In The Beginning: Not just a house, but a temple…

The other day I did a post in which I looked at the sequence of events in the creation narrative of Genesis. In verse two of Chapter 1, we are told that “the earth was without form and void” and I explained how God spends the rest of the chapter fixing these two problems.

He solves the problem of formlessness in the first three days by creating the domains of time, space and habitat. He then solves the problem of emptiness by then populating each of these realms with rulers: first sun, moon and stars, next fish and birds, and then finally land animals and humanity.

I compared Genesis chapter one to the building of a house, God first builds the structure of the house and then fills its rooms. However, at the end of the post I explained that God wasn’t just building a house, but a temple…

Why do I say that God was building a temple? Well, we know that other cultures at the time of Genesis’ authorship also considered the cosmos to be something of a temple in which the gods were to be worshiped, but we also find a similar strain of thought concerning the first book of the Pentateuch…

Clue #1: Liturgical Language

When God creates the heavenly bodies on Day 4, we’re told that they were to be “for signs and for seasons and for days and year”. The word for “seasons” here is mo’ed, a word which has specific reference to liturgical seasons. So, as well as giving us warmth, controlling the tides and looking pretty, we learn that the sun, moon and stars were created to tell us when to worship!

In a future post, I’ll look at the different roles of Adam and then we’ll encounter some more interesting vocabulary choices account which also allude to the Temple. That’s for another time though.

Clue #2: Temple Parallels

At the time of Moses, a mobile temple known as the Tabernacle was assembled in the desert. In this tent, we learn that prayer and sacrifice were offered to the Lord. Here is a short description of the Tabernacle’s construction:

Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished; and the people of Israel had done according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so had they done…  According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work. And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it. And Moses blessed them. – Exodus 39:32; 42-43

Does it sound familiar? Let’s compare it to the description of Creation in Genesis:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 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. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation. – Genesis 2:1-3

In the account of the Tabernacle of Moses we hear the echos of the Yahweh’s Temple, Creation. How many days do you think it took to consecrate the Tabernacle? Unsurprisingly, it was seven days, just like the creation account.

The mobile tabernacle was later replaced by a permanent structure, Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. In the description of the building itself and its construction we also find a lot of cosmic symbolism but, again, that’s another post for another time…

Clue #3: Psalm Testimony

Other parts of Scripture speak of Creation as a temple. We find these passages, somewhat unsurprisingly, in the books of poetic books of the Bible:

He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
    like the earth, which he has founded for ever. – Psalm 78:69

The entirety of Psalm 148 is an explosion of praise from all God’s creation which we saw created in Genesis 1. Their praises echo throughout the whole of the cosmic temple:

So, in conclusion, we see that when God constructed the cosmos, he was building a temple. Eden was its Sanctuary and, as we’ll see later, Adam was to be its priest…

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4