There are four creation accounts in the Bible.
In the first creation account (Genesis 1:1 through 2:3), God creates the heaven and earth, then night and day, then sea and land, then fish and birds, animals and man last. This shows the order of creation, who serves whom and who gets their identity from whom. Man serves God and gets his identity from God. God gives man creation and calls man to be a steward of his gift, to be a caretaker of creation. The animals serve man and get their identity through man.
In the second creation account (genesis 2:4 through 3:24), man is created before the beasts. Man however, is allowed to name the beasts. Throughout the Bible, those who are named serve those who name them. All through the Bible people get their identity and purpose from those who name them. God names Abraham. Pharaoh names Joseph. Jesus names Peter. Saul takes a new name. Man naming the beasts shows the order of creation, who serves whom and who we get our identity from.
Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves*, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)
That the people of Babel wanted to make a name for themselves rather than to be named by God shows whom they served - themselves.
Everyone focuses on the flood and death but we have to focus not on the flood but what happens after. Genesis 9 is key.
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it.” (Genesis 9:1-7)
This is the third creation account. Much of Genesis 9 sounds like Genesis 1. The words “be fruitful and multiply” are exactly the same as the first creation account in Genesis 1. This time we are told that man is to eat every moving thing - this is key. In the first creation account man is not told to eat animals but only plants. Again this shows the order of creation - who eats whom. But then God does something very, very special… God says not to eat the blood of animals and says, “the life is in the blood”.
If we eat the blood of animals we live the life of animals. God killed the animals in the flood because we were living like animals. God does not want us to live like animals but wants us to live the life of Christ. God is reserving the consumption of blood until Christ comes. Here in this one passage, God is hinting that we will one day drink the Blood of Christ so that we can become new creations, creatures in Christ.
Becoming a new creature in Christ is the fourth creation account. The fourth creation account is in the first fourteen lines of John’s Gospel. It is no accident that the first three words of John’s Gospel are the first three words of the Book of Genesis.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)
In him was life… the life is in the blood. The fourth creation. We no longer live like animals but become new men who live the divine life of Christ.
-Tim-