From Genesis to Understanding
Robert Diffin
Source: From the book of Genesis, the book of Matthew, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Genesis 1:1 and a sermon by Ray C. Stedman.
Noted Physicist: Stephen Hawking maintains that the universe began in a single, immeasureable location in space. The speed of the furthest star is so great that it can be measured by the frequency of light coming from it. There is no indication that the universe is slowing down. Not surprisingly, he estimates that all particles in the universe were created at once in the smallest portion of a second. In less than a twinkling of an eye. This, most noted of all Theoretical Physicists does not deny the existence of God. What does this mean?
The first bible verse I ever read is:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1
God created it, that is, made it out of nothing. There was not any pre-existent matter out of which the world was produced. The fish and fowl were indeed produced out of the waters and the beasts and man out of the earth, but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing. Matthew Henry Commentary
Man has had his run at trying to come up with another explanation but has failed miserably. Of course, I realized that theories are seldom proven. I’m sure if you’ve taken a science course, at some point you disagreed with your instructor and he set you in your place even though he couldn’t really disprove what you said. I know I have. But that is the nature of science. In the realm of natural science, we have been plagued by Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even though the focus which is the origin of man has never been proven. Darwin should have read his bible while there was still time to formulate his conclusions about natural selection.
Actually, I don’t want to speak to you about the subject of Genesis but about the book of Genesis, the work itself. The exerpt I have is from Genesis: The Method of Faith by Ray C. Stedman.
We are so familiar with the Bible that we scarcely consider what an ancient book it is. Abraham is better known than some of our (more) distant relatives. Isaac and Joseph, with others, are familiar household names to us. We feel that they’re people we used to know back where we came from. They are as close to us as that, because this book has so marvelously preserved for us the color, the depth, the flesh and the tone of life in those days.
It takes us back into the very dawn of human history and yet as we read it, it is as up-to-date as tomorrow’s morning newspaper. That, again, is a mark of the divine afflatus (or divine breath or inspiration) behind this book, the in-breathing of God.
There was a Greek philosopher named Herodotus, a teacher and scholar who lived some three hundred years before Christ, who is called the father of history; he is the first hisorian whose writings have been preserved to us. Anyone who has studied something of ancient history has heard of Herodotus. But the outstanding thing about the bible is that Moses, who wrote the first five books of our Bible, had finished his books and was in the grave five thousand years before Herodotus saw the light of day.
Genesis is not only history. Obviously it would have little significance if it were only that. But the book of Genesis is one with a tremendous message which can be declared in one statement. It reveals to us the inadequacy of man without God. That is the whole purpose of this book, and, as such, it strikes the keynote of all subsequent revelation of God. It reveals that man can never be complete without God, that he can never discover or fulfill the true meaning of his life without a genuine personal relationship with an indwelling God.
Now if I read my bible starting with the book of Genesis, realizing all that God made it to be and meant it to be and also realize what a magnificent work it is, I’m bound to get more out of it and the rest of the Word also. Christ’s lineage is recorded all the way back to Abraham in the book of Matthew. So it begins in the book of Genesis. Now if this book is true then all that comes after must also be true. Therefore, every writer from Moses to John who wrote the Revelation on the isle of Patmos was inspired by God. Therefore, all the Bible is God-breathed. Not JUST a book of history but the inerrant work of a holy God. It is the revelation of Christ. It is Christ.
Prayer:
Our Father, we pray that you will give us the urge and the motive to give ourselves to the writings before us. How many difficulties and troubles we could avoid, how many heartaches we could pass by if we only knew what you intended us to know in this book. May our hearts be open with a readiness to seek and to search and to find and to know that we are in a universe -- not silent, not mechanical, not empty in which there is no echo to our cry -- but a universe uniquely disposed by a Father, with a father’s heart. As we believe this and learn to walk by faith, you fill life for us to the full. We ask that this may be our experience in Jesus’ name. Amen.
