Mining the Riches: God’s Breath

By Rev. J. Bart Day

The self-giving love of God in the holy Trinity comes to full expression in His glorious creation. All things are made at His speaking, reflecting His perfect order and holiness. As the crowning jewel of creation, man and woman are given life through God’s breath. As those uniquely created in His image, they are to steward the Lord’s creation. “Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28 ESV). “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Genesis 2:1 ESV). God’s self-expression was complete. He and His creation could now live in perfected bliss for time and eternity.

Then, the deceiver spoke. His mouth was filled with half-truths meant to delude and destroy. “Did God really say?” was his litany of lies. All that was good was now subjected to frustration. Cursed is the ground. Work is filled with painful toil. Pains increased in childbirth. For the deceiver, it meant crawling for transport and dust for sustenance. Even worse, enmity was created between the deceiver and the truth. The promise of victory and restoration was that the deceiver’s head would be crushed by Eve’s greatest offspring.

Today, as the Church lives in the great end times, we balance precariously between two worlds. In one, we see the harsh realities of sin, death, and the power of the devil. In the other, we hear the Word made flesh speaking words of eternal life. The tension between what we see and what we hear lies at the heart of the Christian life. In Christ, the Lamb who was slain, all is complete. Sin is forgiven, death swallowed up, the deceiver’s lying mouth shut forever. In Christ, the guarantee of heaven is a present reality.

The image “God’s Breath” by Lutheran artist Tom DuBois depicts not only the beauty of what once was but the veiled reality of what is and the promise of what is to come. As St. John received his glorious revelation from heaven, he saw the creation of a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1 ESV) as well as the garden restored (Revelation 22:1–5). The Lord’s final act of salvation will be to give His children their inheritance—the restored earth and garden. Creation, in its original splendor, will live again as God intended. It was, and will be, good.

Most striking in the painting is the artist’s choice of depicting eight horses, a number used throughout the history of the Early Church as a symbol of the Christian vision of history. The seven days of creation were viewed as a closed cycle, returning perpetually on itself, having no beginning or end. In the New Testament, we are told that Jesus was raised on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) and that one week later he appeared to Thomas on the first day of the week (John 20:26). Sunday, the first day of the week, is the day of the Lord, the eighth day that is beyond the cosmic cycle of creation. This day is without succession. Sunday, the eighth day, is the day of the Church. On this eighth day, a day without end, the Church gathers to receive the presence of Christ. On the eighth day, the Church returns to splash in baptismal water, hear Holy Absolution, and eat and drink the flesh and blood of Christ as the seal of forgiveness and the guarantee of immortality. All of this is a foretaste of the feast to come, the restoration of earth, the recreation of the garden, the perfect union of God and man for eternity.

Rev. J. Bart Day is associate pastor and headmaster of Memorial Lutheran Church and School in Houston, Texas. You can e-mail Rev. Day at revday@mlchouston.org.