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Video
Summary
In this lesson we will continue our study on how each of the Genesis days of re-creation correspond to one millennial day of human history. Here we are covering days five and six, which deal exclusively with filling. In day five of re-creation, God creates aquatic life and bird life, filling the waters and the sky. In day six of re-creation, God creates land animals, and finally, He creates Man (a type of Christ as rightful ruler of the earth). The creation of man at the end of the sixth day is also symbolic of the completion of God’s family which will occur at the end of the sixth millennial day, as willing human beings replace fallen angels.
In millennial day five, the gospel is taken to the Gentiles for the first time, leading to an explosion in numbers of the family of God on Earth (corresponding to God’s creation of aquatic and bird life, a quantum leap in the re-filling of the once empty world). The fifth millennial day is also characterized by the collection and distribution of the holy scriptures into one, complete Bible, and the emergence of the infrastructure necessary for studying and teaching it in its original languages. In millennial day six, the spread of the gospel across the globe has led to the re-filling of God’s family with people from nearly every nation and tongue, creating the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ which extends to even the ends of the earth (corresponding to God’s creation of terrestrial life, which finally spread creature life to every part of the world, whether the sea, sky, and land). The gospel’s global worldwide spread will eventually reach its conclusion at the end of millennial day six, with the belief of the very last replacement members of the family of God, at which point Jesus Christ will return.
Content
Audio clip from Ichthys
The third pair of Genesis days of re-creation are clearly paired in that they alone witness acts of filling exclusively: the filling of the waters with aquatic life and the sky with birds (Day 5); the filling of the earth with terrestrial creatures (Day 6), culminating in the creation of Man (a type of Christ as rightful ruler of the earth, and here, symbolic of the completion of the replenishment of the family of God at the end of the sixth millennial day). The third pair of days completes the re-filling of the empty world through the creation of aquatic and terrestrial life. This completion of the process of re-filling the empty world is analogous to the completion of God’s enlistment of believers during the fifth and sixth millennial days as replacements for the followers of Satan.
Day #5 – Church age millennium #1:
Just as the creation of aquatic and bird life on that fifth Genesis day represented a quantum leap in the re-filling of the empty world, so the first Church age millennium witnessed a veritable explosion in the numbers of the family of God on earth as the gospel was taken in earnest to the gentiles for the first time. The fifth millennial day is characterized by the collection and distribution of the holy scriptures into one, complete Bible, and the emergence of an infra-structure necessary for studying and teaching it in its original languages: i.e., the creation of a Christian scholastic system, the development of the codex form (that is, the invention of the book, credited by many scholars to early Christians), the production of translations in many languages (resulting from the first two events), and the growth of literacy (making possible the reading of the Word of God by more than just the educated few). These events had the effect of actually expanding the evangelical explosion of faith begun by the apostles in the first generation of the Church, in spite of the fact that many of the Spirit’s miraculous gifts did not continue beyond that inaugural era (e.g., apostleship, tongues, prophecy, healing). The Spirit’s ministry continued, however, as it does today, and thus in the groundswell of faith that follows in both of the Church age’s millennial days we have historical proof that the powerful combination of the Spirit of God (given on the day of Pentecost) and the Word of God (made available to teachers through the establishment of education and wide availability of the Hebrew and Greek originals, and generally available to all Christians through translations) is more dynamic and effective than the most impressive miracles and the most exotic spiritual gifts.
Day #6 – Church age millennium #2:
Just as the creation of terrestrial life on that sixth Genesis day completed the re-filling of the empty world (culminating in the creation of Man), so the sixth millennial day has seen the creation of the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ. With the establishment of the means for teachers to study God’s Word in the proper way (education in the original languages of scripture, training in theology, and in the historical and cultural background of the Bible), and with the growing availability of the Bible in an abundance of languages, the gospel message has penetrated to nearly every clime and place. This process will continue until with the universal availability of the gospel and the final enlistment of the last replacement members of the family of God the end will come with the return of Jesus Christ (Matt.24:14; Rev.10:1-7; 14:6-7).
Filling:
With the proliferation of the gospel to the gentiles (through the agency of Israel), the third pair of millennial days completes the process of bringing in the promised and prophesied great expansion of the family of God, reaching its completion just prior to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. For that the gentiles would one day turn to the Lord in unprecedented number is a matter about which the Hebrew scriptures give clear prophetic indications (cf. Acts 9:15; 15:13-19; Rom.9:1 - 11:36; 15:15-16), a fact that the divinely inspired writers of the New Testament understood very well:
As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you [Abraham], and you shall become the father of a multitude of nations. (cf. Romans 4:17)
And Abraham shall certainly become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. (cf. Galatians 3:8)
Rejoice, O gentiles, with His people. (cf. Romans 15:10)
Therefore, O Lord, I shall praise You among the gentiles. (cf. Romans 15:9)
All the nations (i.e., gentiles) which You have made will come before You and will worship You, O Lord, and they will give glory to your Name. (cf. Revelation 15:4)
Praise the Lord, all you gentiles. Laud Him all you peoples. (cf. Romans 15:11)
And on that day the Root of Jesse shall appear, even the One who will stand as a sign for the peoples. After Him shall the gentiles seek, and His resting place shall be glorious. (cf. Romans 15:12)
Thus He shall sprinkle [with salvation] many gentile [nation]s. Kings will shut their mouths at [the sight of] Him. For those [gentiles] who had not been told shall see, and those [gentiles] who had not understood shall hear. (cf. Romans 15:21)
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations (i.e., gentiles). (cf. Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46)
“And I shall say to them who were not My people, ‘You are My people’, and they shall say, ‘You are our God.’” (cf. Rom.9:25)
“On that day I shall stand David’s fallen booth back up, and repair its holes and everything else which has been trampled down I shall [also] stand up. And I shall rebuild it as in days of old, so that the remnant of mankind and all the gentile [nation]s which are called by My name may seek Him, declares the Lord who is going to accomplish this.” (cf. Acts 15:16-17)
Therefore, however large the first major installment of Christ’s bride (i.e., the believing Israelites from Abraham to Christ), in numerical terms it cannot compare to the massive wave of those saved that has followed in the wake of the advent and sacrifice of Him who won that salvation. And it is certainly appropriate, moreover, for the Savior of us all, the One for whom and through whom the world and human history exist, the One who is the key to and cornerstone of history and through whom we have been given the inestimable privilege of becoming sons of the Living God, to have the flood tide of those human beings who would be saved (in replacement of those fallen angels who would not) follow in the train of His life and death of sacrifice on our behalf, and in the train of the resurrection that assures our hope of eternal life (cf. Jn.1:16; Gal.4:4):
For it was fitting for [the Father] to make complete through sufferings Him on whose account all things exist and through whom all things exist, namely, the Captain of their salvation, even Him who has led many sons to glory, [our Lord Jesus Christ]. For the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified belong to One [Father], and for this reason [Christ] is not ashamed to call them His brothers, as He says: “I will proclaim Your name to My brothers. In the midst of the assembly I shall praise you.” and elsewhere, “I [too] shall put My confidence in Him (i.e., the Father).” and elsewhere, “Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.”
Thus the Church age completes what the Jewish age began and what the Gentile age delineated in principle, namely, the systematic, one for one replacement of rebellious fallen angels with faithful human beings in union with the God-Man, Jesus Christ. This can also be seen from the scriptural analogy of the holy building, established on the essential Cornerstone, Jesus Christ (Is.28:16; Matt.16:18 [Christ, not Peter, is the Rock]; Rom.9:33; Eph.2:21; 1Pet.2:4-7):
- the Gentile age believers, a series of prototype men of righteousness, are analogous to the structure’s blueprint (Heb.11:4-7).
- the Jewish age believers, the line of Christ and the authors of the Holy Scriptures, are the structure’s foundation (Eph.2:20).
- the Church age believers, the great influx of the faithful, Jews and gentiles alike, are the “living stones” who comprise the edifice proper (1Cor.3:10-17; Eph.2:22; Heb.3:6; 1Pet.2:5).
All are fully and equally members of Christ’s body, Christ’s assembly, and God’s house (1Tim.3:15; Heb.3:6), and when the last trumpet blows and our Lord returns, the entire “structure” will be united in resurrection to join Him in His triumphal return (1Cor.15:50-54; 1Thes.4:13-17; 1Jn.3:2; Rev.19:14). It is wrong to think, therefore, that the early gentiles, the Jews, and the Church are somehow different in any important way. Together, we are all one body in Christ, for He has broken down the barrier that separated us:
So remember that you were once gentiles in the flesh, called “un-circumcised” by those of the so-called circumcision which is fleshly and man-made. Remember that you were without Christ, alienated from the polity of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, for He has made both [Jews and gentiles] one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, that is, the enmity between us, by discharging the Law of the commandments and its requirements with His [own] body, so that He might re-create the two into one new Man by making [this] peace, and might reconcile both in one Body to God through His cross, having by means of it abolished the enmity [between God and mankind]. For when He had come [1st advent], He proclaimed the gospel of peace to you who were far away [from God], and peace to those who were near. For it is through Him that we both have our access to the Father by means of one Spirit. So then, you are no longer strangers and hangers-on, but you are fellow citizens and fellow members of the household of God, established upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Himself the cornerstone, in whom the entire structure is in the process of being riveted together and is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you too are being built up into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.
Summary points
In the last lesson we discussed how the seven Genesis days of re-creation (aligned with the seven millennial days of human history) progress from separation to filling: Days one and two started out as separation only; days three and four had both separation and filling (transitioning from separation first on day three to filling first on day four); and now we come to days five and six, which are filling only.
Recall that separation represents God’s provisioning of the essential spiritual groundwork for human free-will-faith, while filling represents God’s adoption of believers into His eternal family, replacing Satan and the fallen angels.
Day #5 – Church age millennium #1:
Filling in day five:
- Genesis day of re-creation: Creation of aquatic and bird life.
- Millennial day of human history: The gospel is taken to the Gentiles for the first time, leading to an explosion in numbers of the family of God on Earth.
The creation of aquatic and bird life on the fifth Genesis day of re-creation represented a quantum leap in the re-filling of the once empty world. In the same way, the explosion of believers that resulted from the gospel message spreading to the Gentiles represented a similar jump in scale with regards to the re-filling God’s eternal family.
The fifth millennial day of human history was also characterized by the collection and distribution of the holy scriptures into one, complete Bible, and the emergence of the infrastructure necessary for studying and teaching it in its original languages:
- The creation of a Christian scholastic system generally.
- The development of the codex form (i.e., the invention of the book, credited by many scholars to early Christians).
- The production of translations in many languages (resulting from the first two events).
- The growth of literacy (making possible the reading of the Word of God by more than just the educated few).
These things together made it possible for an evangelical explosion of faith to occur even after some of the Spirit’s miraculous gifts faded after the transitional era of the Apostles (such as the spiritual gift of Apostleship itself, as well as other “signal and sign gifts” like tongues, prophecy, and healing).
In this we can see that together the combination of the indwelling Spirit of God (given on the day of Pentecost) and the Word of God (made available in many different forms, and explained by gifted Bible teachers) form a dynamic and effective framework for spiritual growth that came to eclipse even the most impressive miracles and the most exotic spiritual gifts.
Day #6 – Church age millennium #2:
Filling in day six:
- Genesis day of re-creation: Creation of terrestrial life.
- Millennial day of human history: The creation of the full worldwide Church of Jesus Christ, extending even to the ends of the Earth.
The central parallel here is that just as God’s re-filling of the land with terrestrial life in the sixth day of Genesis re-creation led to creature life finally spreading all across the world (sky, sea, and now land), so too in the sixth millennial day of human history, wherein the spread of the gospel across the globe has to led to a re-filling of God’s family with believers from nearly every nation and tongue.
If the fifth millennial day of human history had the initial development of a system for the gospel to spread through the development of the codex format and some initial translation efforts localized around the Mediterranean and close-by environs (and so on), then the sixth millennial day of human history has seen the expansion of the gospel to a truly worldwide scale. With the the establishment of the means for teachers to study God’s Word in the proper way (education in the original languages of scripture, training in theology, and in the historical and cultural background of the Bible), and with the growing availability of the Bible in an abundance of languages, the gospel message has penetrated to nearly every clime and place.
This process of the gospel’s global worldwide spread will eventually reach its conclusion with the belief of the very last replacement members of the family of God, at which point Jesus Christ will return (Matt.24:14; Rev.10:1-7; 14:6-7).
Filling:
With the proliferation of the gospel to the Gentiles (through the agency of Israel), the third pair of millennial days completes the process of bringing in the promised and prophesied great expansion of the family of God, reaching its completion just prior to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.
That the Gentiles would one day turn to the Lord in unprecedented number is a matter about which the Hebrew scriptures give clear prophetic indications (cf. Acts 9:15; 15:13-19; Rom.9:1-11:36; 15:15-16), a fact that the divinely inspired writers of the New Testament understood very well. We can see this clearly by lining up certain Old Testament passages with the New Testament passages that quote them for the purpose of explaining God’s gathering of the Gentiles to Himself. Compare:
- Genesis 17:4 and Romans 4:17
- Genesis 18:18 and Galatians 3:8
- Deuteronomy 32:43 and Romans 15:10
- Psalm 18:49 and Romans 15:9
- Psalm 86:9 and Revelation 15:4
- Psalm 117:1 and Romans 15:11
- Isaiah 11:10 and Romans 15:12
- Isaiah 52:15 and Romans 15:21
- Isaiah 56:7b and Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46
- Hosea 2:23b and Romans 9:25
- Amos 9:11-12 and Acts 15:16-17
However large the first major installment of Christ’s bride (i.e., the believing Israelites from Abraham to Christ), in numerical terms it cannot compare to the massive wave of those saved that has followed in the wake of the advent and sacrifice of Him who won that salvation for us: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is in fact quite appropriate to have the flood-tide of those human beings who would be saved (in replacement of those fallen angels who would not) follow in the train of His life and death of sacrifice on our behalf.
Thus the Church age completes what the Jewish age began and what the Gentile age delineated in principle, namely, the systematic, one for one replacement of rebellious fallen angels with faithful human beings in union with the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
That God intended the Church to stand on the framework of that which came before can be clearly seen from the scriptural analogy of the holy building, established on the essential Cornerstone, Jesus Christ (Is.28:16; Matt.16:18 [Christ, not Peter, is the Rock]; Rom.9:33; Eph.2:21; 1Pet.2:4-7):
- The Gentile age believers, a series of prototype men of righteousness, are analogous to the structure’s blueprint (Heb.11:4-7).
- The Jewish age believers, the line of Christ and the authors of the Holy Scriptures, are the structure’s foundation (Eph.2:20).
- The Church age believers, the great influx of the faithful, Jews and Gentiles alike, are the “living stones” who comprise the edifice proper (1Cor.3:10-17; Eph.2:22; Heb.3:6; 1Pet.2:5).
All are fully and equally members of Christ’s body, Christ’s assembly, and God’s house (1Tim.3:15; Heb.3:6), and when the last trumpet blows and our Lord returns, the entire “structure” will be united in resurrection to join Him in His triumphal return (1Cor.15:50-54; 1Thes.4:13-17; 1Jn.3:2; Rev.19:14). It is wrong to think, therefore, that the early Gentiles, the Jews, and the Church are somehow different in any important way. Together, we are all one body in Christ, for He has broken down the barrier that separated us:
So remember that you were once gentiles in the flesh, called “un-circumcised” by those of the so-called circumcision which is fleshly and man-made. Remember that you were without Christ, alienated from the polity of Israel and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, for He has made both [Jews and gentiles] one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition, that is, the enmity between us, by discharging the Law of the commandments and its requirements with His [own] body, so that He might re-create the two into one new Man by making [this] peace, and might reconcile both in one Body to God through His cross, having by means of it abolished the enmity [between God and mankind]. For when He had come [1st advent], He proclaimed the gospel of peace to you who were far away [from God], and peace to those who were near. For it is through Him that we both have our access to the Father by means of one Spirit. So then, you are no longer strangers and hangers-on, but you are fellow citizens and fellow members of the household of God, established upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Himself the cornerstone, in whom the entire structure is in the process of being riveted together and is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you too are being built up into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit.
Follow-on topics
Something that I think it is worth spending a bit more time addressing is the notion that God is in fact replacing the fallen angels with believing humans. The Bible never states this directly, so where does Dr. Luginbill get it from?
It is sort of mentioned off-handedly here in this section of SR5, and as I see things, that is mostly because Dr. Luginbill addresses it in-depth earlier in the Satanic Rebellion series in SR3. I am going to reproduce the entire section that discusses this, since I think it is pretty relevant for us here:
Man created to replace Satan and his angels:
The creation of Man following the Genesis Gap judgment (see Part 2, our previous study) is a clear indication that the two events are intimately related. For God to create a new species of creature, possessing along with the angels both spirituality and free will, and then to deposit them on the very scene of Satan’s rebellious activity was no subtle indication that at least one of God’s purposes for mankind would be the replacement of the devil and his evil legions. This must have been abundantly and immediately clear to Satan. For here was a new moral creature who (left to his own devices) might just do what he and his would not: obey God’s will without rebelling against Him. <!– — –>As soon as the requisite population was reached through procreation, Satan and company could be removed, wholeness and completeness having thus been restored. Judgment, after all, had already been pronounced (Job 4:18; Matt.25:41; Jn.16:11). What could remain except for a one-for-one replacement of fallen angels with human beings, once our numbers became sufficient? With judgment set, execution of God’s sentence against the devil would be inevitable if not immediate (cf. Rev.20:10):
And it will come to pass on that day (i.e., the “day of the Lord”), that the Lord will punish the host of heaven above (i.e., the devil and his angels), and the kings of the earth below (i.e., those who have opposed His Christ), and they will be gathered together, bound in a dungeon, jailed and imprisoned. And after many days they will be punished.
Therefore, with the creation of Man, a creature capable of procreation unlike the angels, the de facto removal of the only remaining, tangible barrier to Satan’s execution was only a matter of time.
The principle of God’s desire to retrieve what is lost and replace what is missing is clearly seen in scripture in the parable of the lost sheep (Matt.18:12-14; Lk.15:4-10), the law of levirate marriage (Deut.25:5-6), and, of course, in His longing for all mankind to accept the gift of Jesus Christ and return to Him (cf. Ezek.18:23; Matt.18:14; Jn.12:47; 2Pet.3:9):
[God] who wants all men to be saved and come to accept the truth.
There is ample evidence to suggest that elect mankind is, in effect, replacing fallen angelic kind in God’s universal order (Lk.10:17-20; 1Cor.6:3; Rev.20:4). The principle is most clearly seen in the God-Man’s replacement of the original covering cherub (see Part 1): Lucifer (the “light bearer”) replaced by the Morning Star, Jesus Christ (cf. Is.14:12 with 2Pet.1:19; Rev.2:28; 22:16). Thus it is only fitting that the followers of the Morning Star should replace Lucifer’s followers. In this way the wholeness and integrity of the creation will be restored, while everything that was lost will be replaced with something even better: willing worshipers of God in union with His Son, the God-Man, so that ultimately “God may be all in all” (1Cor.15:28). Satan’s motives for precipitating the fall of Man are therefore clear. Unwilling to repent, neither could he afford to accept the new threat the status quo entailed.
The largest part of this explanation is tied up in understanding God’s purposes in the creation of mankind to begin with, which much of SR3 on Ichthys is dedicated to explaining. In truth, many theologians do not seem to really understand nor teach on the idea that humanity’s creation is intrinsically linked with the rebellion of Satan and the fallen angels. I would argue that so long as you accept that premise, then the idea that humanity was created at least in part as a replacement for the fallen angels is an eminently natural inference to make.
As Dr. Luginbill argues here, we can clearly see a pattern of God retrieving what is lost and replacing what is missing. So why wouldn’t He replace the hole in His eternal family left by the rebellious angels? And not only replace them, but replace them with something better, as is His tendency (cf. Hebrews 1:4-14)?
As I see things, we are able to have a much richer appreciation for the reason for our existence as a species when we understand that humanity came about in this wider context. God didn’t just make us on a whim; He made us for a very specific reason. Humanity was created in addition to the angels specifically to demonstrate something—it is why God created us too, rather than just stopping with the angels like He could have.
The point of all this isn’t for us to get swelled heads thinking that we are going to end up greater than these powerful spiritual beings after the resurrection, as if we were somehow responsible for the blessings that God gives us on account of our own merits. No, rather, the point is for us to appreciate that our belief is connecting us with an eternal family that spans back before the creation of Adam and Eve—before humans even existed. Is that not amazing?
Something else I want to briefly examine is exactly how much internal scriptural evidence we have that God always intended for Gentiles to be part of His family, from the very beginning. At times, people make God seem reactive or changeable. They might say that at one point in time, He just randomly decided that He would let Gentiles be saved too, not only Jews. Or—perhaps even more problematically—they might say that somehow the “loving God” of the New Testament (who embraces all sinners with open arms, including Gentiles) is somehow different from the “mean God” of the Old Testament, who ordered the Canaanites peoples exterminated, for example.
This is very much a misunderstanding. Aside from the fact that God does not change because He is outside of spacetime, this sort of teaching also fails to appreciate the staggering amount of Bible passages in the New Testament that make it explicitly clear that what God did with the Gentiles was intended and prophesied from the very beginning. This is not us drawing connections via fanciful inference; the New Testament writers themselves clearly proclaim that this is exactly what all those Old Testament passages meant.
It is kind of wild, if you think about it. All of this information was there in the Old Testament, and yet when the Church was first founded, the fact that salvation had come to the Gentiles also (and not just the Jews) came as a complete and total shock to early believers. Just look at Peter in Acts 10!
This is not because these believers were spiritually weak or ignorant, but because God’s inclusion of the Gentiles up until this point had been a mystery, in much the same way Christ’s first advent as the Suffering Servant was a mystery. Not that these things could not be seen from prophecies, but that God saw fit to confound the “wise” by working things out in ways that completely surpass human expectation.
We will examine the idea of the “mystery” here in more depth in a coming lesson soon enough. I just thought it was worth calling attention to the sheer volume of direct biblical evidence for the concept, as we examined above in the study.