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Studies in Genesis, Introduction, Genesis 1:1, Lesson I,
With today’s Sunday School lesson we begin a series from the book of beginnings, the first book of God’s Word, the book of Genesis.
So in our studies we go from the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, to the first book of the Old Testament.
Way back in 1998 and 1999 I taught a series of lessons beginning in Chapter 37 and ending in the last chapter of Genesis, Chapter 50 concerning the life of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the grandson of Isaac and the great grandson of Abraham.
This series of 53 lessons in audio and written form is available on our web site gracebiblechurchmilton.com.
So now instead of teaching the last chapters of Genesis we will, with God’s help, begin this series in the first chapter and by reason of strength perhaps extend it to chapter 11.
Now we who know the Lord, we who have been born into his family by His Spirit, know that He does not wish his children to be ignorant.
And in providing knowledge for his children he has graciously provided to us this wonderful book of beginnings in which we are told from whence we came.
Now those who do not know the Lord, those born only once into this world, are also curious to know from whence they came and therefore they continue to bring forth all kinds of theories and ways as to how all this happened.
But to find this out they continue to go to the wrong fountain of knowledge, the wrong place, from which this knowledge may come.
This knowledge will not come forth from that which can be seen and held and weighed and tested for this knowledge is only known by the One who brought all things to be.
And that is why we who know this One also know how all things came to be for we simply believe His word through that wonderful thing called faith, a faith that pleases our Maker.
So in Genesis, God provides us with knowledge as to the origin of the world and the origin of man and all the creatures and living things so plentiful upon the earth.
For the Earth is a unique bloom in a universe where our limited exploration finds no other life.
God also tells us of the origin of the fall of his ultimate creation, the fall of humankind and the introduction of sin and depravity.
We are given to see the consequences of this fall and the wickedness that sin brings.
And because of this we see the intervention of God by His perfect judgment, a perfect judgment in the flood, the confusion at Babel, and the destruction of Sodom.
But our wonderful and gracious God extends his grace to small remnants, Noah and his small family, Lot and his two daughters and by making covenant with Abraham through whom a great nation will come.
For that great nation came by His bringing into the womb of Egypt for a 400 year residence, a small band from which the nation of Israel was birthed to enter into a land promised long ago to Abraham.
The title, Genesis, of this first book of the Bible is a transliteration of the Greek word used in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
This word from the Hebrew text is the word Bereshith, which translated means, ‘in the beginning” which are the first three words of the Bible.
From many sources in the Bible, including many from our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament, we are told that Moses wrote this book, along with the four other books following Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
These five books are grouped by the name Pentateuch which means five scrolls.
Broadly speaking Genesis can be studied in two sections.
Chapters 1-11 speak of the ever widening deterioration of man, who had fallen from a God created perfection and thereby facing the judgment of His Creator.
But from Chapters 12-50 Genesis describes God’s ever narrowing program of bringing redemption to men.
First the fall, then God begins the rise.
So within these two sections, the major subjects God presents to us are the Creation, the fall, the flood, the confusion of languages, and then on to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Genesis is indeed the book of beginnings and its study always will steer the student in the way God intends.
Now with regard to beginnings I remember vaguely a time long ago in the 1950’s being in the deep woods of Wisconsin during my College Surveying class in which we were taught the art of land description and measure.
And the first thing I learned was the importance of knowing where you were.
Where do you start in a thing called surveying?
And we found out that that starting place was a place called the point of beginning, also known as the POB.
Surveying requires you to know from where you begin in order to come to the correct ending.
Our country is laid out in square miles and every square mile has corners which are points of beginning.
The description of my land is given thusly: Commence at the northwest corner of Section 27, Township 2 North, Range 28 West, Santa Rosa County, Florida.
So anyone in the world who knows this can find where this land is.
Section 27 of this township and range is only one place and the northwest corner of this square mile is only one place also.
So God in the book of Genesis identifies immediately the point of beginning for He says, in the first verse, first chapter, In the beginning God.
So God is the point of beginning as far as we are concerned.
That is made very plain and we need to look no further.
The case is closed, no further research is needed for we all now know where to start and that is God.
Everything from the beginning starts with God.
Before the beginning was God.
It did not require a beginning to bring forth God for God was always before the beginning for there was never a beginning for God.
So in this book the roots of God’s word are planted deep and like roots producing a trunk and branches so too is this book the foundation for all truth that will ultimately be displayed in the Word of God known in its fullness as our Lord Jesus Christ.
Genesis is the seed plot of God’s word and from here we are given to see as scripture comes forth the grandeur of the spreading out of the great trunk and branches of the tree.
For Genesis is the seed of the tree planted by the rivers of water.
And from that tree all fruit comes to the husbandman!
So we are to approach the book of Genesis as the book presents itself to us as authoritative and declarative.
Jesus said, No man cometh unto the father but by me.
Jesus was authoritative and declarative and that attribute was displayed in the very beginning of His word.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth!
So where is the confusion here?
Where is the argument here?
This statement explains it all.
It is very impertinent and even arrogant of those who try to find room in this declarative statement for their theology.
These are the same folk who say Jesus was a good man, a wonderful example, a great teacher but refuse to receive the knowledge that He was the Messiah, the Son of God.
You can’t say one without the other!
God’s word is authoritative and declarative and trying to massage it into something other than what it is simply verifies the conclusion of scripture that the heart is indeed deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Either Jesus was who he said He was or He was the world’s most wicked fake and a fraud beyond all others.
And so it is with the beginning verse of this book.
There is no middle ground.
Anyone with integrity would say you either believe it fully or you don’t believe any and all parts of it.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Who must have said this?
Was there a vast arena filled with people gathered together for the creation activity?
Was there a written account apart from this authoritative and declarative statement?
God heard all the counsel of the friends of Job who thought they knew so much, but they too were not in any vast arena of creation for listen to what God asks of Job in Chapter 38, verses 1-7
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Here is God, the great surveyor, the great builder telling these men: I did not see you when the worlds were framed.
You were not given to witness these great creative acts.
You are given to simply believe my word by faith and in this I will be pleased.
So you are either to take this verse as truth and as pronounced by God, by faith, or you are to only value it as ancient literature beautiful in its presentation but totally only words of fiction and without eternal value.
But be warned there are consequences in thinking the later.
God has so made the narrow way to come to him, only travelable by the vehicle of faith.
You cannot reach God through human intellect.
But if by faith you bow the knee to the God of the very first verse of His word your knee will remain bowed to all of God’s word as the authoritative and declarative word from God to man.
You will then give thanks unto the Lord and recognize His unlimited power as expressed in Psalm 136.
You will bow the knee to him who by wisdom made the heavens, who stretched out the earth above the waters, who made great lights to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule by night.
For as Isaiah 45 expresses this is the God who formed the light, who created darkness, who makes peace and created evil, who has made the earth and created man upon it, stretching out the heavens and all their host, creating all things not in vain, and forming things to be inhabited.
He is the Lord and there is none else.
We who walk by faith teach this book of Genesis as divine revelation.
Without God speaking these words I would have no full understanding of first things.
I would be open to the myriad ideas filling the earth, ideas unworthy to even be discussed in the presence of God’s word for they come not from minds of faith but only come from the minds of fools.
We are to take the words of God given in the book of Genesis literally finding eternal principals which guided walks of faith at the beginning and continue to do so in our day.
We are to believe in our Creator not because we have been convinced intellectually or scientifically or psychologically but because our eyes have been opened through the agency of faith.
God said: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; that settles it.
But in the creation itself God opens up to all of those created the knowledge of a Creator for we are told in Psalm 19:1-4 to see in the heavens and the firmament the handprints of God:
For: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.
And the Apostle Paul has so concisely written, guided by the same Creator, that God has provided to all the knowledge of Himself through His Creation.
We read of this in Romans 1:20, For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God has provided to man a mind to receive a knowledge of Him and He has provided to that mind the things that are made, to open up to man the Creator’s invisible attributes.
So praise be to God who does not hide himself from His creation for each sunrise and sunset speak of God, each starry sky, each forest, each rocky crag, every flow of water, every wavy shore and every man, every woman, and every child simply by their existence declare the glory of God.
To conclude otherwise is to reveal nothing other than the deceitful and wicked heart, a heart that declares, No God for me! |