Story or report?

How do we get from the ineffable God to profane man? How can the limitless eternal God be brought into connection with limited, fallible and comparatively ignorant man? How do we get anything from God's mind into our finite Earthy practice? How do we get from God to Man?

The Genesis 1 section of the creation account shows us how, precisely, in detail, and in terms of the experience of man of his world: not as a story about those things described, but an account of those things done.

If it is merely a story about those things done described and our relationship to them, neither of which are real, but are metaphorical, or symbolic or figurative or illustrative, then we must wonder to what do they refer? There must be a third element which is definitive and which is truly real in all relations and under all conditions. This point of reference to which the story refers is the reality behind the story. But we only suppose this because we need to get away from the story itself, following Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:8. And if it were so, we do not and cannot know this true reality. It is hidden behind an illustration and is out of reach. Untouchable. We therefore have no knowledge.

But Genesis 1 is not like this. It is embedded in and embeds the only real reality that flows in a continuous sweep from God's word to man's experience of the creation, resulting in his true knowledge; reflecting that God created in wisdom, understanding and knowledge (Proverbs 3:19-20 ), and not out of what is seen (Hebrews 11:3).