Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

I.

The First Day of Creation ()

A.

1.

The absolute beginning of time (i.e.

God Created Time)

Bereshith

2. The Names of God speak of the Character of God in Genesis:

Man inhabits time; God inhabits eternity!

a. Elohim - Majesty & Power (Gen.

1:1)

b.

Jehovah - Unchanging Faithfulness ()

c.

El Elyon - The Most High God ()

d.

El Shaddai - All-powerful Supply ()

3. “created” (bara) & “made” (asa) imply no pre-existing material:

a. Creation ex nihilo - (“out of nothing”)

b.

See this kind of creation in:

Ps.

4. “heaven” & “earth” speak of the entire universe

a. Lit. - the upper and the lower regions.

b. “heavens” (v.

9) refers to the firmament above the earth

c. “heaven” can refer to:

i. air

ii.

space

iii.

God’s Throneroom ()

B.

1. “without form and void” = formless & empty

Tohu va Bohu

2. Two Major Interpretations:

a. Gap Theory (or Ruin/Reconstruction)

believes that was a previous creation of the heavens and the earth and that Satan and his angels fell between and .

1) Satan’s fall brought some sort of cataclysmic judgment to the earth

2) God began a “re-creation” in , AFTER the “gap” of time

3) In this view, “formless and void” must always mean “evil”

a

Ver.

23.

I beheld the earth, &c.]

a

The land of Judea, not the whole world; and this the prophet says, either in spirit, as Jerom; or in prophecy, as Kimchi; or in a visionary way; for these are not the words of God continued, as Cocceius, but of the prophet; who, by a prophetic spirit, describes the dreadful destruction of the Jewish nation, as follows: and, lo, it was without form, and void; as the first earth or chaos was, before it was brought into form and order; the same words, tohu and bohu, are used here, as in the land of Judea now was, in the prophet’s view of it, like the first earth, when darkness covered it; no grass sprung out of it, not a tree to be seen in it, and neither man nor beast as yet upon it, but all an indigested mass, and in the utmost wild disorder and confusion; and this may denote not only the natural, but the political, and ecclesiastical, disorder of the Jewish nation and state: and the heavens, and they had no light; that were over the land of Judea; “their lights did not shine,” as the Targum paraphrases it; that is, the sun, moon, and stars, which were darkened by the smoke of the burning of Jerusalem; or which withdrew their light, as blushing at, and being ashamed of, the iniquities of his people, and who were unworthy of enjoying the light of them; and which this phrase may denote.

[John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 5, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 426.]

C̵HA´OS, n. [L.

chaos; Gr. χαος.]

That confusion, or confused mass, in which matter is supposed to have existed, before it was separated into its different kinds and reduced to order, by the creating power of God.

“Rudis, indigestaque moles.”

Ovid.

2. Any mixed mass, without due form or order; as a chaos of materials.

3. Confusion; disorder; a state in which the parts are undistinguished.

[Noah Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language.

(Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006).]

a

n name or noun.

John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 5, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 426.

In 4:23–26 Jeremiah visualizes the earth in chaos and disorder.

.

name or noun.

As noted above, the imagery reflects and the chaotic conditions of the cosmos before God spoke order into existence.

“I looked, and there were no people” (), exclaims the prophet.

Creation is the theater of God’s glory, and people made in God’s image are the crowned stewards of the land (; ).

Moral and spiritual failure in Judah prompt prophetic eyes to see the land and people as turned back to chaos and disorder.

One wonders if this vision is something like moral entropy,7 where the disintegration of communal life is the inevitable outworking of moral and spiritual failure.

L. Latin.

In the modern West (the part of God’s creation that I know best), there is great concern in some quarters about the decline in order and civility.

Among many Western churches there is correspondingly concern over the diminished morality of members and declining spiritual vitality.

Are these factors related, and is a visionary depiction of coming chaos an accurate assessment of trends?

Jeremiah’s vision of chaos emerges spiritually from his deep involvement with a people who are heedless of divine standards and skeptical that God will actually judge them.

Does this not sound familiar to Western ears?

Is it not the case that Western society has essentially capitulated to the demands of secular pluralism that moral and values-based judgments be restricted to the private realm, where they will not intrude on public policy decisions?

And does the rising perception that society is spinning out of moral control because of its spiritual bankruptcy not point to a future chaos?

7 Perhaps the modern reader will recall that the second law of thermodynamics or entropy holds that matter tends to a state of progressive disorder without the influence of mitigating factors.

For example, a plant that no longer translates sunlight and water into usable energy will die; when dead, the plant will decompose.

[J.

Andrew Dearman, Jeremiah and Lamentations, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002), 92–93.]

Gr.

Greek.[Noah

Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language.

(Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006).]

a

Noah Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language.

(Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006).]

23.

So devastating is the judgment upon Judah (23–28) that Jeremiah instinctively thinks of the state of primeval chaos (), except that what then became ‘good’ will now be turned to desolation at the divine presence.

This description is one of the most dramatic of its kind in the entire Old Testament.

The heedless destruction consequent upon apostasy has brought ruin upon the land, and the skies are darkened in mourning (cf.

; ).

The imagery is that of the judgment day (cf.

; ; ; , etc.) which had now arrived in all its terror, eclipsing the celestial luminaries and making the earth return to its primitive barrenness before the creative word emerged (cf.

).

[R.

K. Harrison, Jeremiah and Lamentations: An Introduction and Commentary, vol.

21, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 76.]

J. Andrew Dearman, Jeremiah and Lamentations, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2002), 92–93.]

R. K. Harrison, Jeremiah and Lamentations: An Introduction and Commentary, vol.

21, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 76.]

4) This view attempts to reconcile the billions of years demanded by science (falsely so-called) and the young earth demanded by the Bible

b.

Literal Creation View

believes that is the first day of creation.

1) Nothing inherently evil or sinful in the words “without form and void” or “darkness”