GENESIS: About Creation? A Science Book? NEITHER?!?! | ask Theocast

I have a question for you, what is the book of Genesis about? If you're giving me an answer right away, most people would say creation. That's interesting because there's 50 chapters in the book and yet we describe it as a book on creation.

Genesis as a Book About More Than Creation

And then the debates begin, right? Evolution versus creation. And then it's theistic evolution or is it old earth, young earth? We're going to talk about this today. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Jon Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church and host of Theocast.

This is Ask Theocast where we answer your questions from a reformed and biblical perspective. I love the book of Genesis and I love this subject mostly because I like to mess with.

People.

Most people were going to say the book of Genesis is about creation, yet it's two chapters and then we never reference creation again. Then how is it that we say an entire book is about what's only consisting in two chapters?

And I know there's a lot of videos out there that are debating whether theistic evolution or evolution, old earth, young earth, and I'm here to sell it all, they're all wrong. I know you think I'm crazy.

Actually, we're going to talk about what is the purpose of the book of Genesis? Why are the first two chapters in there? Those are the questions that I really want to get at because I do not believe historically the church has ever affirmed that Genesis is a documentary of creation or of science or of evolution or what I would say an apologetic against evolution.

Genesis and Monotheism in Israel’s Covenant Context

It's not a science book and yet in recent years we've been treating it like a science book to prove to the atheist or those who don't believe that God created the world in a legitimate seven days, then they're wrong.

And so we're going to use the book of Genesis as a science book. So there's a couple of things you have to do when you study God's word. First of all, you always have to look at the immediate context in three ways.

Here's the three ways you always got to look at the Bible. First of all, who is the audience that's reading this letter or reading this material? Because that's going to help you understand why it was written in the way it was written.

First of all, we know the audience originally intended to read this are the children of Israel just out of exile in Egypt. So that's the first thing we know. Second thing we know is that the author is Moses, but the overarching author is not just Moses, but it is God.

God through the spirit is the one who is the over, I would say, the one who's inspiring Moses and he is going to also dictate what it is that Moses is going to write or govern what Moses is going to write.

Those three things are very helpful for us. The way I would describe Genesis is not a book defending creation, but actually it is defending mono, meaning one, monotheism, theo, meaning God. So it's defending the nature of God, monotheistic versus polytheism, which is multiple gods.

So a little bit about the history. Genesis was written about 2500 years after what we know as the first recorded dates of Adam and Eve in the history of Adam and Eve. So 2500 years of history has gone by before the first mention of in the beginning, Genesis one, one was written.

So just the history is children of Israel have been in captivity for 400 years in Egypt and they are freed, they're brought out of Egypt, and now they have a covenant with God. And in this covenant, God becomes their God.

They become God's people and they have no idea of really who God is. They have for 400 years been worshiping multiple gods. Now they're aware of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's their lineage. That's their heritage.

But the God of these men is not a God that they're aware of. So what does Moses do? He comes down from the mountain with the law to give the law to them, to govern them. But also he begins to write the Pentateuch, the first five books of the law so that they can know who it is that they are now in this covenant with.

So when he begins to write, again, the setting is they have just come out of Egypt. They have no idea who this God is. What's the first thing that the children of Israel do when they come down the mountain?

They are seeing worshiping Baal. They're seeing worshiping another God. So if you read the history of the Old Testament, they're plagued with polytheism. They are plagued with multiple gods. So one of the pagan traditions has been that creation of the world, the way the world came to be, was multiple gods being involved.

There was the God of the sky and the gods of the sea and the God of the land and the animals. So what does Moses say? No, actually, one God created all things. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And so he is not defending evolution against evolution. He is defending against mono, he's defending for monotheism. What's the first law that Moses brings to the children of Israel? You shall have no other gods above what me, one God.

So monotheism, polytheism. This is important any time you read scripture. And to make sure that we're not misapplying scripture, there's also two ways in which the word of God is used. So in the Reformed tradition, we hold to what is known as a not an evidentialist perspective.

I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But we hold to what's called a presuppositional perspective, meaning that we presuppose upon the text conclusions that are drawn from the text or I would say all of scripture.

So when I'm talking about when I'm talking to somebody, let's just say I'm talking to Joe, who's the atheist. And Joe says he doesn't believe in God and he doesn't believe in creation. What I'm going to presuppose upon him is that he is lost, first of all, and he is blind to the truth.

And the only thing that's going to bring him from death to life is not evidence. So it doesn't matter how much science evidence I can show him of that we can see there is a creator. There is one who has established all of this.

It didn't just come out of nothing. We believe, according to Paul, that we are blind, we are deaf, we're dumb, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2. There's no way that we could ever open our own eyes.

We cannot cause ourselves to come from death to life. This is even John 6, when Jesus says no one can come to the Father unless the Father draws.

Him.

So I'm going to presuppose this upon Joe, the atheist, because he can't bring himself to actually see who God is and believe that God is the supreme being who created all things. Therefore, I'm going to have to use something else, which is, Paul says, is the power of God to bring people from death to life.

And that is the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. So I'm going to trust in the gospel, the message of the gospel, to convince Joe, the atheist, that he must repent of his sins and believe in Christ instead of evidence.

So the difference is presuppositionalism versus evidentialism. So there's nothing wrong as a believer for me to see the evidence within this world to prove that God truly is powerful, that he knows all things, and he is the creator and sustainer of the earth.

But that is not necessarily the purpose of it. So we have to be very careful if we're going to go to Genesis to think that we're going to convince the atheist they need to believe in God. Look, we have the science book here.

We have the word of God. That's actually not how it was intended to be used. And I think we should be careful. Second way we don't use the word of God appropriately is not only do we miss the point of Genesis—apologetic for monotheism or against polytheism—we miss the point of Genesis being about Jesus.

Genesis as a Prologue to Christ and Redemption

There's a famous phrase from Spurgeon when he's talking to a preacher, and he says, there is no Jesus in your sermon, sir, so go home and do not come back again until you have him. And we would say there is no Jesus in your Genesis.

We learn from John 1. So if you look from the New Testament and you read the Old Testament with the lens or understanding of the New Testament, you're going to see that Jesus is not only the creator but the sustainer of the world.

From the first book of the Bible, it is Jesus, the one who is creating it. Not only that, when Adam and Eve fall, what are we told? Immediately, God promises to Adam and Eve what? That from the seed of Eve will come the one who will crush the head of Satan.

And this picture that's being given to us, and it's further explained through time and even into the covenant that's made with Abraham, that Jesus is the promised seed, and he is the one who crushes or wounds the head of Satan who restores it.

So Genesis really is about Christ, who is the creator of the world, and not only that, but he's the restorer. He's the one who's going to restore that which Adam and Eve has destroyed, which also described as Adam being the first Adam, the one who was in charge of all of creation, and when he fell, that was passed to all to us, and Jesus being the second Adam, the second seed, the second promise.

And where do we learn of that? In chapter three. And from chapter three—I know my numbers—chapter three forward, we are asking one simple question. Who is the seed that's going to come and restore all things?

And that's when we begin to learn about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that leads into Joseph, where they get into Egypt. It's this beautiful story. So Genesis is the story, and I would call it the prologue to Exodus, but Genesis is the story of redemption.

It's the beginning of the story of redemption. It's how we start the story of how God saves sinners. So the debate about creation and evolution, I'm not really interested in because it's not why it was written.

Jesus took it literal. He took it to be the understanding that his creation, that he created, to be a little creation, and so I'm not really concerned about debating with people because they will not believe in God if they are convinced that there is a creator versus evolution.

My encouragement to you is to trust in what Paul tells us to trust in, which is the preaching of the gospel. Allow Genesis to be what it was originally designed for, to show us how it is that God saves sinners after the fall.

Closing Encouragement and Resource Mention

Hopefully that was encouraging for you. If you liked this video, give us a like on the button down below, and make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell so that you can be notified about future videos.

We also have a free e-book if you would like to know more about having a gospel-centered perspective or crystal-centric perspective of the Bible. It's called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

You can find the links for that down below. We'll see you next time.