9. “Small Studies” in Genesis – Sea creatures and fowls of the air by Fay Berry 2018

Study 9 – Sea creatures and fowls of the air by Fay Berry 2018

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven and God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:20-25).

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Our God is a generous God, an abundant God. Everything that he has made is “expansive” like his heavens. The waters brought forth “abundantly” the moving creature that “hath life” and the heavens were filled with fowl that he created to “fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven” (Gen 1:20). He planned that his animal creation should “breed abundantly in the earth,” that the earth should be “fruitful,” and his creatures should “multiply upon the earth” (Gen 8:17).

His fruitfulness was such that he wanted “his seed” to be a multitudinous seed and to “increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceedingly mighty,” that the land should be “filled with them” (Ex 1;7), but what he did not want, was an earth that was filled with sinners. He required a “godly seed” (Mal 2:15), promised that one day, innocent blood would no longer saturate and defile the earth. God wanted “his seed” to be as generous as he was Himself.

In all his feasts and sacrifices he required that none should appear before him “empty” (Ex 23:20). God asked nothing from his people that he was not prepared to give himself. He promised that he would “abundantly.. satisfy the poor with bread” (Psa 132:15) and that His earth would “blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon,” and they “shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God” (Isa 35:2).

He wanted his children to “gladly spend and be spent” in His service (2 Cor 12:15). If his children would do this for him, then he would “do exceeding abundantly” for us “above all that we could ask or think through Jesus Christ our Saviour“ (Eph 3:20; Tit 3:6). God was willing “to abundantly shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,” and he “confirmed it by an oath” (Heb 6:17) and promised his seed “an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Pet 1:11).

What man lacked however, because of Adam’s sin, was an “abundant” life. Adam’s disobedience had brought sin into the world, and with sin came death. Adam was now mortal and however “abundant” his present life might be, he would ultimately die and so for man to be able to truly enjoy the many blessings of God (Gen 49:25), it was necessary for God to provide a redeemer to break the power of Sin, and thus render death powerless. God’s sinless Son became man’s redeemer, and the “first fruits of them that sleep” (1 Cor 15:20). By his perfect obedience, he was enabled to “have life in himself” (Joh 5:26) and he opened the way for his brothers and sisters to also “have life” in themselves, “He that has the Son has life; and he that hat NOT the Son of God, has not life.” So “abundance” of life comes to mankind through Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son.

The fowl of heaven

There are three environments that exist in our world and they are heaven, earth, and sea. We are earthbound creatures, and so of the 3 environments only one is available for mankind to call his own. We are not sea creatures, that is not our environment. Nor are the heavens our environment. Yet our aspirations do soar upwards to where the the “birds of the air” fly free and unfettered by God’s law of gravity that holds us chained to the dust of the earth.

There were only two of the various species of this fowl of heaven that were considered divinely clean and acceptable as altar offerings. These were the turtledove and the pigeon. So out of all “wild” birds of the air only these two were considered by God to be “clean” and whole and worthy of being sacrificed on the Christ altar. We see these birds in the heaven and earth covenant sacrifice between God and Abram in Genesis 15. While the 3 three year old land beasts are each cleaved in two, the 2 fowl of heaven are left whole, making 8 components to this heaven and earth covenant, and thus blending heaven and earth into one.

It was Jesus’ sinless sacrifice that “made him free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2) or from earth’s gravity, unfettered and whole, and gave to man the hope of “an endless life” (Heb 7:16). In order for Jesus’ sacrifice to effect such a great salvation, his sacrifice had to be a very special kind of sacrifice. His sacrifice was to be the example of all acceptable sacrifice thereafter.

So what made Jesus sacrifice acceptable to God?

God is quite clear about what sacrifices are NOT acceptable to Him, in fact he tells us that “Sacrifice and offering thou would not” says Yahweh, “but a body hast thou prepared for me” (Heb 10:5). So what was this BODY that God had “prepared?” What constituted an acceptable sacrifice which would “take away the sin of the world?” (Jn 1:29; Jn 16:8; Heb 9:26).

As we know and already understand, all the animals mentioned in the Bible are represent different “kinds” of people, and so what kind of “body” or person can make acceptable sacrifice for sin, and specifically, “the sin of the world?” (Jo 1:29). The answer comes clearly to us from Scripture, “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psa 24:4).

In this world, there are 3 categories of mortal people,

1) the unenlightened who will all die for ever.
2) the enlightened who will live forever after judgment
3) the enlightened who will die forever after they are rejected at the judgment

These 3 categories of people are identified directly with 3 categories of beasts within the Law of Moses based on 2 issues.

1) being “clean” or “unclean” beasts, is similar to the “enlightened” or the “unenlightened” people categories.

2) is the division within the “clean” beasts category based on their blood being sacrificially acceptable at the altar for domesticated animals, or their blood being limited to the “dust of the earth<” for “wild” animals.

This distinction parallels the 2 categories of “enlightened” people, with
1) the enlightened being ultimately and eternally acceptable to the Creator through Christ, through the Christ altar, and the other
2) the other being ultimately and eternally unacceptble to God.

So first there is the distinction between “clean” as opposed to “unclean” beasts.

This is determined by 3 conditions.

1) being the parted hoof and
2) specifically, a “cloven” hoof, and
3) qualifying as a “cud” chewing animal.

Two of the three issues that qualify these animals as clean, and holiness validating as opposed to holiness contradictions… is their feet… their earthy foundations… the fact that they had both a separated hoof and particularly a cloven hoof, as identified in Leviticus 11:3, “Whatsoever parts the hoof, AND is cloven footed, AND chews the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.” All three conditions had to be met simultaneously, or the beast was to be rejected, both as a sacrifice and from an Israelite’s diet.

These 3 distinctions separated “clean” beasts from “unclean” beasts, like the divine distinction between the enlightened community of mankind and the unenlightened. Other clean animal distinctions included sea creatures, birds, and insects, but this is not the environment of mankind. We are not sea creatures, our environment is the environment of the beasts.

Just as the clean beasts constituted the smaller group, this has correspondingly always been true of the quantity distinction between the unenlightened community and the always significantly outnumbered enlightened community at least, since the flood.

Additionally there was a further distinction between clean animals, just as there is with the enlightened community.

There were 7 categories of animals that were required to be offered on the altar of burnt offering. These included the male bullock, the male and female goat, the male and female sheep, a turtle dove or a pigeon with the birds not defining any kind of gender specification.

There was actually an 8th sacrificial animal category, but it was not offered on the altar and was actually offered sacrificially outside the camp which was, of course, the red heifer, the female counterpart of the male bullock. That male bullock which was required for the sin offering for the high priest and the nation on the altar.

However, there were many other clean animals, beasts that the enlightened community were permitted to kill and eat, but whose blood was never allowed to be presented at the altar.

These blood distinctions were absolute. There were no exceptions, the blood of the altar-accepted clean animals had to always be offered at the altar. If anyone did not bring the blood of the sacrificial animal to the altar. They were to be ostracized forever from the enlightened community.

Additionally, the blood of the clean but “wild” animal always had to be poured into the dust and never offered at the altar. The accommodation that Yahweh made when the Israelites inherited the promised land was to consider all their herds and flocks as “wild” beasts that would not be offered at the altar.

This “wild” but domesticated distinction between the 2 sets of clean beasts determined what happened to their blood. In other words, the life of that representative beast. The destination of the blood of the clean animals is distinctive to its spiritual lesson. An Israelite was permitted to hunt, kill, a wild “clean” beast, like an antelope, but had to pour out its blood, its life, into the dust, and cover it with dust.

The life, the blood, of the subservient, domesticated beast, the bullock, sheep, goat, or the appropriate bird, was exclusively bound to the Christ-altar.

However, the life, the blood of the clean, but rebellious, or wild beast, was bound to the curse of the dust. That curse being “Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return,” as God told Adam following that first creation-corrupting sin.

Therefore there is a perfect parallel distinction between beasts and people in divine laws. The 2 primary categories of people, unenlightened and enlightened, from a divine perspective, categories the 2 primary characteristics of beasts, clean and unclean.

The 2 subcategories of clean beasts, being exclusively acceptable at the altar, or exclusively bound to the dust of the earth, parallel the 2 sub-categories of the enlightened community, who will either live forever, due to their divine acceptability, or die forever, due to their divine unacceptability.

The identification of beasts with people

The identification of beasts with people saturates scripture. The Israelite had to personally execute their sacrificial beast as they placed one hand on the head of the beast, identifying themselves with the sacrificial beast, declaring the righteousness of the creator’s original judgment of death for sin in that personal execution of the clean beast whose blood was bound to the Christ-altar.

Beasts are identified with both the enlightened and the unenlightened community in the Cherubim in prophesies like Dan 7, laws like sabbath rest for the beasts, and the requirement that the ox could not be muzzled while treading out the corn. And not seething a kid in its mother’s milk. Paul points out tht these laws were not for the beasts, but for our consideration of our creator’s righteousness, and what constitutes acceptble sacrifice to God.

Therefore we are very safe in our understanding that just as clean and unclean beasts were include in Noah’s ark of salvation and beasts were directly included in the Sabbath laws of rest, so there will be unenlightened people enjoying the “rest” of the Sabbath kingdom. Admittedly this is not an issue that was probably ever in doubt, as the prophecies of the kingdom age certainly define the presence of a mortal unenlightened community during that global reign on earth of Christ and the immortalized saints. And Christ will be a light to the gentiles those heathen Gentiles which is not the same as the Gentile faithful, who are considered the spiritual children of Abraham on the basis of faith.

Christ will rule the nations, indicating the unenlightened, the unclean beasts of the earth. These are all declarations of the same truth. However, this exercise is also a demonstration of fact that when we have a correct understanding, it can be proven through many different avenues.

And so God made a difference between “clean” and “unclean” animals. For Jesus to be an acceptable sacrifice to God, he was required to display certain “lamb-like” characteristics He had to be a willing sacrifice he had to be “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8). All animals that were divinely acceptable on God’s altar had to be such that they were capable of creating a “sweet smelling” savour pleasing to their Creator. We all are required to offer ourselves as sacrifices to God. And we are all represented on the Christ altar as various kinds of animals and birds, all representing people.

It has been a revelation to me to see that everything in God’s creation “shadows” people, even the agricultural examples given in scripture refer to “people” and not just to plants or trees or “good ground.” For example, the vineyard, wheat, fig trees, olive trees, barley.

The “unenlightened” community and sometimes the divinely unacceptable “enlightened” community is consistently paralleled with non-fruit bearing plant-life…briers, thorns, thistles, weeds and grass.

In fact this recognition offers a “why” answer to the divine law that when the children of God are militarily besieging a city, that they are free to cut down any non-fruit bearing trees to assist in the military attack… but are absolutely forbidden to cut down fruit-bearing trees (Deut 20;19-20), perfectly projecting the divine principle of judgement and salvation where those who have been invested with the seed of the word of God and have borne fruit demonstrating the Creator’s righteousness in their lives, will be preserved in the day of judgement but the non-fruit bearing trees are destroyed in that day of judgement.

That is the ‘why’ answer … the real answer for that law…not simply the logic of supporting trees that can feed us as opposed to the short term accommodation of cutting them down for the siege instead of hauling non-fruit bearing trees from a further distance to where they are needed for the siege. There are always ‘why’ answer to why questions .. that divine motivation for a law or ritual or creation all feature.

When Abigail prevented David from destroying her foolish husband and his entire household, she was in actual fact preventing David from cutting down “fruit-bearing trees,” along with the non-fruit bearing trees in Nabal’s household. Abigail’s wisdom saved David from disobeying a direct commandment of God.

Paul calls the “enlightened” but unfaithful who question the terms of the Creator’s righteousness in relation to the resurrection to immortality “fools” Nabals, since they can’t hear the testimony offered by God’s terms of creation.

He defines a body as a seed. The seed has to die, buried in the ground and when it rises above the ground it is no longer a seed but a plant, perhaps wheat or some other grain.

But God gives it a body (a body hast thou prepared for me” (Heb 10:5)) that He chooses, every seed his own body. This is a direct relationship between the divine parable of agriculture and the doctrine of resurrection. One projects the other, validating how all of creation expresses the enlightened community in the terms of fruit bearing plant-life.

Thanks to Jim Dillingham for much of the above exposition. The greater content can be found in his Study 22 of “Visions of the Kingdom Age.”

By Fay Berry 2018