06.0.4.3. The Second Day

III. -- THE SECOND DAY THE second day’s work is the forming of an expanse or heaven in the creature, by which the hitherto unbounded waters are divided from the waters. God then names the expanse (Genesis 1:6-8). At this stage the state of the creature, that it is drowned in waters, begins to be perceived.

Such is the second state or stage in the new creation. In the midst of the waters a heaven is formed in the once benighted creature. That unstable element, so quickly moved by storms, is the well-known type of the restless desires of the heart of fallen man; for "the wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isaiah 57:20). (Note: Gregory the Great, Moral. in Job l. xxviii. c. 19, § 43.) Before regeneration, unquiet lusts everywhere prevail: the whole man or creature is drowned and buried in them. In the progress of the new creation, these waters are not at once removed: indeed, they are never wholly removed till that other creation comes, when there is "no more sea" (Revelation 21:1). They are first divided by a heaven; then bounded on the third day, when the dry land rises up out of them. This heaven represents the understanding opened, as the rising earth upon the third day shews us the will liberated. For till now, "the understanding has been darkened" (Ephesians 4:18); nay, it is written of the natural man that he has "no understanding" (Romans 3:11). But now the heaven is stretched. Christ "opens the understanding" of those who before this had been His disciples (Luke 24:45, and compare Colossians 1:9; Colossians 2:2, and 1 John 5:20). And thus another precious gift, once hid with Christ in God, now by Christ is wrought in us also. A heaven is formed within the creature; a heaven into which darkness may return, and through which clouds shall pour as well as bright sunshine; a heaven which for sin may be shut up and become like brass (Leviticus 26:19; 1 Kings 8:35), but which was made to be the home and treasure-house of sweet and dewy showers; a heaven, like Israel’s path through the sea of old, sorely threatened by dark and thick waters, but, like that same path, a step to resurrection power, and worthy to be called "heaven," even by God Himself; influencing the earth in untold ways, here attracting, there repelling; the great means after light of arranging and disposing all things. (Note: Aug. de Gen. ad lit. lib. imperf. c. 14, § 45.) By it the waters are bounded. Until now, they have flowed hither and thither without a bound, and without a rest also. But the heaven is formed; then a bound is set, where hitherto the restless waters have prevailed.

Then again comes division. A heaven in the creature at once "divides the waters from the waters" (Genesis 1:7). Some remain below; some are above or in the heaven. The waters henceforth are rent in twain. Some rise, purged of their saltness, and become the fruitful clouds, in which the bow of the covenant shall be set in due season. Some are yet the barren sea. And so within. Of our desires and affections, some are raised and purified, not without sore rendings; and some are as before, unquiet and unbounded, save by the heaven over them. (Note: Ambros. Hexaem. l. ii. c. 4, § 17.)

After this the expanse receives a name from God. It is called "heaven," that is the arranger: (Note: Heb, shamayim [H8064], the placers or arrangers, from soom [H7760], to set or place; because the heavens are the agents in arranging things on earth. "This appellation was first given by God to the celestial fluid or air, when it began to act in disposing or arranging the earth and waters. And since that time the shamayim have been the great agents in disposing all material things in their places and orders, and thereby producing all those wonderful effects which are attributed to them in Scripture, and which it has been of late years the fashion to ascribe to attraction, gravitation, &c." -- Parkhurst’s Heb. Lex. sub voce. It is worthy of notice that the ancient Greeks derived theous from thesis; for the same reasons. -- Herodot. l. ii. c. 52.) so called, because this heaven, in ways above our thoughts, is the great agent in arranging everything. Little do men now think of the heavens, or perceive what forces around us are at work everywhere. We speak in our wisdom of the "three kingdoms," -- the animal, vegetable, and mineral, -- as if these three were all. Genesis will shew us yet another, on which all these depend. For as the animal depends upon the vegetable, and that upon the mineral, so the mineral itself depends upon another kingdom, which was yet earlier. Some have called it the meteoric. On this the mineral world depends, as the very names of some of the metals, come down to us from days when there was greater insight, yet testify. Now this "heaven," or meteoric kingdom, -- formed of old over the earth, before the mineral, as that before the vegetable and animal, -- was called by God the arranger, to effect great marvels, by what we now call attraction, repulsion, electricity, or evaporation. And so the "heaven," which is formed within by the Word, is the arranger, and in that inward world must precede the gold and fruits and living creatures. Some have tried without this "heaven" to have gold and fruits and life. What have they got? Not God’s work, but Satan’s imitation. The heaven must be first within, if we would have true fruits, even as true fruits must precede the living creatures.

Further, I observe, on this second day, that the creature’s state begins to be discerned. The waters now are not overlooked, as upon the first day. It is now noticed that below the heaven all is buried in them; and this discovery, though painful, is a step to better things. Still, as yet there is no earth, nothing "stablished, strengthened, settled" (1 Peter 5:10); but this, too, comes in due season.