I have been blogging the chapters of my book, "The Great Reflection" one chapter per week. That ended with chapter sixteen. The original book contained three bonus studies which I include here in the same order. The first of those was a topical study of the four elements as referenced in scripture. Here, then, is study one beginning at earth.
Study One
Earth
The theme of this Bible study: ‘Elements’. My search for references of the elements garnered twenty-one printed pages. God willing, and with the help of the Holy Ghost, I think this study will afford a more complete view of the circuit of life: from the dust of creation to the fire of destruction. It is not a study I had planned; rather, it came about when I read one of those verses (in Acts, I think) about being baptized with ‘water’ and ‘the spirit’. What occurred to me on that reading was the comparison, that Christ had earlier made for Nicodemus, between the ‘born of the spirit’ & the ‘wind’. I saw, then, a partial glimpse of the four basic elements: earth, water, wind, & fire.
Mention was made in a single scripture reference, John 3:5 through 8, of the elements of water and wind. Now I, like most others, am used to hearing the ‘born of water and spirit’, verses presented as if water is the beginning (the birth of physical man), and wind is the end result (or, the second birth). I had to ask: what then of the other two elements? To place the order of elements as earth, water, wind, and fire, to me, seemed at once to make more sense, and to be more complete.
It is ‘earth’ that I believe to be the first birth; it may be that all the elements are representative of a level of birth. Since the beginning, since Adam, man has been associated with the dust of creation, or clay, or earth. Our lowest estate is dust and ashes, in fact, many funeral services include the words ‘dust to dust’ and ‘ashes to ashes’.
The preacher, in Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, tells us: “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”
A long time before the preacher lived, the writer of the book of Genesis quoted God thus (vs. 3:19), “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Did the writers of the Bible, when inspired to write about the physical nature of man, intend for the rest of us to understand the word ‘dust’ to mean the same thing as ‘earth’ or ‘clay’?
Job 38:38 says, “When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?”
Job 4:19 refers to the human body in this manner, “How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?”
Abraham said, in Genesis 18:27, “Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes.”
Jumping ahead historically, we see the Psalmist write this, in Psalms 103:14, “For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.”
We should all remember the account of Adam. Genesis 2:7 puts it this way: “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
There is a connection here between the element of earth and the element of wind (the breath of life). I will address this and other connections as this study progresses, and I will record what the spirit teaches, but for now, I wish to bring up an association to the element of earth that should be kept in mind. That association comes from the name Adam, which translates as ‘red’. That word was the generic name given to man; it was Babylonian in origin but had the same meaning in the Hebrew language. ‘Red’ is also the color of blood, and that is the association to be mindful of. Man was taken from dust, mixed with water, quickened by the spirit, and called red.
Blood is the first association to the element of ‘earth’ which points to a connection to the element of ‘water’: it represents the half-way mark between earth and water. The channels of blood that course through the human body, in their most fundamental symbolism, are like rivers of watery earth. Allusions to the Nile being turned to blood should not be passed over. Men in those early days made an instant connection between earth, water, and wind. The blood of the body, equally with the breath in the nostrils, was considered the life of the body. The association was unmistakable when a man-child came forth in a shower of blood and water.
Job 14:1 says, “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”
Job also says, in 15:14 and in 25:4, “What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of woman, that he should be righteous? How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of woman?”
The association here is through blood back to the element of earth. Jesus spoke of a man that was born of woman, in Matthew 11:11, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”
But Christ, Himself, apart from being born of the spirit, was also a man born of a woman. For that reason, the writers of the scriptures were compelled to say of Jesus, in 1 John 5:6, that His relationship to man could not simply be based in a spiritual awakening, as in His baptism by water. While that is a necessary step, it could have no validity apart from Christ’s physical birth.
The verse says, “This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”
1 John 5:8 continues, “There are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”
That verse seems to show a ‘forward progression’ by counting back from the Truth in sets: spirit/water, water/blood, blood/earth - the former being the affecting catalyst upon the latter to bring each forward. Not only the Hebrews, but all early cultures had religious ceremonial rites, believing in a real connection between physical objects, physical actions, spoken words, and spiritual ends. The Hebrews had regular rituals that reflected their beliefs concerning the earth and blood. They believed that the life of the body (which was made from dust) was in the blood. They had a ceremonial restriction against eating blood.
See Deut. 12:16, “Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water”
In effect, they were returning life to the dust from which all came. Notice the symbolic admixture of earth and water.
In Exodus 4:9, God tells Moses, “And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.”
And blood speaks to God from the earth, as when Abel’s blood cried out.
There was a difference between blood in the ground, and blood left exposed on an altar. Note Ezekiel 24:7 and 8, “For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust; that it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.”
Man continues in his relationship to dust. It is man’s humble beginning, his low estate. In all of mankind’s striving to be lifted up from the shame of dirt, it still clings to him and is reflected in his thinking.
Isaiah 29:4, “And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and as one that hath a familiar spirit, thy voice shall be out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust.”
The earth, in regard to man’s inability to escape his return to it, has connotations of shame and reproach. The early Hebrew, in his daily sacrificing of animals, pouring their life back into the earth, had an inbred belief against man’s blood being poured out in similar fashion – thus the absolute horror of murder, thus God’s response to Abel’s blood and to the suffering of His people in Egypt.
We note man’s belief that the life of men moved onward and upward after death, while the life of animals went back into the earth by reading the next scripture reference: Ecclesiastes 3:20 & 21. “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”
Since physical man cannot know spiritual matters, this verse is doubtless based on man’s assumptions. If, as man believes, God breathed life into every living creature, then the spirit of the animal is no less of God than the spirit of man. The same writer also states, in Ecclesiastes 12:7, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
There is no denying that man seeks to be better than the animal but that is only because man sees the animal in his own nature. In both of the verses just cited, a clear connection can be seen between the element of earth and the element of air, which symbolically points to the breath of life, the spirit given by God.
In the writings of early man, there is a clear connection between the dust of man’s creation, the dust of death, and man’s low estate before a Holy God. Psalms 22:15 associates the element of earth with the grave thusly, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.”
Note, in the reference to the dust of the Psalmist’s demise, the drying up of his moisture, or, a loss of water. The connection in early thinking between water and earth is irrepressible.
Also, take a look at Psalms 44:25, “For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly (heart, or, inner man) cleaveth unto the earth.” We have always felt helpless in the face of death; quite frankly, we are helpless. Life and death are simply beyond our jurisdiction. They belong to God. And we lament, as in Psalms 30:9, “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth?”
Even though, as in Psalms 22:29, we evince an adequate understanding: “All they that be fat upon the earth shall eat and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him: and none (but neither) can keep alive his own soul.”
Now, perhaps we can get a better grasp on that whole deal about lamenting, or fasting in sackcloth and ashes. It was a representation of a people’s low estate and humility before the God that brought them from and sent them back to the dust. It was a ceremonial act that connected their physical state to their spiritual desires.
Joshua 7:6, “And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the Ark of the Lord until the eventide, (a watery reference to a new beginning, as the Jewish day ran from the evening to the morning) he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.”
The element of earth, or dust, is used as a symbol of man’s low estate in the writing of 1 Samuel 2:8, “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust . . . to make them inherit the throne of glory.”
Also, read 1Kings 16:2, “Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over my people Israel.”
When man was convinced of his low estate, he would repent in dust and ashes; witness Job 42:5 & 6, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Could it have been an attempt to bury one’s base nature, or sins; did they think that was possible? Read Job 20:11, “His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which lie down with him in the dust.”
All words and deeds have a progressive direction. They are not static. We need to keep in mind that a
man can fling his body into the dust and catapult his spirit into heaven.
Job 2:12, “And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.”
Just as ‘earth’ has a connection to ‘water’ through ‘blood’, so too does ‘water’ have a connection to ‘wind’ through ‘vapor’, or ‘cloud’, and by allusion, the dust can be compared to the cloud.
Nahum 1:3 speaks of the lower end of higher levels when the writer states that “The clouds are the dust of His (God’s) feet.”
Man’s highest reach: the sky, with all its billowing fleets of clouds, is still beneath God, is where we begin to get a glimpse (order-of-element-wise). The earth is God’s footstool; clouds would be where His lowest aspect touches our highest, where spiritual touches physical. Or is it just so much poetry? Let us read some dust of the feet verses with this in mind.
In Matthew 10:14, Jesus, the only begotten son of God, said to His disciples, “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.”
Why shake off the dust? Mark 6:11 puts it this way: “And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony.”
Read Luke 9:5, “And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.”
Is that like saying, ‘since you love your low estate so much, keep it’?
Luke 10:11 seems to say just that, “Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.”
The elements show an equal division in the purpose of God, and in the instruments of His fulfillment. Earth and water are the first half; air and fire are the second half, with the ‘cross-over’ set being water and air.
The number of the triune is evident in a progressions chart: (1) earth/water; (2) water/air; and (3) air/fire. The half-way mark is water (the end of the old), and air (the beginning of the new). John the Baptist, in this regard, is representative of mankind, who progressed from their beginning in the earth, to their preparatory cleansing or spiritual washing in water.
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