God's Characterization on Day #3

In the beginning, God, our main character, created the heavens and the earth. But he didn’t finish it right away. He brought it up to the point where you have an earth covered in water and dark. Once we are there, our narrator slows down the pace so that we will focus our attention on these six days of action. In these six days of action, we see how our main character works, and we learn about this thing, this world, and how he designs it. But we also learn about him as a character.

Genesis 1 and these six days serve as characterization, giving us an overture into the identity of our main character.

On day one, he creates light and separates the light from the darkness. On day two, he separates the waters that are above from the waters that are below and puts the heaven—the sky—in between.

Now we are on to day three. When we get to day three, there are two distinctively new things that our character does—two things that unfold his identity even more than the previous two days.

Here is what happens on day three:

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

Two New Developments

So what is new here?

The first thing that’s new is that God speaks more. Notice that on the first two days, you have one time where it says, “And God said.” But here on the third day, twice we get “And God said,” and we get two speeches. There is an increase in speech. And because what God’s speech does in this creation work is that it does things—it creates, it moves around, it separates, it divides—that means God’s action increases as well.

Even more so, you have a multiplication of speech and a multiplication of action, but then you see that God creates these plants and vegetation which have in themselves the capacity to multiply life. So there is a third aspect of multiplication: more speech, more action, and more stuff, more things emerging from creation. That is the first new thing.

The second new thing has to do not with the quantity, but with the quality of God’s action. For the first time in the creation week, something other than our main character has agency. God gives agency, gives power, to the earth.

Notice what it says: “And God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation.’” And then in verse 12 it says, “The earth brought forth vegetation.” Here God is giving the capacity to participate in his creation, in his design, to something other than himself. We have a new actor, a new subject who takes action: the earth.

How Character Drives the Plot

Whenever you notice something unique like this in the text, you have to go and ask: What does this have to do with the plot, with the story, with the characterization? Why is the author telling us this?

He is telling us this because it unfolds our main character in fascinating ways.

Think about this: we are in the middle of this first scene in the Bible. In this first story, we are right in the middle, and in the middle of this story our character increases his speech and increases his action. The action that he performs is to give life, to give agency to the world, and to let it participate and contribute activity to this whole design process.

This is the exact same thing that our character will do in other stories throughout the Bible. In the middle of the story, he will do more and he will speak more. But he will not do and speak more as a sort of deus ex machina, as an external force simply swooping in and taking care of business. Instead, he enters in such a way that he gives life to the characters. He activates the characters so that they can participate in his work.

This is not some sort of secret code; this is characterization. This tells us about our character: he does not simply let stories get to the very end and then come in to fix things. He comes in right in the middle to put things right, to instill life and energy so that those characters can become integral, creative parts of the story.

There are two fascinating instances where we can see this unfold.

The Abraham Story

The first instance is the Abraham story, which runs from Genesis 12 through chapter 22 or 23.

On a purely verbal level, right in the middle of the story there is a concentration of God’s speech and his action. In these middle chapters—Genesis 15, 16, and 17—God makes a covenant, a formal relationship with Abraham. God increases his speech. But just like in Genesis 1, where the action involves giving life in order for the creation to participate, this covenant allows Abraham to participate as well.

In fact, God has designed it so that Abraham has to participate. Notice what God says: he is going to multiply Abraham greatly; Abraham is going to be a father of a multitude of nations; he will be exceedingly fruitful; kings shall come from him. God is entering into this story, doing more, speaking more, multiplying, and giving energy and life so that our human characters can actively participate in his plan.

The Gospels and the Middle of History

The second fascinating use of this pattern is with Jesus in the Gospels.

There were many unexpected things about Jesus, and one of the most unexpected things was the timing of his coming. When you read the prophets of the Old Testament describing all the things God is going to do in the future, it kind of seems like it is all going to happen at the very end. At the end of time, God is going to come back, make a new world, forgive sins, and bring about all this great restoration—and that will be it: time’s up, story’s over.

Instead, the fascinating thing is that God comes right in the middle of history. That was something no one expected. God comes in Jesus in the middle of history, and his words multiply.

Notice that at the beginning of John’s Gospel, Jesus is specifically called God’s Word: “In the beginning was the Word.” And Jesus’s actions are called his “works”—one of the key titles for the deeds he performs. Throughout the Gospels, you have the multiplication of God’s activity and his speech in the middle of history.

What he does in this middle of the story is multiply: he gives energy and life to the other characters in the story so that they can participate. Remember what Jesus says at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, at the conclusion of that story in the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them… and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

God comes in the middle of the story in Jesus, and he gives us his presence. With that presence, he says: Go out, make disciples, multiply, and participate in my design.

From Genesis 1, we already get a profound picture of God’s character and how he works within stories.

And that, my friends, is why the Bible is art.

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