Genesis (1) (An Overview)
Text: Genesis 1:1-2
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Well this morning we are going to be starting our series on the Book of Genesis, and most likely this series is going to take quite a bit of time. So I’ll tell you now that I’m not going to preach straight through it Sunday after Sunday, after Sunday. There will be times when I break it up and we cover other topics as we make our way through this book. I might preach on Genesis for 6 weeks straight and then preach from one of the Gospel, I might preach on Genesis for two weeks and then give a message from Daniel or Romans, or on various topics, as the Lord leads. And the reason for that is because this is an incredible book and I don’t want it to become monotonous, or anything like that.
And so I just wanted to give you a heads up on that.
This morning; as we begin this series on Genesis, want I want to do is give you sort of an overview, and touch on a few things before we dive into it too far.
The word “Genesis” means origins or beginnings; and this book, the first book of the Bible lays the groundwork, not only for the book of Exodus, which follows it, but for the entire Bible. And not only does Genesis mean “origins or beginnings” it is a book about origins and beginnings. We see in it the origin of creation, the origin of man, the beginning of history, the entrance of sin and death into the world, we see arts and craftsmanship begun. It tells us how the nations originated, how languages were formed, and so many other things. It also is a book that claims to be about God and from God. The copies of this manuscript are some of the oldest texts’ we know of. And what’s amazing about this book… and to me is one of the proofs that it is a truthful account is that even though it was penned by Moses, he doesn’t shy away from listing all his short-comings, flaws, and faults.
Genesis begins with God’s creation of the world, but early on, in the first few chapters it also records 3 low points for mankind: the fall, the flood, and the sin at the tower of Babel. And in every one of those records we see God responding to humanity with both judgment and grace, and what that does… what we learn of God in the first 3 chapters of Genesis; is that He is Creator, but also the Sovereign Lord of His creation. We see that He is a God of justice, but also of mercy.
Historically speaking; we can divide the book into two parts. The first 11 chapters deal with primeval history. Then from chapter 12 until the end of the book we are given the history of the Patriarchs – patriarchal history. The first half of the book, dealing with primeval history can be broken down even further into four major events. The creation, the fall of man, the flood, and the events of the Tower of Babel. The second half of the book, dealing with the patriarchs can also be broken down into four things... or more specifically, four people. Abraham; who’s mentioned in Genesis chapter 11 – is the bridge between the two halves, and his story is found from chapter 12 all the way to chapter 20, then the book focuses on the life of his son, Isaac from chapters 21 to 26.
And then we see Jacob, who is Isaac’s son, and we read about him from chapter 27 to chapter 36, and then finally the book concludes by focusing on the life of Joseph, from chapter 37 all the way to chapter 50.
The book of Genesis is quoted more in the New Testament than any other OT book, except for the Psalms and Isaiah. And some of the topics we read about in Genesis, we don’t hear much about them again until we get to the NT. Things like the serpent in the Garden, or Melchizedek – the mysterious priest of Salem. Some of the topics of Genesis aren’t understood in their full light until the NT; like the institution of marriage and how God has given that to us as a means of showing us His love and relationship to the Church, or the redemption of the promised Messiah, which is fully realized in Jesus Christ, or even Abraham offering Isaac – but God providing the lamb as a substitute in his stead. So you see; until we know about Jesus, we don’t fully understand these things in their full light and meaning.
Now I want to say one other thing before we dive into the text here.
It’s very interesting that in our day and time, it seems that the world is waging a war, and a lot of the efforts and attacks in this war are being waged against the truths found in this book of Genesis. They attack the creation and they attack the institution of marriage. And again; I would say that it’s because of the foundational nature of this book.
So; having said all that by way of introduction, let’s look at the first two verses of chapter one, (Read vss. 1-2). Now that right there tells us something. God Himself is the subject of the first sentence in the Bible, and if we miss the importance of that, then we’re missing everything. That first line, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is so packed full of spiritual truth it’s amazing. But the first thing and probably the most important thing is that it is God who is the source of creation. It was His idea and His doing. And that reveals to us the first thing man knew about God, that He was the Creator. And that it was the Triune God alone that did the creating. In-fact; one interesting point about the book of Genesis is that there is no mention of other gods except in one story. And that’s when Jacob runs away from his uncle Laban, and Laban chases after Jacob because some of his idols were stolen. As Moses writes that he says that Laban chases after Jacob because some of his “gods” had been stolen. That’s tongue in cheek in-case you didn’t realize it. Moses was mocking other belief systems when he wrote that. Because the God of Moses could never be stolen away. It was all very humorous to Moses. The Bible tells us there is only one God, who exists in Three distinct Persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that this one God is the creator of the entire universe. That’s a direct contrast to all other ancient creation accounts. Other ancient creation accounts would not only talk about how the world began, but usually about how the gods they believed in began as well. But the Bible tells us that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the only God there is. There is no other.
Now throughout Genesis, God reveals other attributes to man and it’s important for us to understand that some things about God are revealed through creation. Romans 1:20 says, “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.” In other-words we can look at creation and realize that there is a God who created all things.
We can see how the sun rises every morning and sets every evening and know that the God who created the universe is a God of order and faithfulness.
We can see how God sends the rains and causes seeds to grow and know that He is a God who provides. That’s called general revelation. But there are other attributes that God reveals to us through His Word, and specifically in this book of Genesis. And one of those attributes that God shows us and reveals to us is that He is personal. That has two meanings: First it means that God has personhood, and second that He is personally involved in His creation. What I mean by personhood is that God is not some abstract thing. The Bible tells us He can feel, He can be angered, He can be pleased, He loves and yes… He hates.
We also see God’s judgment and His grace. We see God’s judgment when He kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden, we see it in the flood of Noah, and we see it when He confuses the languages of man at the Tower of Babel, but we also see His grace. We see grace when He makes provision for Adam’s sin, we see it in His saving of Noah and His family, we see God’s grace when He calls Abraham out of a pagan culture and makes a covenant with him. And what these things, and many other things in the book of Genesis show us; is that God is both holy and loving, and neither of those attributes trump the other, neither of them is emphasized at the expense of the other. He is a God of justice and mercy, and that’s important for us to understand later one, specifically when we look at the fulfillment of Scripture when Jesus goes to the cross.
As Genesis goes on, God reveals Himself to man through the names that He calls Himself.
The very first name we see is Elohim which means the strong and mighty Ones. It’s a plural of El which means God Almighty, and Elohim is used when speaking of the Triune God’s sovereignty in creation. Then there’s the name Yahweh or Jehovah, which is often translated as LORD (in all caps), and that means the God who is… the Great I AM. Then as God continues to reveal Himself He adds to that name. Like in Genesis 22 when He provides the lamb for Abraham and Isaac, and He is called Jehovah Jireh – God our provider. God continues to do this throughout the Bible, we see it in Exodus, and Jeremiah and Psalms. If we go back to Genesis we see that He is revealed as Adonai which again means Master or Lord, and again deals with His sovereignty.
And so God reveals Himself to us through His Word. Man can see the invisible attributes of God through the creation, but God reveals certain, special attributes through His dealings with man personally, and through His Word. This is called “Special Revelation.” Special revelation comes to us from a source outside of our reasoning.
And so; this book is a book about God, from God, and it tells us what God did, and what God does. And it starts with creation. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And let me just say this about creation… it is Ex nihilo – that’s a Latin term that means, out of nothing. God didn’t use the big bang to create the universe. He didn’t use already existing particles that were floating around in space. In-fact there was no space, there was no time. Those words, “In the beginning” signify the creation of time itself. Before the beginning, there was only God. God created time for the benefit of man. We could actually read Genesis 1:1 like this, “When time was begun by God, God also created the heavens and the earth.” And then everything that came into existence did so because a sovereign, almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing God created it. And He created it orderly. That is why the earth is just the right distance from the sun to support life, that’s why the earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the earth to maintain the gravitational tides on the oceans currents.
The only other option you have is to believe that before the creation of the universe as we know it, some impersonal, non-intelligent thing existed. Some primary particle, or maybe two primary particles, and within those two particles all the potentialities later realized in the universe existed. In-other-words; in those two particles there existed not only the order we see in the universe, but also all the diversity we see in it. The diversity we see in mankind, the bats ability to use sonar, the camels ability to store water, the bears ability to hibernate, the possums ability to play dead, the skunks ability to spray, the dogs ability to bark, the cats ability to meow, the salmons ability to spawn, the redwoods height, and the cactus’ ability to thrive in the desert, and the list goes on and on.
Let me close with this. I have hazel eyes. They change colors. Sometimes they are green, sometimes they are a pale, grayish-blue, sometimes they are brown. The other night I happened to look in the mirror and I literally watched my eyes change color, right there in-front of me. It was pretty cool!
Did you know that the human eye is composed of more than 2 million working parts? It can process 36,000 bits of information every hour. There are 1,200,000 fibers in the human optic nerve. There are over 120 million photo receptors in the human eye.
I want to tell you what Darwin had to say about the human eye, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seem I FREELY CONFESS, ABSURD IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE.”
This will probably be the only time you ever hear me say this, but I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Darwin. It is absurd in the highest degree.
