Genesis 1&2
-T’Naya Edwards
Last Week Angie had the task of sharing with us how God alone exists. It was no easy task to do and I think she did a beautiful job! We learned that God alone eternally exists as three persons in one God as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We learned that He is the ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD and that all other little g “gods” we hear of in the Bible and even in society today are not gods at all but are man-made, they are powerless impostors. We saw this played out in the account of The Ark of the Lord being placed alongside the Philistines “god” Dagon, and how God will allow no one to stand alongside Him. He alone is worthy of glory, honor and praise. I hope you made some time this week to be in your Bibles, whether that was with us in Devoted in our study of Second Samuel, or perhaps you are reading through the New Testament in a discipleship group; whatever it may have looked like for you, I pray that you were looking for God as you read and studied and found the Attributes of God handout useful! If you were not here with us last week we do have extras for you if you didn’t get one yet.
This week we are going to be discussing Creation: Imago Dei(image of God) and The Cultural Mandate. To begin I want to set the stage for Genesis because we actually will be camped out in this book for 2 more weeks.
Genesis literally means origin or beginning. Genesis is a theological and historical narrative. That means that it is going to teach us theology(what we believe about God) and the history of how the world as we know it began. Just because it is a book of history, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s boring. In fact, I would say it is one of my absolute favorites. In Genesis we find the first of God’s promises, covenants, and His blessings. We also find a few other genres of text in Genesis such as historical drama 1:1-2:3, poetry in 2:23, 4:2, 8:22, and prophecy in 3:15, 49:1. It is in Genesis we learn of Adam and Eve, the Fall(when sin entered the scene) which Kandice is covering next week, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, Abraham and Issac, Jacob who became Israel, and lastly the colorfully clad Joseph. The book of Genesis is split into two parts and the first part focuses on God and the entire world in Chapters 1-11 and the second part focuses on God and Abraham’s family. Perhaps you have been in church a long time and know these stories, or maybe you are brand new to all of this and have no clue who they are, either way I encourage you to take some time and read through the book of Genesis, it’s fantastic. Genesis is the second longest book in the Bible and is the first book in the Torah. The Torah includes the first five books of the Bible(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and is Israel’s origin story: it is the history of how the nation got its population, religion, and land.
It is so important for us to know the beginning of the story to truly know and understand what is going on in the bigger picture. Isn’t it funny how we spend so much time at the back of the book? We might learn a few stories from the front ⅔ in the Old Testament, but as far as trying to read and understand the whole, well that’s too hard. I’m in Leviticus now in my reading plan and let me tell you, it is hard. In our Second Samuel study, it’s hard. There aren’t rainbows and butterflies, but it’s worth it. Every time I take the time to dive into the front of this book, I grow. I grow in my knowledge of who God is, what He has done, and it’s gets even better- the New Testament starts to make way more sense, only enriching the wonderful goodness that we find there!
When I was a new Christian at the ripe age of 14, I remember I bought myself a brand new “teen bible”. It was a wonderful orange and turquoise pleather. I was proud of this thing. I had recently accepted Jesus as my Savior and bowed my knee to Him as my Lord and followed Jesus’ command to be baptized. Amongst my peers at my church I was definitely aware of my lack of Bible knowledge. I could kill it at the corny game of naming the car brand logo at the beginning of class but after that point, I had no clue. So when I found this lovely chart in the back of my fabulous new bible that showed all the books of the bible and the chapters within them, I immediately started reading all the “smaller” books of the Bible. I had a Dave Ramsey snowball method approach to knocking out the debt of not knowing God’s Word. Well let me tell you that is NOT the way to go about reading God’s Word. With this approach I found myself in books like Obadiah, Joel, Haggai, Nahum, Malachi basically a lot of the minor prophets- a little less crazy to try and understand were, Ruth, Philemon, 123 John. Anyways, I needed direction because my hop around method did not serve me well and as you can imagine I quickly lost interest before I could get to other books to help the ones I had just read make sense.
I believe that we would be serving new Christians well if we took them right to the beginning. Yes, absolutely, of course they initially need to flip toward the back, right to the Gospels. Why would we not rush them right to Jesus and what He has done! We should have them read some of the book of Acts and see when the Holy Spirit came into the scene for us and how the early church began forming and all that the apostles and new believers were up to at that point. Out of the four gospels, I truly love John’s approach most of all. He let the other 3(Matthew, Mark, and Luke) take the time to let us know how Jesus came born of a virgin in Bethlehem and he jumps right into Jesus beginning His earthly ministry. It’s almost as if he knew his gospel would be the last of the four when it found its place in the Bible and he’s like “Well you read that three times already, I’m just gonna jump right in okay?” But John knows the importance of the world's true beginning and starts off with his very first words pointing us there. In John 1:1-5, as we read with Angie last week, “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God.” It’s almost as if John himself is saying “listen to what I have to say in this letter, but then go back. It’s important.”
So let’s do that. Genesis 1&2.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Genesis 1:1
This verse sets the stage for us today. Genesis 1&2 are shouting from the rooftops letting us know that GOD IS CREATOR. The word God is used 34 times here in Chapter 1 alone. We see it is all about what God said, what God saw, what God created, what God did with what He had made; then concerning man, how God blessed him and tasked him with a role to play.
I know Angie touched on this last week but it is worth looking at again in the context of these chapters, the Hebrew word for God here is Elohim. Grammatically, Elohim is a plural word, and the way it is used all throughout the Bible is as if it were singular. Instead of saying “They did x, y, z” it says “He did x,y,z.” God is God alone as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, and they are all fully present right from the start as one person. Right out of the gates we are seeing one of our first doctrines, which is the doctrine of The Trinity. What we believe about God is foundational. Here we are still in the first half of the first verse. I will move on now….
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The Hebrew word for “created” is bara which is specific and means created from nothing. The world as we know it did not come about by chance. It was all created from nothing by an eternal God who always was, is, and will always be. If the world were to implode today, God would still remain, He is eternal. Theories like the Big Bang, imply that a tiny bit of something existed and by chance expanded and grew together to form the perfectly functioning and harmonious Universe as we know it. These are just my thoughts, but to me it makes much more sense to believe in a Creator, who set everything perfectly in place. I can place my trust in something, even better, Someone there. If I were to believe that everything came from one tiny little speck by chance, I also am inclined to believe that by chance it also could so easily fall apart. With God that is not so. He created everything from nothing. He is a God who is in control of His creation and intelligently designed everything to work perfectly as it does: gravity, light, the sun, the moon, the stars, water, our seasons, all work so intricately and if they were “off” even just a little bit, we wouldn’t be standing here talking about it today. That, my friends, is not by mere chance.
1:2 says “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
It is from here that we can cue the dramatic star wars music and read about how Verse 1 unfolded as Genesis 1:3-2:3 as it scrolls across the “screen”.
We see God starts with a dark watery expanse and goes on to create…
First Day (1:3-5) Light and some sense of time. God says let there be light and separates the light from the darkness, and we see that the evening and the morning were the first “day”.
Second Day (1:6-8) Firmament and the Heavens. It may be helpful to say sky or atmosphere here. From my understanding the firmament is the visible arch in the sky and the heavens referred to here are what is visible to our eyes.
Third Day (1:9-13) Earth and plants.
Fourth Day (1:14-19) Sun, moon, and stars.
Fifth Day (1:20-23) Sea creatures and flying creatures.
Sixth Day (1:24-31) Animals and man.
Seventh Day (2:1-3) God rested.
It’s hard to even fathom what all of this would have actually looked like. That’s why I say it’s like a Star Wars intro, because all we can do is read and do our best to understand what took place before we start to get more details. You see, God simply wasn’t concerned with us understanding the hows, whens, and whys of the “beginning” of the Universe or He would have given us that information. Realistically though, if he gave us formulas and equations to try and grasp it, no one would even be able to comprehend them. God in Himself is incomprehensible and what He wants us to know and understand is right here in His Word. The Bible is a guide, not a science book. The fact that He has given us what information He has and that He has given us the Bible at all, is pure love and grace! It’s not a bad thing to search out these things of mystery found here and ponder on them but we must never let it distract us from what He has given us, and what He has told us to do.
In verses 26-28 in the sixth day is where we find out who we are and what we were created for.
'Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”'
Genesis 1:26-28
First we see that God made man in His Image, according to His likeness.
What does that mean exactly? The words image and likeness closely mean the same things and are to be even more expressive used together than they are alone. Until this point nothing had been made to even remotely resemble God. Man was created distinct from everything else. Skipping ahead to Genesis 2:7 we read “And 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 being.” From the dust of the ground God fashioned man. The dust here is symbolic of the lowliness of man in relation to God and points the the grandeur of the Creator to make the very crown of His creation from next to nothing. Man’s body was a mere clay vessel until God breathed His very life into man.
To better understand being made in the image of God, awoken with the very life of God, we can break the concept down into three aspects.
· It means humans possess personality: knowledge, feelings, and a will. This sets man apart from all animals and plants
· It means humans possess morality: we are able to make moral judgments and have a conscience
· It means humans possess spirituality: man is made for communion with God. It is on the level of spirit we communicate with God
(David Guzik Commentary on Genesis 1:26)
Ultimately God created us to reflect His character, creativity, and goodness, and when we do, HE IS GLORIFIED.
It is here after the 6th day where we can see that all was right with God’s creation. His original design can be easily remembered with “4 P’s”.
Presence- God was in direct relationship and fellowship with man and all He had made.
People- God had made humans in His image to reflect who He is among the rest of creation and everyone to come after them.
Place- God had made all of creation perfect, harmonious, and untainted by sin, for man to dwell in. He placed man in the Garden with Him, where they had everything they could ever need.
Purpose- God gave man the task of multiplying and glorifying Him in all they were to do.
It is in Chapter 2 we get to zoom in on some of the events that took place in Chapter One and get a few more details.
In the beginning God created from nothing the heavens and the earth. He made plants good for food and pleasing to the eye, animals of every kind according to its kind, and a marvelous sky lit by the sun and the stars. God looked at all of it and called it good. Then He made man and saw that it was not good for man to be alone. So God took a rib from Adam and fashioned Eve. After looking at all He had made he saw that it was then very good. He made them unlike the rest of creation and commissioned them in Genesis 1:28 with the unique order to, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”' The very meaning of Adam is “humanity” and the meaning of Eve is “life”. Humanity and Life were to be fruitful and multiply. They were to “create” more humans by means of reproduction. They were to take control and exercise power over all of the earth. They were given authority over everything that was created. To do this they would have had to leave the the Garden of Eden to go out and build, create, and rule, but as we know they didn’t make it to that point before God’s original design was thwarted by sin.
In Genesis 2:16&17 “the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” This was man’s first test. Would he choose to be obedient to God trusting what He has determined is good and right or would they choose to lean on their own limited understanding and bend under the will of the tempter?
If only the story could stop here, all would be right in this perfect world. But if you have been around anytime at all, it is clear to see that this is not what happened at all. My heart breaks and wants to scream out “WHY Adam?! God gave you authority and dominion over every creeping thing you should have CRUSHED THE SERPENT’S HEAD!”
But we know that despite the First Adam’s fall into a downward spiral of sin taking all humanity with him, we know that the last Adam, in humility and submission to the will of the Father, came to earth fulfilling the first prophecy to do the very thing the First Adam could not- crush Satan’s head.
Christ Jesus is not merely created in God’s image as man is, but has eternally existed all along. “He is the image of the invisible God...For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15, 19)
What does it mean to be an image bearer? Look to Christ. What does it mean to rule and have dominion over all the earth? Look to Christ. Then in the power of His Spirit do it well.
To say it once again, the beginning is important. If as Christians we started here, if we let the beginning be our foundation, we would see it’s all about God. We wouldn’t be so tempted to make it all about us. As we continue to read on in the Bible, I pray that our eyes would be trained to look for what God has said, what He sees, what He has created and what He is doing with that creation. I pray that we understand what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to see with his eyes submitting to the command to be fruitful and multiply, to rule and subdue, only now, in the fullness of the Glory that Christ has brought our fruit and multiplication goes beyond the limitedness of physical reproduction. We have the Holy Spirit who brings forth fruit we could have never imagined and who calls us to those who need Him most to grow our spiritual family in ways that could not have happened before the fall. While we can mourn for a moment the loss of the perfect world in the Garden, we can rejoice in our living hope that is in Jesus. Without the fall there would be no need for a resurrection. Which in itself brings about a glory far beyond whatever it was that was to come in the Garden. When Christ returns there will be no tempter, no choosing on our own between what God has commanded and our limitedness. We will be in the fullness of His glory. Creation in perfect submission to the Creator.