Third Day of Creation and Fruit of the Spirit
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,
and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of
the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself,
upon the earth: and it was so. ... and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Third Day of Creation (Genesis 1:9ff)
The great themes of the Third Spoke originate in the Third Day which is marked by two fundamental works of God:
1) the gathering of the waters that were divided on the Second Day, and
2) the creation of food. Both works are characteristic of the Third Person of the Trinity.
Taking water as a symbol of "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" (Rev 17:15, BW book pg 263), we see a
typological image of the Holy Spirit gathering all believers into one Body, nourishing us with the Living Bread until
"we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13).
The Gimel KeyWords exemplify His ministry of nourishing, raising up, weaning, and perfecting us until we
become "trees of righteousness" bearing fruit unto God. Two of these KeyWords appear together in
Genesis 21:8, "and the child grew (gadal), and was weaned (gamal)."
David used a third, etymologically related to gamal, when he said "the LORD will perfect (gamar)
that which concerneth me" (Ps 138:8). Berkhof (Systematic Theology, pg 98) explained how this theme of
fruition relates to the ministry of the Holy Spirit
using terms strikingly similar to these Gimel KeyWords:
There are certain works which are more particularly ascribed to the Holy Spirit,
not only in the general economy of God, but also in the special economy of redemption.
In general it may be said that it is the special task of the Holy Spirit to bring things to
completion by acting immediately upon and in the creature. Just as He Himself is the
person who completes the Trinity, so His work is the completion of God’s contact with
His creatures and the consummation of the work of God in every sphere.
It follows the work of the Son, just as the work of the Son follows that of the Father.
Finally, gadal also means to magnify in the sense of praising or lifting up in importance:
- AV Psalm 34:30 magnify (gadal) the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
This defines another ministry of the Holy Spirit who was sent
specifically to magnify the Lord Jesus (John 16:14).
This links to the meaning of Gimel as lifting up or elevating something to prominence. We lift up God and cast
down all self-exaltation which is indicated by the Gimel KeyWord גא (gay, proud),
a topic that is quite prominent in 2 Corinthians:
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ ...
(2 Corinthians 10:4f)
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The Third Day of Creation and the Fruit of the Spirit
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