Episode Details

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I praise and thank you for a new day of life. I worship you, O Lord, for your new mercies this morning. I praise you for keeping me through the night, for your patience and sustaining grace. O Lord, as I start out on this new day, I commit the day unto you. I ask, O Lord, that the rule of Christ may be mightily extended in my heart and life today. May Christ rule the movements of my heart, the words of my mouth, and the actions of my hands. Please sustain your people today, and build up the body of Christ. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.

Reading

1 Thess 4 & Revelation 21.

Genesis 1:6-8.

“And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”

Meditation

We have been exploring the second day of creation, and having learned something of the nature of the heavens God created, we are now in a position to consider the central question: What was God doing on day two? What was it all about? Here is my answer to that question: he was establishing the relationship between earth and heaven. The heavens, being and representing God’s dwelling place, will be above, and the earth will be beneath. God will shine down (the lesson from day one), and graciously shower the earth from heaven. The earth will receive light and glory from heaven. There will be a basic order and distinction between heaven and earth, which is what the expanse represents. That’s what God is showing us on day two – that God has established a relationship between heaven and earth, distinguishing between the two by means of an expanse, and revealing the order that heaven is above, and the earth is beneath.

But there is another significant detail we must notice when it comes to the second day of creation. There is something about day two in the Genesis prologue that sets it apart from all the other days. I wonder if you’ve ever noticed it before? There’s a certain poetic rhythm to Genesis 1, there are patterns in the language. For example, you might have noticed that at the start of each day we find the phrase “And God said…”. It is repeated at the start of the first six days. We find another pattern in the phrase: “And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day” (v5). Another repetition we find is the refrain: “it was good”. But have you ever noticed before that on day two there is no declaration that it is good? Every day God says it is good – except for day two. It sticks out like a sore thumb! The question is why? Why doesn’t God say that it was good to establish an expanse between earth and heaven?

I believe that there are at least two significant answers to that question, one of which is that the expanse is temporary. What I mean is that, in the fullness of time, the separation between heaven and earth will be removed. For this reason, I think that God does not give the commendation on day two, for the expanse or separation is not intended to be permanent. Now, why do I say that? And what does it mean exactly?

Well, we actually see this very clearly in Revelation 21:1, which says: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more”. Note that according to this passage the sea which was created on day two as part of the separation between heaven and earth - is now gone. But there is more! Let’s read on in verse two of Revelation 21: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven fr