Episode Details

Prayer

God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, I praise your glorious name this day. I praise you for all the wonders that you have done. I praise you for the great magnitude of your kindness in giving us all things needful for this life. I praise you for your mercies, patience, and kindness in the face of our sinful abuse of these gifts. I confess, Lord, I am a great sinner. I look to you again this day for mercy, my need is great. Cleanse me, I pray, turn my heart from sin unto you. Lord, have mercy. Please bless your word to me now, I pray. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Reading

Gen 1:9-13.

“And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.”

Meditation

In the big-picture sense, we have seen that God’s purpose is to fill the earth with his glory and presence, and to unite heaven and earth in the fullness of time. But how would this actually happen? What is this plan going to look like moving forward? God begins to answer that question by calling forth plants and productivity from the earth. Gen 1:9-11 gives us at least two major insights into God’s plan and purposes.

The first is that God made the earth to be fruitful. Day three shows us that God’s intention for productivity and fruitfulness from his land was very literally realised. God made plants to grow and reproduce – and that is a key word: reproduce. To this point, God’s action in creation has been very direct. He spoke light into existence; he directly separated the waters on day two; and even at the start of day three he spoke directly to divide water and land. But here on the second half of day three something different happens. God does not speak to make fruit, he speaks to make vegetation and then he gives the trees themselves the capacity to be fruitful.

With this insight in mind, we can draw out a significant and important principle: that God generally glorifies himself in creation using second causes. He does not magically place a bowl of cereal on your table, but he does cause the earth to produce food, and he does call us to work with our hands to gain the benefit of that food. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s still a gift from God! We can’t make the earth to be fruitful of our own accord, and nor can we give ourselves the ability to work. Everything is still a gift from God, including that bowl of cereal on your table. Nevertheless, God uses second causes.

The second major insight follows on from this: fruitfulness glorifies God. That is to say, fruitfulness displays and manifests God’s excellence. Again – we’ve already seen in our studies to this point that God’s purpose in creation is to shine the light of his glory and presence into the creation, and as he begins to then fill the creation to achieve that purpose, the first thing he does is to make the earth fruitful and productive. The clear and logical conclusion that we should draw from this is that God is glorified through the productive, fruitful growth of his creation.

Now, having said that, let me build on this further by saying that, while the plants certainly do glorify God in their own right by producing fruit, they also set a precedent for everything that would come after. When the creatures come on days five and six, they follow the pattern of da