ezekiel 28:12-14, God reminds Satan of what he once was;
'You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you...
Your settings and mountings were made of gold;
on the day you were created they were prepared.
You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.'
It is not clear whether the holy mount of God and Eden are the same thing here, nor is it clear what the fiery stones are, but the prophecy goes on to say that when Satan became fallen he was 'expelled' from among the fiery stones, and we see that 'every precious stone' adorned him. Was he a fiery stone? Did he wear these stones as a signal of his rank and station? This could have been a reference to his rank as archangel, from which God cast him out. This theory could be evidenced by Ezekiel 1, where the prophet has a vision of God with four angelic beings directly beneath him, who are described as follows;
'The appearance of the living creatures
was like burning coals of fire or like torches.
Fire moved back and forth among the creatures;
it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.'
'Burning coals of fire' sound like fiery stones don't they? I think, as 'the fiery stones' are referred to nowhere else in scripture, it is certainly at least a possibility that the fiery stones from among which Satan was 'expelled' represented his rank as a very high archangel, quite possibly the same ones which Ezekiel sees directly below God Himself in his vision. Perhaps 'walking among' the fiery stones, meant he was one of them, a member of their order, the lost fifth archangel? He is described in Ezekiel 28 as the 'seal of perfection', which to me implies that he was possibly the greatest of them, second perhaps only to God. Isaiah 14:13 tells us Satan's thoughts which lead to his expulsion from Heaven; 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God'. It can be seen from that verse that he had a throne that he wished to exalt even higher than the prestigious station God had already given him. If he had a throne, possibly he was the 'king' or chief of the 'fiery stones', the living creatures that were adorned with precious stones and shone like fire. The archangels directly beneath God himself.
This being, the un-fallen Satan, whose name the King James Bible renders as 'Lucifer, son of the morning', walked in Eden for a while. We know that after the six days of creation when Satan instigated the fall of Adam and Eve, he was fallen, but we also know that at the time of the planting of Eden, he was not fallen into demonhood because the Bible states that he walked in it as an angel. Therefore at some point after the third day, Satan became evil. Verse 1:31 states that on the sixth day, 'God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.' God made Satan (as an angel of light) and so Satan must be included in this pronouncement over all things made. His fall therefore must have been after the sixth day too. He was therefore around for quite a while as a good guy. Interestingly, this shows that Adam and Eve probably first knew him as an angel of light in Eden, and at the time of their temptation they might not have been aware of his changed nature.
Revelation 12:7-9 describes some of what happened between day 6 and the fall of man:
'War broke out in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon,
and the dragon and his angels fought back.
But he was not strong enough,
and they lost their place in heaven.
The great dragon was hurled down—
that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan,
who leads the whole world astray.
He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.'
Jesus remembered seeing him fall, telling his disciples in Luke 10:18 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven'. The reference to lightning here made by Jesus again links back to the possibility that Satan was one of the winged guardian angels which were directly under God, and was their chief. In their description in Isaiah it states 'Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.'
It is therefore a credible hypothesis that at this stage in the third day, Lucifer was the leader and fifth member of the great guardian angels directly under God, and in this form he walked the newly formed Garden of Eden.
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