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Day Seven: The Great Enthronement of God in His Cosmic Temple: Genesis 2:2
And on the seventh day, God finished his work which he had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. On modern ears, the idea of God “resting” on the seventh day is completely lost. It brings up the absurd dilemma of why God would need “rest”…
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The Garden: The Idea of Sacred Space
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East; and there he put the man he had formed (Gen. 2:8). This grand universe is the cosmic Temple of God! This is the essence of Genesis One. Every inch of it is full of His glory, for He fills all things (Jeremiah 23:23).…
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A Look into the Holy of Holies
And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food … Gen 2:9 It is, therefore, evident that the opinion is false of those who asserted that it made no difference to the truth of the faith what anyone holds about creatures,…
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The Two Trees
… the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Gen. 2:9) Trees tend to be mere plants to us westerners with little or no spiritual symbolism. Not so with the Hebrews, and for that matter, all ancient peoples. Trees always had…
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Binary World of Bright Side/Dark Side
God made the world binary. Everything comes in twos, whether in sets like man/woman, opposites like black/white, or dark side/bright side in positive-negative contrasts. Pagans observed this latter phenomenon and naturally concluded that reality was dualistic, where good and evil always existed alongside each other as equal powers, and are in eternal conflict. Their pantheons…
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In Statu Viae
…for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. Gen. 2:17 As we view Genesis 1 and 2, we find that God made all things that make up His cosmic temple “good,” but not “good” in a finished sort of way. He left the three elements of chaos ─ darkness, the watery…
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Adam’s Original Solitude and Original Union with Eve
It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper to fit him. Gen. 2:18 The most startling implication of this Scripture above is that creation, and even God Himself, is not enough for Adam. Why is this? We conclude with St. John Paul II in his magisterial Theology of…
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The Purpose of Marriage and the Place of Animals
It is not Good that Man should be Alone; I will make him a helper to fit him. Gen. 2:18 The fact that Adam was in original solitude without a helper is repeated twice and acts like “bookends” to the creation and naming of animals (2:18 and 20). The primary meaning is obvious; Adam needs…