The first three creative words of God in Genesis are 1) the giving of light (1:3), 2) the creation of an expanse which separates the Upper and Lower Waters (1:6) and 3) the gathering of the dispersed waters and the bringing forth of the land (1:9). In light of the preceding discussions of the development of creation week, the nature of these connections should be evident. The structure of creation week is designed to accentuate the nature of the world as the place in which God will dwell in glory, in and through mankind. The light is shone on the unformed world by the Spirit of heaven and then concealed behind the Upper Waters. Man is begotten of the heavenly Spirit and given to mediate divine light to the world. Both the tabernacle and the temple are inaugurated in a service of consecration that features a great effulgence of divine light and glory (Exodus 40, 1 Kings 8), and the lack of an analogous event in the inauguration of the Second Temple creates an open thread which is only tied up in the arrival of Jesus in that Temple, fulfilling the prophetic promises in Haggai and Malachi that the God of Israel would personally come to visit His Temple. As we have discussed before, the literary recapitulation of creation week in the passage of Israel through the Red Sea suggests that it is the glory of God which gave the light on the first day (Exodus 14:20).
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