Welcome to the Faithful Men website hosted on The Tuinstra’s URL. I (Roger) have had the opportunity to teach adult Sunday School classes and Bible studies for almost 60 years. Before I retired, I seemed to have enough time to post to my blog here quite regularly. For a while, a very short while, I thought I could post once a day like Challies does. But that dream didn’t last a week! Since retiring, I have even less time to write regularly, although I have kept up with my Bible study and teaching responsibilities.
As many of you retired folks can attest, we men often struggle with our goals and purpose in life after retirement. God reminded me of what Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians in Phil. 1:25. Here is my paraphrase: Since God has me still here, I know that I will remain and continue here for the progress and joy of faith in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ.
We are meditating our way through First Peter. Today we are going to think through 1 Peter 1:6-7.
“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
We learned in the previous few verses that our inheritance is reserved and guarded for us in heaven, and we ourselves are protected by the power of God through faith. These are the strong and encouraging promises that cause the joy he writes about in verse 6. But it’s interesting to note that this joy is present even though they are going through difficult trials.
We too are not immune to the trials of life. Some are just hardships that are embedded in life itself, and some may be coming because we are Christians and carry His reproach with us. In spite of the hardships, wherever they come from, we can still rejoice because the promises are so tremendously great.
You might be thinking, “my troubles are so difficult that I have a hard time rejoicing even though God’s promises are powerful and encouraging.” Discouragement is one of the fiery darts of the devil and the defense against those is the shield of faith. The author of a devotional I’ve been reading lately says that we must pick up our shield and use it. What that means to me is that I need to talk to myself as David recorded in Psalm 42, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” Put your faith to work by grabbing the promises of God, meditating on them, and then claiming them once again for yourself. Take the promises in verses 3-5 and dwell on them until your heart begins to rejoice in the surety of God’s power to protect both our inheritance and ourselves until the final day.
In the devotional today I want to move us a little further in our meditation on 1 Peter, this time focusing on verse 5. Here are the key parts of verses 3-4 along with verse 5.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again … to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Last time we learned that a Christian has been born again to an inheritance that is kept and reserved in heaven for us. But we stopped before the end of the sentence. Verse 5 goes on to let us know that not only is our inheritance kept in heaven, but we are kept and protected by the power of God.
We need to stop and think about how much power we’re talking about here. We say God is all-powerful, omnipotent. It is that almighty power that protects us. Do you think there is anything that can overpower God so that our protection would be at risk? I don’t think so!!
How are we protected? Our passage tells us: we are protected* through faith. But it is not a faith in faith. It is faith in the unfailing promises of God who has called us and saved us. The protection through God’s power has a goal, a target. It is for a salvation that is prepared and ready to be revealed. When? In the last time. We don’t know how far away that last time is, but we do know that our salvation, just like our inheritance, is protected and guarded until that day when it is fully revealed when Christ returns.
These are promises that each one of us should take hold of by faith. They bring assurance resulting in our present joy.
*When I think of God’s protection, I think of these words from the hymn Day by Day: “The protection of His child and treasure is a charge that on Himself He laid.” Someone has to protect us and God took that responsibility upon Himself.
How would you react if you found out that someone had left a very large inheritance for you in a safe deposit box at a nearby bank? No one else can get to it but you.
That’s the scenario that is pictured for us in 1 Peter 1:4-5. Last week we saw that God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I mentioned that it is a real hope, not a hope-so hope. The sentence continues into the next couple of verses. We have this hope, but there is a target for it. The hope God gives is leading us somewhere.
Verse 4 tells us that it is leading to an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, already set aside in heaven for us. First of all, this inheritance is incorruptible or imperishable. The inheritance cannot rust or rot or spoil. It remains whole and intact. Secondly, it is undefiled, pure, untainted with any impurities or pollutants. It has no faults in it. And third, it doesn’t fade away. It doesn’t just melt away like the snow that’s been around our house for more than a month. Let your mind ponder those three words that describe the surety of the inheritance God has provided for us through Christ.
Finally, the Bible says it is reserved in heaven for us. The word is a very strong word like “guarded” or “protected,” and it is written in a verb tense that means the guard and protection has already been placed on this inheritance and that protection is still in place to this day. In other words, when we get to heaven, someone isn’t going to have to look around and see if he can find it under a bed somewhere. The inheritance is in the vault, and it is being guarded 24/7 from the moment it was placed there. May God strengthen and encourage your heart this morning as you consider these amazing descriptions of God’s provision for our eternal salvation.
This is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life. And it’s not easy to apply. That’s part of why I keep coming back to it. Grace means a great deal to me, and I see many Christians struggling right here.
What I’m arguing is this: the Sabbath rest of God after creation is a picture—a type—of the kind of rest God is offering you and me today.
And I want to be clear about something right from the beginning. We’re not talking about death. We’re not talking about heaven. We’re talking about a rest that is available right now. Today is a day we can be entering God’s rest. And when tomorrow comes, it will be today again—and the same offer will still be there.
What Do We Mean by “Rest”?
Before we go further, it helps to slow down and ask what we mean by rest.
When we think of rest, we think of things like ceasing activity, relaxing, being restored, letting go of pressure. There’s even a kind of surrender involved. When you lie down for a nap, you’re letting something go. The pressure is off.
That idea—the pressure being off—is important. Because what we’re going to see is that God is offering something deeper than physical rest. He’s offering a rest that reaches into the heart.
The Warning from the Past
The passage we’re working through brings us into Hebrews 3, where the author quotes Psalm 95. And in that psalm, God is looking back to Israel in the wilderness. Those people had seen His works for forty years. And yet God says of them:
“They always go astray in their heart… As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.”
The key issue wasn’t just outward behavior. It was the heart. And specifically, it was unbelief. The author of Hebrews presses that point. He warns:
“Take care… that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”
Notice how those words are tied together—evil and unbelieving. Disobedience and unbelief are not really separate things. They go together. At the root, the sin-issue is that we don’t believe what God has said.
Encouraging One Another—Today
Because of that danger, we’re told to encourage one another.
“Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today.’”
That word “today” keeps coming up. It’s not abstract. It’s immediate. When should we encourage one another? Today. And when tomorrow comes? It will be today again.
This isn’t something we put off. The reason we encourage each other now is so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. There is a real danger, even for believers, of a kind of hardening that comes from not believing God.
And God uses both His Spirit and His people to keep us. Our security isn’t some detached guarantee. It’s something God actively sustains—through His Word and through one another.
The Problem: Hearing Without Believing
The Israelites had good news proclaimed to them. God promised to meet their needs. He promised provision in the wilderness. But the word they heard did not profit them.
Why?
Because it wasn’t united with faith. They heard it—but they didn’t believe it.
And that’s where this becomes very close to home. God says, “I will meet your needs.” But we find ourselves thinking, “I’m not sure He will—not in this situation.” God says He gives peace. And yet we say, “I don’t have peace.” If God gave it and we don’t have it, where did it go? At some point, that raises a question: do we really believe Him?
If we truly believed that God has given peace, then we would live in that peace. The issue comes back again to belief.
Entering the Rest by Faith
The writer of Hebrews makes a remarkable statement:
“We who have believed enter that rest.” Not will enter. Enter. This is present reality. This rest is something believers are meant to experience now. And to help us understand it, the passage reaches all the way back to creation:
“And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.”
That rest of God becomes the model. The author connects it with the rest Israel failed to enter—and then says that rest is still available. How do we know it’s still available? Because the word “today” is still being spoken.
The door has not closed.
There Remains a Rest
This leads to one of the most important statements in the passage: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.”
There remains a rest—for you, right now. Not next week. Not someday. Today.
And this rest is more than stopping activity. It’s something deeper than that. It touches the heart, the inner striving, the pressure we carry.
Resting from Our Works
The passage brings us to this final idea:
“The one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”
That’s the picture. God finished His work—and He rested.
And we are told that there is a way for us, in Christ, to enter into that same kind of rest. Not by ceasing all activity—we still live, work, make decisions, raise families—but by ceasing the inner striving, especially the inner striving to prove yourself to God somehow. The grace of God forgives all sins and declares us righteous. The striving for perfection is over!
Ceasing the pressure.
Ceasing the sense that everything depends on us.
What That Looks Like in Real Life
I’ve been trying to think through what this actually looks like.
You go through your day—running errands, making decisions, dealing with responsibilities. Nothing outward necessarily changes. But inwardly, something is different. You are at rest. You’re no longer carrying everything. You’re no longer striving in the same way. The pressure has been lifted.
That’s not easy. I can tell you from experience—it’s not easy. You face real situations, real concerns, real stress. And there’s something in you that wants to hold on—to keep worrying, to keep managing, to keep carrying it. And yet God says, in effect, “Trust Me.”
And we respond, “But if I don’t carry this, who will?” And the answer is—He will.
There’s that verse about casting your cares on Him. And I’ve come to read it this way: not just that He cares about me, but that He does the caring for me. He carries what I’ve been trying to carry.
That’s the rest being offered.
God finished His work. And in Christ, we are invited into that same kind of rest—to say, in the middle of life, “It’s in His hands.”
And the question that remains is whether we will believe Him enough to enter into it.
*Some articles on this publication or website are adapted from my recorded Bible teaching. I use transcription and editing tools (including AI-assisted editing) to convert spoken lectures into readable written form. The ideas, interpretations, and theological conclusions are my own and come directly from my teaching.
Today we’re going to continue to look at 1 Peter 1:3-5. Here are those verses:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
I find this long sentence fascinating. We were talking about this in our men’s Bible study a couple weeks ago and we noticed that it is full of many prepositions. We joked about how we used to diagram sentences in high school. This one would be a fairly complicated sentence to diagram.
Let me break it up a little bit so that we can get at the meaning. There is a lot here. God has begotten us again. That has to do with the new birth that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about. Look at the verse to see if you can determine the motivation for God giving us a new birth. He did that because of His abundant mercy. God is a God of tremendous mercy. Mercy is receiving something that we don’t deserve, and there is no question that we don’t deserve mercy. We are great sinners — not just before we were saved, but now as well. Sometimes we focus on a few major sins that we don’t commit very often and rate ourselves pretty highly on the obedience side. But just ask yourself, “How many times today have I failed to love God with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength? Your whole heart. And then how many times today have you failed to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself? At least for me, the numbers are staggeringly high. All of those times we failed at this, we were not acting like God. It is ungodly not to love our neighbor as ourselves. That’s why we need a savior, isn’t it. It’s of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed, Lamentations 3:22.
Let’s look at the next little phrase: to a living hope. The whole purpose of God’s giving us the new birth is so that we may have a living hope. There is real hope for the believer. My dad used to say, “It’s not hope-so hope.” Sometimes people ask if we are going to do something and we say, “I hope so.” That kind of hope is tentative and uncertain. This entire passage that we are studying over these weeks gives us rock solid hope, confidence that God is faithful to His promises and has guaranteed the outcome of our faith — the salvation of our souls (1 Peter 1:9).
We’re still in Genesis chapter 1—five weeks in now. It’s been a little slow going, but I wanted to make sure we didn’t rush past the end of the chapter, especially beginning in verse 29, which we didn’t get to last time.
What God Gave for Food
At the end of Genesis 1, we’re told what God provided for food. He says:
“Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.”
So what did Adam receive? Plants. Trees. Fruit. Herbs. Everything growing from the ground. And notably—no animals. We’re not even at the stage of clean versus unclean animals. There simply are no animals given for food at all. Both man and animals were plant-eaters. Verse 30 tells us that every beast and bird was also given green plants for food. That’s hard for us to picture. Lions eating vegetation. No predation. No death in that sense.And this is before the fall, so none of the frustrations we’re used to were present. No weeds. No disease. No fungus ruining crops. No worms in the fruit. Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to.
“Very Good”
Then we come to verse 31:
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”
Up to this point, God repeatedly said things were “good.” But here, at the completion of creation—especially after the creation of man—He says it is “very good.” The Hebrew intensifies it. Not just good—but fully, completely good. Everything is exactly as He intended. important. Creation wasn’t partial. It wasn’t unfinished. It wasn’t “good enough for now.” It was complete, and it pleased Him.
The Seventh Day: What God Did
As we move into Genesis 2:1–3, we’re really still finishing the creation account.
There are four things God does on the seventh day:
He finished His work
He rested
He blessed the day
He sanctified it
That sequence matters.
God Finished
When God finished, He didn’t stop because He ran out of time or energy. He stopped because there was nothing left to do. He had done everything that was necessary to complete His goals.
That’s different from how we experience work. We might stop working at the end of the day, but most of the time it’s not because everything is truly finished. There’s always more to do tomorrow. But when God finished, it was complete. Exactly as He intended. Nothing lacking. Nothing needing revision.
That’s how God works. He finishes what He starts.
God Rested
God rested—not because He was tired—but because the work was complete.
This rest is not inactivity. Later, Jesus makes it clear that God is still working. But He is at rest in the sense that His creative work is finished and fully sufficient.
God Blessed the Day
When God blesses something, He places His approval on it. It’s not a casual acknowledgment—it’s a full affirmation. He sets this day apart as something good for His creation.
God Sanctified It
To sanctify means to make holy—to set apart as special. So the seventh day becomes distinct. Not just another day, but one marked off by God Himself. Later, Jesus would tell us that the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around. Unlike the pagan nations that would eventually live in the surrounding territories, God’s people are distinct. They understand that man should not work sunrise to sunset seven days a week.
“Hosts”: Everything Under His Command
Genesis 2:1 says the heavens and the earth were completed “and all their hosts.”
That word “hosts” is important. It can mean armies, but more broadly it refers to everything under God’s command. The stars, the heavens, all creation—everything exists under His authority. Nothing operates independently. Everything answers to Him.
The Sabbath in Israel
When we move forward to Exodus 20, the Sabbath becomes a command.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
Why? Because God already made it holy. Now Israel is commanded to treat it that way.
They were to rest completely:
No work
No labor from servants
No work from animals
The entire rhythm of life stopped.
And the reason given is creation itself—God rested, so they were to rest. In addition, God told them to keep the Sabbath because they had been a slave in Egypt. There again it pointed to the fact that His people were set apart, different.
Later, in Exodus 31, the Sabbath is described as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel. It wasn’t just a helpful practice—it was part of their covenant relationship with Him.
Before the Law: The Manna
Even before the Ten Commandments, we see a preview of Sabbath in Exodus 16 with the manna. They were to gather daily—but not hoard it. If they tried to store it, it spoiled. Except on the sixth day. On that day, they were to gather double, because no manna would come on the seventh day.
God was already teaching them a rhythm of trust and rest before formally giving the law. God would always make sure that they had enough.
What Happened by the Time of Jesus
By the time we get to the Gospels, the Sabbath had become something very different. The Pharisees had developed extensive rules—thirty-nine categories of prohibited work, each expanded into detailed restrictions. Simple actions—like picking grain, tying knots, carrying small items, or even writing a couple of letters—could be considered violations. The focus had shifted from the meaning of the Sabbath to the regulation of behavior.
Jesus and the Sabbath
In Mark 2, Jesus’ disciples pick grain on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees object.
Jesus responds with two key statements:
“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”
“The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
That reframes everything. The Sabbath exists for human good—not as a burden. And Jesus, as Lord of the Sabbath, has authority over how it is understood and applied.In another instance (Mark 3), Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath and confronts the question directly:
“Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?”
The issue is no longer technical compliance—it’s the heart and purpose behind the command.
The New Testament Perspective
When we come to Romans 14, Paul addresses how believers treat days.
“One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.”
This is a shift. Under the new covenant, Sabbath-keeping as a legal requirement is no longer binding in the same way it was for Israel. Some believers set aside a particular day with special focus on the Lord. Others treat all days alike. Both can be done in a way that honors God.
The Meaning That Remains
Even though the commandment structure changes, the meaning of the Sabbath does not disappear.
God rested.
And He invites us into that rest.
That’s the deeper reality.
Not merely setting aside a day—but entering into a way of living where we trust God, where we are not constantly striving, where we rest in His completed work. That doesn’t mean inactivity. God Himself is still working. But it does mean confidence. Peace. Trust. And that’s something we struggle with.
We go through seasons where life feels like constant striving—pressure, confusion, responsibility. And in the middle of that, God says: enter My rest.
That’s not easy. It’s something we have to learn.
As Scripture says, we are to “strive to enter that rest.”
There’s effort involved—not in working more, but in learning how to rest in Him.
Living It Out
Even practically, there is wisdom in stepping back. Not as a legal requirement—but as something good for us.
We don’t need to live seven days a week at full speed. There is value in setting time aside—time focused on God, time that is not driven by work.
Some treat Sunday that way very intentionally. Others don’t structure it the same way. But the principle remains: we were not made for endless striving. We were made to rest in God.
And learning how to do that—really do that—is something we grow into over time.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Let’s start out with this — Blessed be the God and Father. What does it mean that God is blessed? Certainly, there is nothing we can do that adds to God’s situation to make Him happier, better off or more complete. That might be what it means when we are blessed by God, but God is totally complete in and of himself. I think this phrase is a way we human beings can express our praise and adoration and thankfulness for who God is and for all He has done. When we say, “Bless God!” we are thanking and praising God.
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — I find that sometimes I read right over a phrase like this, wanting to get to the “meat” of the passage, but it is important to think about what Peter is saying here. He is making sure we understand who Jesus is. Remember, Peter is the guy who denied that he even knew Jesus. Now he is acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is Lord, and His father is the God who is actually who we are actually praying to. He is the one who accomplishes all that the rest of this passage promises. And remember, this is the same Father we pray to when we pray, “Our Father who is in heaven….” That makes us brothers of Christ because the scripture says, “He is not ashamed to call them brothers” (Hebrews 2:11).
I think we’ll wrap this short devotional at this point. There really is a lot to meditate on this section. Sometimes we just need to slow down and pay attention.
For the next weeks I would like to draw some meditations from the book of First Peter. I have decided to use the books that Peter wrote to help me deepen my understanding of Jesus and the gospel since Peter followed Jesus around for so many years. These posts will give you the opportunity to think about Peter’s message along with me over the next several months.
Today let’s look at 1 Peter 1:1-2: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.”
Let me just give you a few quick thoughts to whet your appetite to study the passage more thoroughly:
My first thought is to remember who wrote this. It was Jesus’s disciple Peter who had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, often speaking before thinking. But now he is a leader in the church and reaching out to scattered Christians all throughout Asia Minor.
Notice that Peter refers to these people, along with all other believers as chosen by God long ago according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. My purpose here is not to get into a big debate about how all of this works, but it is interesting that God the Father, who is all-wise and all-knowing, chose us to serve and follow Him. Whatever this means, and however it works, it is an amazing thought! But the next section is where I really want us to focus. All of this takes place through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
What does sanctification of the Spirit mean? It means that the Spirit of God sets us apart for God’s glory and His service. We once were part of the world system and walked according to the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2). But now, we have been set apart for God’s glory by the Holy Spirit. That’s an amazing thought to me.
The second half of the phrase tells us the purpose of this setting apart: It is for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That means that God’s intention and goal is to make us obedient followers who have been cleansed and forgiven through the blood of Jesus. Putting this all together, you could say the Holy Spirit sets us apart to be cleansed by Jesus’s blood resulting in an obedient life. This is what the Christian life is all about. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul, in Romans 16, speaks of the mystery “made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, for obedience to the faith (Rom 16:25-26). That’s God’s goal, isn’t it? Obedient followers?
One of the things that has been on my mind the last couple of weeks is how we handle the promises of God. We read them, we believe them, we might even memorize them—but sometimes they just sit there as facts. True facts, important facts, even encouraging facts—but still somewhat distant.
I’ve been trying to change that in my own thinking.
Instead of simply acknowledging a promise, I’ve been trying to take it in personally. When the Bible says, “God never leaves us nor forsakes us,” I want to stop and think, God never leaves me. Not just generally true—true in my life, right now. When He promises to meet every need, I want to hear that as something directed toward me, not just something I agree with in theory.
As we read Scripture, we’re not just reading religious material. We are reading the word from God. That’s what Paul commended in 1 Thessalonians 2:13—that they received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God. That’s how I want to approach passages like Psalm 33.
Seeing the World Through Psalm 33
In Psalm 33, we read statements that are easy to pass over, but they’re meant to shape the way we see reality.
“The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.”
Do I actually believe that? Does it look that way to me as I go through the day? Or do I mostly notice what’s wrong—what’s lacking, what’s frustrating, what hasn’t gone the way I wanted?
God says the earth is full—full to the brim—of His goodness.
The psalm goes on to remind us that by the word of the Lord the heavens were made. He spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. And then it says something that I find especially encouraging: He brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.
All the plans, all the discussions, all the decisions that dominate the news—God is not threatened by any of it. He sees it all, and He rules over it all. His counsel stands forever.
That’s meant to steady us.
The Pattern of Creation
As we come back to Genesis 1, it’s helpful to review what we’ve seen. And one of the things that stands out is the structure of the six days of creation.
On day one, God creates light. Then on day four, He creates the sun, moon, and stars to govern that light.
On day two, He separates the waters and forms what the Hebrew calls the raia—the expanse or space. Then on day five, He fills those realms with birds and fish.
On day three, dry land appears, along with vegetation. And on day six, He fills the land with animals and mankind.
There’s a kind of correspondence there—day one with day four, day two with day five, day three with day six. It’s orderly, but there’s also something almost poetic about it. God is not only purposeful in what He creates; there is a structure and beauty to how He does it.
Appointed Times
When God made the sun, moon, and stars, one of their purposes was to mark what the text calls “appointed times.” The Hebrew word is moed—a word used for set meeting times.
This wasn’t just about seasons or agriculture. It also relates to the rhythm of worship—Sabbaths, feasts, gatherings. These heavenly bodies were given, in part, to structure time around meeting with God.
And it’s interesting to note that three days after their creation—on day seven—we arrive at the Sabbath, the appointed day of rest.
“Let Us Make Man”
When we come to the creation of man, we read, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”
There’s a plurality there—“Let us… our image.” We’re hearing something of the Trinity in that statement.
And then we’re told that man is made in the image of God.
Image and Likeness
The word “image” carries the idea of a figure, a representation—even something like a statue. Not in the sense of a false god, but in the basic sense of a visible representation of something.
God made us as His image—His representatives in creation.
Then there’s the word “likeness,” which has the idea of form or pattern—something modeled after another. So we’re not just general representations; we are shaped in a way that reflects Him.
God is spirit, and we are not. We have physical bodies. But there is something about us—our nature, our capacities—that reflects Him.
The Perfect Image
In the New Testament, we’re told that Christ is the image of the invisible God.
That’s significant. Adam was made in the image of God, but he fell. The image was not lost, but it was marred. There is now sin, weakness, corruption.
Christ, however, is the perfect image. Where Adam failed, Christ did not. He is the true and flawless representation of God.
A Thought on Idols
Something that struck me recently is this: God tells His people not to make graven images. And yet, in a sense, He has already made an image—mankind.
He created the true representation. There’s no need for us to create substitutes and bow down to them. That’s a distortion of what He has already done.
Male and Female
Genesis says, “In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
That’s an important statement. The image of God is reflected in mankind as male and female. Both together are part of that design. We’ll explore that more when we come to Genesis 2, where the creation of Eve is described in more detail.
The First Commands
God then gives mankind their first instructions.
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth.”
The intention is clear: humanity is to spread, to fill the earth. Not to remain confined, but to extend outward.
Then He says, “subdue it.”
That word can sound harsh to us, but this is before the fall. There are no weeds, no chaos in the sense we experience now. So what does it mean?
It has the idea of bringing under order—organizing, shaping, managing what God has made.
There is work to be done, even in a perfect world.
Dominion Under God
God also says that man is to have dominion. That’s a kingly term. It speaks of rule, authority.
But we need to understand this correctly. God is the King. He rules over everything. What He does here is place humanity under Him as sub-rulers—managers, stewards, representatives of His authority in creation.
You might think of it as a kind of structure: God at the top, and under Him, human beings spread across the earth, exercising rule in their appointed places.
A Living Picture
I’ve often thought about this in terms of something very practical.
When a Christian man and woman marry and start a home, they’re not just forming a household. They are establishing a place where God’s design is being lived out. In their neighborhood—maybe just a few houses down—there is now a home that reflects something different.
The way they treat one another, the way they raise their children, the way they live—it becomes a visible expression of what it means to live under God’s rule.
That’s part of what it means to bear His image.
Ordering the World
Even in the beginning, part of man’s role was to bring order.
You can imagine Adam taking what God had made—already good, already beautiful—and arranging it, shaping it, organizing it in new ways. Not correcting something broken, but developing and structuring what was there.
That’s part of subduing the earth.
The Weight of Being an Image Bearer
Every human being is made in the image of God.
Even in a fallen world, that remains true. And that has implications. It affects how we treat people, how we speak about them, how we pursue justice.
We are not free to take vengeance into our own hands. Justice is meant to reflect God’s character, not our impulses.
Learning to Rule
The New Testament tells us that believers will one day rule and reign with Christ.
And that sheds light on something else. In this life, we are learning. Even in the ordinary conflicts of life—disagreements, misunderstandings—we are being trained.
Paul rebukes believers for taking their disputes to court and asks, in effect, “Don’t you know you will judge angels?”
That’s a remarkable statement. It means that what we are doing now is preparation. This is practice.
Creation Calls Us to Praise
We ended by reading Psalm 148, which calls all of creation to praise the Lord.
The sun, the moon, the stars, the weather, the animals, the nations—everything is fulfilling His word.
Even the stormy wind does exactly what He commands.
And when you think about that, even in a world that has been affected by sin, there is still so much beauty. The earth is still full of His goodness.
That ought to move us to praise.
And as we go through our days, whatever our routines may be, the call is to take God’s word as what it truly is—the truth from God—and to live in light of it.
Before moving forward in the creation account, it helps to review where we have been. Last time we walked through the first four days of Genesis 1.
On the first day God created light. “Let there be light.” And there was light.
On the second day God made a separation. He separated the waters below from the waters above and created the expanse between them. Some Bible versions call it an expanse, while older translations use the word firmament. I mentioned the Hebrew word raka last time. Ancient people didn’t think of this simply as empty space. They thought of it as the sky itself—the place where the sun, moon, stars, and planets were set.
Then on day three there was another separation. Nothing entirely new was created at first. God separated the waters from the land so that dry ground appeared. The dry land he called earth, and the gathered waters he called seas.
But something else happened on that third day. God said, “Let the earth sprout,” and plants began to grow. Vegetation appeared with seed in it so that it would reproduce.
That raises the question of kinds. The text says plants reproduce “after their kind.” When we talked about that, I mentioned that I’m comfortable with the idea that “kind” does not necessarily mean every modern species as we categorize them. There may have been one kind of oak or one kind of maple, and over time there was diversity within that kind. When we eventually talk about animals and Noah’s ark, I don’t think Noah necessarily had to bring every kind of dog—cocker spaniels, German shepherds, and so on. There could have been a basic dog kind from which those variations came. I’m comfortable with that understanding, though if someone isn’t, that’s okay too.
Then we came to day four.
The Lights in the Expanse
On the fourth day God placed lights in the expanse of the heavens.
Light itself had already been created on day one. That sometimes makes people stop and think. How do you have light without the sun, moon, or stars? But light itself is a real thing. In the original creation, God first created light, and then later he made the things that would hold or produce that light.
Sometimes when we explain it to children, we say that God made the sun and the stars as containers for light. The light existed, and then God made the things that would bear it.
Genesis says these lights were given several tasks.
First, they were to separate the light from the darkness.
Second, they were given as signs.
Third, they were for seasons, and for days and years.
And finally, they were to give light on the earth.
It’s interesting that giving light on the earth is listed last. When we think about the sun, we usually think that providing light is its main purpose. But in the biblical description, that appears at the end of the list.
The word translated “seasons” is especially important. When we read it, we usually think of the agricultural seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter. But the Hebrew word carries a deeper meaning. It refers to appointed times.
These are the appointed times for gatherings.
Later in the Old Testament the Hebrew people had their new moons, Sabbaths, and festivals—Passover, the Day of Atonement, and the rest. All of those observances were guided by the positions of the sun and moon. They didn’t have clocks or wall calendars like we do. Nobody could walk over to the kitchen wall and check what day or month it was. They had to keep track of time by watching the sky.
Even today the Jewish calendar is complicated because it is based on the lunar cycle. A lunar month is about twenty-nine and a half days. If every month followed that pattern, eventually the calendar would drift out of sync with the seasons. So they occasionally add a leap month. Not every year, but some years. That keeps the festivals tied to the proper seasons.
At one point in history the wider world had to correct its calendar as well. Things had drifted so far that they suddenly skipped a number of days in order to bring everything back into alignment. People who had birthdays during those missing days simply lost them that year.
All of that helps us see what Genesis is saying. God placed the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens not only to give light and regulate the agricultural seasons, but also to mark the appointed times when his people would gather.
When I read that, it tells me something about God’s interests even in the creation week. In the middle of these seven days, God is already providing for the gatherings of his people. Later in the biblical story there would be Israel with its festivals, and eventually the gatherings of believers who worship the true God. The heavens themselves help mark those appointed times.
So when we read the word seasons, it’s helpful not to limit it in our minds to weather patterns. It also includes those special, appointed times for gathering.
The Fifth Day: Life in Water and Sky
That brings us to the fifth day.
Genesis 1:20 says:
“Then God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the expanse of the heavens.’ And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarmed after their kind and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God blessed them saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.”
On this day God created the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air.
One phrase that caught my attention in my translation was “great sea monsters.” I hadn’t thought much about that before, so I looked into the Hebrew word used there. It refers to large sea creatures—things we might think of as dragons, crocodiles, whales, and other massive creatures of the deep.
Then you also have the rest of the creatures that swarm in the waters—fish and everything else that lives there.
When you start thinking about the oceans, you realize how much life there is that we have never even seen. There are creatures living at depths we cannot easily reach. My grandson was telling me about organisms that live near volcanic vents on the ocean floor and somehow get their energy from sulfur compounds coming out of those vents. I had never even heard about creatures like that before.
It makes you wonder how many things exist down there that nobody has ever seen. The ocean is deep enough that there may be countless forms of life we still haven’t discovered. God made them all, and I sometimes think he must delight in them.
Someday when human beings discover more of those things, we will probably stand back and say again how remarkable the Creator is. Perhaps when He created them, God thought, “I can’t wait until they first get their eyes on this!”
The Blessing on the Creatures
There is another detail in this passage that is easy to miss.
After creating the creatures of the sea and the birds of the air, verse 22 says, “God blessed them.” He said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
Later we will see God say something very similar to human beings. But humans are rational creatures. We can think about what it means to be fruitful and multiply.
What does it mean when God says that to animals? He is speaking to creatures that don’t reason or reflect the way we do. Yet the text still says he blessed them.
One way to understand that blessing is that God created them with the instinct to reproduce. The blessing guarantees the continuation of their existence. If God had created all these living creatures but withheld that blessing, they would disappear in a single generation.
Instead, the blessing means that one generation follows another. Creatures reproduce after their kind, and life continues.
Some things have gone extinct over time, but in general the pattern remains: life reproduces life after its own kind. The blessing God spoke at creation ensured that the world he made would continue to be filled with living creatures.
And that is exactly what we see.
*Some articles on this publication or website are adapted from my recorded Bible teaching. I use transcription and editing tools (including AI-assisted editing) to convert spoken lectures into readable written form. The ideas, interpretations, and theological conclusions are my own and come directly from my teaching.
