Review of Genesis Chapters 1-14

Genesis as the Book of Beginnings

So let's open up to Genesis chapter 1. We're just going to do an overview since it's been, what, a month and a half, two months? I guess it's been almost two months since we've been in the book of Genesis.

So just want to do a review to keep our minds fresh. So we'll review chapters 1 through 14 and then we'll study Genesis 15 next week. So just to review, the book of Genesis is known as the book of beginnings.

That's what the word Genesis means. So the book of beginnings written by who? Moses. Okay. Around 1450 BC. And of course, Genesis is part of the Torah or the Pentateuch. So the first five books of Moses represent the Torah, as the Jews call it.

And it's, yeah, another term for it would be the law. So we'll just do an overview. Genesis chapter 1. If there's something I miss after I finish the chapter, you can raise your hand if there's something that I skipped over that you think is important.

But Genesis 1 starts out with those words that everybody knows, you know, in the beginning, God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and 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. So most people are aware, I'm sure you remember this, that chapter 1 covers the six days of creation. And when we went back, if you remember going back, these are literal days.

I'm convinced of that. And they're literal days because he says for each day in evening and morning, we're the first day. And the evening and the morning, we're the second day. Evening and morning, the third day.

So because of that, there's no reason to think that each day was millions and millions of years. I mean, some people would say that's a, well, that's just, just a different way to interpret the text. I don't think it's a different way to interpret it.

I think that's just denying what the text says. So, you know, if someone believes that the earth is old. Okay. We can be brothers in Christ. If you believe the earth is very, very old, I think it looks old.

Just like Adam was created on day. What number six? Yep. I did know that I'm just testing you, but Adam was created on day six, but he probably looked 25 years old, right? God created everything with the appearance of age.

So I don't really doubt that the earth looks 6 billion years old or whatever. I don't know how you determine that when you get numbers that high, but God created everything mature with signs of age. So we believe in six literal days of creation.

And there's this thing called the gap theory. We covered this, how some people believe that there is a gap of time, perhaps billions of years between Genesis one, one and one, two. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And then, you know, 5 billion years went by and then the spirit was hovering. Well, that's not actually in there. Okay. The gap theory is not actually in the Bible. It's a theory outside of the Bible because it's outside of the Bible.

I would say it's not biblical because it's not in the Bible, but this is a common thing that you will hear. I was just going to say the.

Hebrew word for day is Yom. It's always just been 24 hours, at least in the Hebrew. But then I thought of, well, the day of the Lord and the new Testament is some Hebrew word. Well, it might be,.

Let's just say, I'm not even sure about this, but I suspect that the word in Hebrew for day is probably used in different ways to describe a period of time. I don't doubt that that's true. Even if it is true, the same rules for Hebrew would apply for English.

So if I say there's such and such time at last, it was a whole day. You know, you probably think I'm talking about 24 hours, but if I say, you know, well, back in my day, then it depends on the context.

You have to look at what's being said. Look at the verses before and after the context will tell you how the word day is being used. Yes, it can be used to talk about more than 24 hours, but in this context, there is no reason whatsoever to think that.

So six days of creation, we talked about the gap theory, and then the other significant thing in chapter one is verse 26. And this is what the creation of mankind. So this is some might say the crown jewel of God's creation.

He says, let, well, let me just read it. Verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and 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.

Verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. So mankind bears what the image of God, right? And what does that mean? That means that God, the father has a human body.

That's not, that's not the point. Uh, we are like God. We bear the image of God in the sense that we are volitional creatures. We can think, uh, we can make rational decisions. We have emotions, right?

So in the other thing I would say about man made in God's image, God says, let us make man in our image. So that's the plural term for God. L is the singular. And then Elohim is plural. So when God refers to himself in plural form, us in our, uh, it's pretty well agreed upon.

That's a veiled reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is father, son, and spirit.

Question. Yep. The first day he said, let there be light and there was light, but that light was not the sun or the moon or the stars because they were created on the fourth day. Right. Any thoughts on.

The light? Yeah. So if you look at it, the sun, the moon, and the stars, like you said, were created on day four. So when God said, let there be light, well, it can't be the sun because the sun hasn't been created yet.

I would say it's the other sun S S O N not S U N. Uh, I believe that the, the glory of God, the maybe not the sun per se could be the Shekinah. Some people say it's the glory of God. That's illuminating the universe.

Okay. That's what I believe. Cause if you look in revelation, revelation chapters 21 and 22, there's so many connections between the first few chapters in Genesis and the last few chapters in revelation.

You remember in the new heaven and new earth, there's no need for the sun. Why? Because the glory of God illuminated it. So I think that's almost certainly what happened in the beginning. All right. So that's chapter one.

We go down chapter one. All right. Chapter two, we'll have to move a little quicker to get through everything now. That's all right. Um, Genesis chapter two, it starts with this concept of the Sabbath.

Okay. So there's the six days of creation in chapter one. And God created everything in six days, but on the seventh day he rested. So because of that, it says in verse two, chapter two, verse two, and on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done.

And he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it, he rested from all his work, which God had created and made. So the Sabbath at this point, is this a commandment for Adam and all men to follow?

I mean, there's nothing like that stated. There's no, there's no evidence that Abraham or Isaac or Jacob obeyed the Sabbath day. So later when it, when does it become a commandment in Exodus, the book of Exodus, the Sabbath becomes, yeah, it's the fourth commandment, one of the 10 commandments.

So that's based on Genesis chapter two, but we don't see any evidence that the Sabbath was a commandment for mankind from day one. So we believe that was part of the law. So are we under the law today?

No. So is the Sabbath commandment binding for us today? Well, of course, this is an argument among Christians. Most Christians agree that the Sabbath is not binding today, but that doesn't mean that, hey, you don't need a day of rest.

That doesn't mean you throw away the principle. Christians for 2000 years have always seen the Sabbath principle as good and something to be followed. So the Sabbath normally would be, well, we would worship on Saturday and we would rest on Saturday if we were obeying a strict Sabbath commandment.

But we've seen that principle. Instead, we worship on the Lord's day Sunday. And that's traditionally been a day where Christians don't work. Of course, all that's been shaken up in the 20th century, but I think it's a good principle.

But you'll find some Christians that disagree on this Sabbath doctrine, but that originates in Genesis two. Any questions on that? Okay, good. That could be a whole class on its own. So we see the Sabbath in Genesis two.

We also see the garden of Eden, just the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. And some people have wondered about Genesis two. It's like, what's happening here? Because in chapter one, God creates everything.

And it almost looks like a different story in chapter two, or some people have wondered really chapter two is just a retelling of Genesis one, just with more details. So God is sort of filling in the gaps.

And part of that is the creation of Eve. So Eve gets special attention in Genesis chapter two. And we know that Eve was created from where Adam was created from the dust of the ground. Eve was created from Adam's rib.

And there's jokes about that. But interesting enough, well, nevermind, I won't get into that. But any questions on Eve?

Right.

Not Eve, but just Adam and man. Back in the 26th, let us make man in our image.

Yep.

126. Yep.

And then it's quite a while later, when it's in the garden and he meets Adam.

Right.

So did he make a man twice?

Nope. Like I said, Genesis chapter two is telling us about what happened in chapter one, just adding more details. So it's the same story.

Yeah.

Right. There have been false teachings about Genesis two. Like there's, this is a myth among feminists. They say that God actually created the first woman and her name was, uh, what was it? There's a, there's a music festival, Lilith, right?

Lilith fair. Remember there's some music festival that used to be going, it might still be happening today. But anyways, the myth is that God created Lilith. So it was E Adam and Lilith, but Lilith was, yeah, she was like, uh, uh, a feminist and she, I don't know, rebelled against Adam.

So God, you know, kind of scrap that. And in chapter two, he did it over and he made Eve and just kind of went that, I mean, that's all just made up. So if you ever hear anything like that, I don't know if that's a Gnostic teaching, but that came along later.

So chapter two is really just chapter one with added details. Okay. All right. We go to a chapter two, move on to chapter three, first chapter three. Everyone knows what this is about. The chapter is about the fall of man into sin.

So it starts. And now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he, the serpent said to the woman, as God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

So the devil's temptation of Eve, what is he doing? He's, he's questioning the word of God. And I just find it interesting that yeah, people look at the book of Genesis and they wonder, is this really true?

Like a six day, did God really say he created the earth and in six days, you know, Noah's ark did no, did God really say that two of each animal were to be brought on the ark? People always question the book of Genesis and whether or not it's true.

It's literal. And I find it ironic that, you know, that was the devil's temptation to question the word of God. Did God really say this now? Did God say that? Yeah. Well, of course there's a little change to it.

The way the devil said it to what God actually said, he gets Eve, you know, thinking about it, long story short, we know what happens. Eve eats the fruit. She gives it to Adam. Adam eats willingly. Eve was deceived.

And this this brings the human race under the curse. So ever since Genesis three, mankind has been in sin. Like this is the doctrine of original sin, which doesn't refer to the first sin eating the fruit original sin is that since chapter three, mankind has had the sin nature.

So every descendant of Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve became sinners and all of their children. So the entire human race now is born into the world, dead and trespasses and sin because it's part of our nature now.

So that's the fall of man into sin. The results of that are what? Well, the curse death, which is physical death, but also spiritual death. They're kicked out of the garden of Eden. But with all that bad news, there is the promise of the good news.

So theologians have called this the proto evangelium in Genesis three, 15, the first promise of the savior or the, the proto you think of proto like prototype. So this is the first hint or the first mention of the good news, even though it's kind of a veiled reference.

So Genesis three, 15, God says, I will put enmity between. So he's speaking to the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

So long story short, the, the devil, what he will bruise the heel of, of Christ. Christ is the seed of the woman. So Jesus is harmed on the cross, but in the process, the cross really is what defeats Satan.

So Jesus crush, crushed the head of the serpent when he died on the cross. That's what that's a reference to.

Is foreshadowing another good word for proto something. It's a foreshadowing of the gospel,.

Right? That would be a good proto evangelium. Like you, you think of evangelicals, right? Someone asked me that the other day, define the term evangelical. Of course, that's getting hard to do these days.

What does that even mean anymore with everyone? Who's called an evangelical, but historically an evangelical is just someone who believes the gospel. So the evangel is the good news. So proto evangelium is the first, the first, uh, giving of the good news or the first.

Promise of the good news. So we think of evangelism or evangelizing as sharing the gospel.

Yep. Yep. So evangel, a one Galey on, you know, depending on what language it is, that's a reference to the gospel, right? So there's good news in chapter three, there's bad news, but there's good news.

See, there's no need for the good news in chapter one was there. Everything's great. Mankind isn't in sin. You don't need the gospel if everyone's right with God. But as soon as the bad news enters in, now there is a need for the good news.

So that all started in chapter three. And that's why when we preach the good news, and I would encourage you to do the same thing when you share the good news, you know, I'm not, I know it's typical to people have been taught this.

So I'm not being critical of people who do it because this is what they're taught, but going up to someone and saying, Hey, you know, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. I don't know that that's the best way to start.

You should start before you get to the good news, or at least at some point, explain the bad news of why they need right. Yeah. So people need to know what they're being saved from. So that's chapter three, any questions or comments about chapter three?

And really the rest of the Bible is, you know, the story of redemption. It all went bad in chapter three and the rest of it is God's plan of redemption to save mankind from sin and its penalty. And of course things go immediately bad in chapter four.

Cain, Abel, and the Line of Seth

Okay. Mankind falls into sin. Now what happens? You get the first murder. So this is the story of Cain and Abel and chapter.

Four. Yeah. The Romans road always begins with the bad news. The good news sounds better. When you understand the bad news, the bad news is very, very bad without Christ. You are going to hop into eternity, into a world of an eternity of terrible suffering.

That's a bad news, right?

So Cain kills his brother Abel. And that's, that's just a classic story, not a great story, but a classic story that you probably hear about in Sunday school. It's not preached on very often, but it is a story worth preaching on.

And another question that kind of comes up in all of this, because Abel dies and that is significant. So Adam and Eve, here's the thing people read that and they assume that Adam and Eve had only two children, right?

It's Cain and Abel. This is the only two kids they have. Well, that's an assumption. Okay. It doesn't say these are the only two children they have because later on you find out that Cain gets married and he has children.

It's like, wait a minute, where, where did Cain get his wife? Well, the typical answer is the typical answer is, well, Cain married his sister. That's not necessarily true. If there were others, I mean, at some point, brother and sister must've, you know, got married, but it could have been a cousin.

It could have been a relative. It was a relative. So that kind of solves that. That type of thing was banned again in the days of Moses with the 10 commandments. But early on, there was no other option.

So Cain is procreating and Cain was wicked and his descendants were wicked and Abel was righteous, but Abel was killed. And now the problem is it's, it's only wicked people that are multiplying in the world.

So things are getting bad. They're getting worse and worse, but thankfully at the end of Genesis four, there's another bright spot. And this is really true throughout the entire Bible. Someone once said that they studied the Bible, they looked over everything and two thirds of the biblical content is, is negative.

I don't know if that's true or not. It's one of those things you hear, but I can believe it that the majority of the content in the Bible is negative. It's bad, but there's always these little bright spots of what God is doing.

And this is the bright spot in chapter four, the birth of Seth. So it says once Seth was born and he had descendants, then what happened? Men began to call on the name of the Lord. So going into chapter five, you now have two lines, if you will, the ungodly line of Cain, and then running parallel to that, the godly line of Seth.

And that's going to be important going into chapter six. Any questions or comments on chapter four? All right, get into chapter five. So that's the genealogy of Adam or the family of Adam. It talks about Seth and his descendants.

And then Noah is introduced into the story. And obviously Noah is going to be a huge figure going forward. Noah was a righteous man in the earth. Another bright spot, Enoch. So Enoch is mentioned in Genesis five and Enoch, what's significant about him?

He was translated. Yeah. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. He's mentioned in the new Testament. So Enoch was just, you know, if you want to use the word, he was raptured, you know, in, into heaven.

So he is one of two people in the Bible that never died. Enoch and the other one is Elijah, because Elijah is going to get taken up in the world when later on. So significant event, Enoch taken to heaven.

And then chapter six, this is where you see the sons of God and the daughters of men. So he spent some time, this is another passage in the Bible that is hotly debated. And I think it's, I think it's okay to have different points of view.

I did change my viewpoint on this. I used to believe that the sons of God were, were angels or fallen angels and that they did procreate with human women. But I, I changed my viewpoint on that a few years ago.

Now I believe that the sons of God are part of the godly line of Seth. I think that fits the context because I was taught the other thing. Let's just read it. Genesis six, it says, now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.

And then we see in verse three and the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh and just goes on. And God is very upset. Whatever is happening, God is angry and he decides to flood the earth and destroy mankind because of what just happened.

So I was taught that the sons of God were angels or demons and that they procreated with mankind, human women, and their offspring were this, you know, hybrid, you know, half demon, half human that people call the Nephilim.

So that's what I was taught. And I realized that is kind of a problematic viewpoint to hold. Can that really happen? But when I studied this years ago, I did a chapter by chapter study for Sunday morning, just preach Genesis one next week too.

And when I studied it in context, I came to the conclusion that no, it makes a lot more sense that the sons of God are the godly line of Seth. So, and if you disagree with that, you think the other position is correct.

That's fine. We can agree to disagree, but this makes sense because if you have an ungodly line here, and then you have the godly line here and they start cohabitating and intermingling, if you mix good with bad, all you get is bad.

So I believe that is what ultimately corrupted the human race. And that's why God decided to flood the earth because the wicked people took over. And we know in chapter six, Noah finds grace in the eyes of God, but God tells him what he's going to do.

God's going to destroy the earth with the flood. And then the ark is prepared starting in chapter six. So any questions about five or six? Yes.

Well, this is the one, it's Genesis six, verse six. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. Now some people claim that this, this verse means that God, you know, it goes, it goes against the fact of his omniscience and that God, you know, like things happen that are out of God's control and that makes him sorry.

I mean, I have a good friend who brought this up. I was thinking about just wait until discipleship tomorrow night to ask you, but how do you, do you understand my, it seems like God is almost human or less than we think of him as almighty omniscient.

So if I can put his words differently, God's where he's saying, well, this is the question, I think that God is almost saying like, oh man, I really, I really made a mistake. I created mankind and I didn't realize they were just going to turn on me like this.

I made a mistake. Now I have to fix it. Well, I mean, obviously that's not what God said, but you have to, what we believe Moses is doing when he's, of course, God's giving him, you know, he's writing under inspiration of the spirit.

You have to allow for what is called anthropomorphic language. Like God's grieved in his heart. Well, technically God doesn't have a heart either, right? God is a spirit. He doesn't have a heart. These are just, it's just a way of expressing something.

It's a way of communicating what's happening in the story. God is not pleased. So because of this, God is not pleased, therefore he's going to destroy the earth. If you're assuming that God didn't see it coming, that's your assumption and that's not what's happening here.

But I get why someone would think that or ask the question, but hopefully that's a satisfactory answer. God doesn't make mistakes, but he does create people and give them freedom to make decisions. And then we mess it up.

You know, humans are responsible for the evil in the world, not God, but God's sovereign over it. And he's able to work in and through it all to bring his.

Purposes about. And that's what he's doing. Surely somewhere you could find another verse that does talk about God's omniscience. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but...

Anyone got a verse for God's omniscience?

You have to take the whole counsel of all of scripture when you do study, well, it's theology, isn't it? You're studying who God is. You realize that he's perfect and holy and powerful and that he doesn't have any weaknesses, omnipotent, omnipresent.

Right. Yeah. And this is where you need to compare scripture with scripture. And you could look at other verses that would clearly state that God knows all things. For example, Isaiah 46, verse 10, or go back to verse 9, Isaiah 46, 9.

He says, for I am God. There is no other. I am God. There is none like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.

So there's verses like that and others that talk about God not only knows the end from the beginning, or he has foreknowledge, God declares it like God is fully aware and fully in control of all of this, but he does allow people to make choices.

So. Very good. Thank you. All right. So chapter 7. So chapter 6, the flood is announced. Noah finds grace, prepares the ark. You get into chapter 7. That's when the flood happens. And this is another one of those issues.

It's becoming very popular now for evangelical quote unquote Bible teachers to deny the worldwide flood of Noah. What does the Bible say? That the flood covered all the high hills under the whole heaven, right?

And this is the whole reason why he took on two of every creature to preserve the species. Because the whole world was flooded. Everything would have perished if it wasn't for Noah and the ark. So it was a worldwide flood.

Everything died except Noah, his family, the animals. So this is the worldwide flood. It is not a localized flood that I believe is not a different interpretation I believe it's a denial of the text, but you know, I feel more passionate about that one.

But the ark, maybe the bigger, because we want, when we go through the Old Testament, we want to look for the types and foreshadows, right? The gospel is announced in chapter 3. So we want to look at other types and foreshadows of Christ and the gospel.

And we find one here in chapter 7. And where is Christ in Genesis 7? He is the, yeah, I mean, the ark is a type of Christ. So those who are in the ark are saved from God's wrath being poured out on the earth, just like in the end times.

Those, when God pours out his wrath again, first time he did it with water, next time he's going to do it with what? Fire. So who's saved in the end times? Who are delivered? Us. Yeah. Those who are in the ark, those who are in Christ.

So Christ is, or the ark.

Is a type of Christ. Okay. That's chapter 7. Yes, Larry. And the species or kinds doesn't mean that he had to bring two poodles and two shepherds and two of every type of dog. He just had to bring two of the canine kind, a male and a female.

And same with the feline.

Yeah. Two cats. I don't know what they were. They probably weren't house cats. But yeah, they, so the evolution question, that sort of gets into the evolution question. Evolution is, if you're talking about macro evolution, the idea that microorganisms develop into fish and fish grow legs and come out on the water and develop into monkeys who develop into man, that's macro evolution.

That is a false doctrine from the pits of hell. Okay. But obviously creatures do evolve. So you had two felines and from whatever they were originally, you get cats and lions and tigers and all that. So yeah, back then things hadn't evolved, so to speak.

So you just had two of whatever they were, but yeah, that's, that's the issue with evolution. Obviously things do develop, but we reject evolution as people typically think of it.

Not that it matters much, but what do you think about the fish? Do you think the fish survived.

The flood? Well, I mean, they must have, because I don't think there's any fish on the ark.

I mean, God created birds that fly through the air and fish that swim through the water at the.

Same, on the same day. Doesn't mention any aquariums, so I'm assuming the fish were okay.

It doesn't say there were any goldfish bowls on the earth. Right.

So that's chapter seven. You have the flood. Chapter eight, the water recedes. Noah gets off the ark. The first thing he does, he offers a sacrifice. And of course that's because he took on seven of each of the clean animals.

Also now humans can eat food so they can eat, or they can eat animals as food. So you get some changes and then this goes into chapter nine. So God's covenant with creation. The rainbow is the sign of the Noahic covenant, which is God's promise to never again flood the earth.

Also the death penalty is instituted in Genesis nine. So this has been seen as God approving of or instituting a form of human government. Also things go bad for Noah. He plants a vineyard. He gets drunk.