Wow! What an exciting journey, Genesis to Revelation! And such a quick trip, taking only 52 weeks. I feel like I could just camp out in Genesis for 52 weeks!
If Genesis were cut from the bible, the rest of the bible would be incomprehensible. It would be like a building without a ground floor. Genesis gives us crucial information concerning the origin of all things and therefore the meaning of all things. Genesis, particular chapters 1 through 11, is history given to us by God to Moses to explain to us why the world is the way it is. That includes the physical, social, moral and spiritual aspects. Everything that we need to know about origins is found in these first 11 chapters of Genesis.
Chuck Missler, in his book, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours says the following: “All the major doctrines in the bible have their roots in Genesis: salvation, justification by faith, the believer’s security, separation, disciplinary chastisement, the Rapture of the Church, divine incarnation, death and resurrection, the priesthoods – both Aaronic priesthood and the Melchizadek priesthood – the antichrist, the Palestinian Covenant, and many more.
All false philosophies are answered in the book of Genesis. Atheism claims there is no God; Genesis asserts that all Creation is by God. Pantheism says that God is everything; Genesis teaches that God is transcendent and distinguishable from His creation. Polytheism claims there are many gods; Genesis emphasizes the one God. Materialism claims the universe is eternal; Genesis shows that even matter has a beginning. Humanism asserts that man determines the ultimate reality; Genesis says God does. Evolutionism says that everything evolved gradually; Genesis asserts that God created all things. Uniformitarianism claims that everything is moving along as it always has; Genesis shows God’s interventions in history.”
It is the foundation of God’s revelation. No other book of the bible is quoted or referred to so frequently in other books of the bible as is Genesis. It is noteworthy that the portion of Genesis which has been the object of the greatest attacks of skepticism and unbelief, the first 11 chapters, is the portion which had the greatest influence on the NT. Everyone of these 11 chapters is alluded to somewhere in the NT, and every one of the NT authors refers somewhere in his writings to Genesis 1-11. On at least 6 different occasions Jesus Himself quoted from or referred to something or someone in one of these chapters, included specific reference to each of the first 11 chapters.
Genesis is important not only as a history of man’s origin, but also as a prophecy of man’s future. Paradise lost, in Genesis, becomes Paradise gained, in Revelation.
Henry Morris says this about the two books. “We can learn much about the original world by the study of Revelation, and much about the final world by the study of Genesis, since in a very real sense, these are essentially the same.
These worlds are not quite the same, of course, since man in the first world, though sinless, was yet untested. The first world was suited as a probational world, still somewhat tentative, though perfect and flawless for its purpose. In the final world, man, though having experienced sin and failure, has also experienced redemption and renewal. He will have been made perfect and eternal, [Hallelujah!] and so, therefore, will his world be made perfect and unchanging, no longer with aspects appropriate to a probationary period, but equipped ideally and fully as man’s eternal home, in the presence of God, his Creator and Savior.”
If Genesis is the foundation for the entire Bible, then Genesis 1:1 is the foundation for the entire book of Genesis. Therefore, let’s look at some of the key words or phrases of the first verse.
1. “God” This first occurrence of the divine name is the Hebrew Elohim, the name of God which stresses His majesty and omnipotence [supremacy, all powerful]. It is interesting because it is a plural noun but is used as if it is singular. It is suggesting the tri-unity of God. God is one, yet more than one.
2. “Created” - This is the word bara, used always only of the work of God. Only God can create – that is, call into existence that which had no existence. (See also Romans 4:17; Hebrews 11:3). It compared with two other Hebrew words asa, which means “to make, fashion or fabricate,” and yatsa, “to form.” My husband was a ship builder in England and his title was “fabricator.” He did not create the ships out of nothing, but he took metal and other materials to “fabricate or “form” the ship. (I am sure he will get a laugh out of my “technical” shipbuilding jargon!) “Creating out of nothing” is quite distinct from “forming” or “shaping.”
3. “In the beginning” notes the beginning of time. The universe is actually a continuum of space, matter, and time, no one of which can have a meaningful existence without the other two. The date of creation is set less than 10,000 years ago. However, God is eternal, He has always existed. Brain can’t comprehend that? Yeah, well, neither can mine. It actually hurts when it tries! Our finite minds cannot comprehend fully the wonders of God!
Just a note concerning the Trinity before we move on. In Genesis 1:1, we have the name of God the Father – Elohim. Then we see the Holy Spirit in verse 2 and verse 3 shows us Christ as he “spoke” the world into existence. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Going into Genesis 3, it would seem that all is well. Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” God did not create anything evil. It was all very good.
Then suddenly when chapter three opens, there is this serpent. And he is clearly evil. He is calling God’s word into question. 3: 1~ “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” He is conniving, deceitful and destructive. God had said in Genesis 2:17, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” But the serpent says in verse 4: “You will not certainly die,”… 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Therefore, Jesus says of him in John 8:44 that he is both a liar and murderer. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Sin always begins by questioning either the Word of God or the goodness of God, or both. This is the age-old lie of Satan, the lie with which he deceived himself in the first place.
In Eve’s response to the serpent’s insinuations was to assure him that he was wrong. However, even in the midst of her attempt to correct the serpent’s implication, she revealed that his question had a deadly effect on her. In her reply, she both added to and subtracted from God’s actual words, with the effect of making Him seem less generous and more demanding than He really was.
Who is this serpent? The fullest answer is given in Revelation 12:9: “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” So the serpent in the garden is the devil (which means slanderer), and Satan (which means accuser), and the deceiver of the whole world.
The question that yells out for an answer is: Where did Satan come from? And why does God tolerate his murderous activity? In Genesis he just appears. Between the perfection described in Genesis 1:31 (“behold, it was very good”) and the appearance of evil in Genesis 3, something happened. The good creation was corrupted. The little book of Jude and 2 Peter in the New Testament give us clues as to what happened. Jude 1:6 says, “The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.” And 2 Peter 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.”
In other words, the “sin” or rebellion of Satan and part of the heavenly host was a kind of insurrection. It was a desire for more power and more authority than they were appointed by God and under God. So Satan originates as a created angel along with other angels, rebel against God, rejects him as their all-satisfying king and joy, and set out on a course of self-exaltation and presumed self-determination. They do not want to be subordinate. They do not want to be sent by God to serve others (see Hebrews 1:14). They want to have authority over themselves and exalt themselves above God.
Back to our narrative in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed” The key word is enmity, which means “hostility” or “animosity.” God himself takes responsibility for this war, so to speak. Eve and the serpent will never get along.
In Hebrew the word for “seed” is referring to the generations yet unborn that would trace their heritage back to Eve. That “seed” or offspring refers to the men and women of faith in every generation who has believed in God. This is the godly line that leads to Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Ruth, David, Daniel, Esther and eventually culminates in the person of Jesus Christ.
But Satan has his seed too. Throughout history in every generation, in every country, in every city, in every village, in every tribe and clan and in every family, Satan has had his people. Matthew Henry puts it well when he says:
“It was the devil that put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ, of Peter to deny him, of the chief priests to prosecute him, of the false witnesses to accuse him, and of Pilate to condemn him, aiming in all this, by destroying the Savior, to ruin the salvation.”
Who was behind the crucifixion of Jesus? It was the ungodly line of Satan. This is the real “Conflict of the Ages"–the struggle between those who believe in God and those who don’t.
There are two humanities: The one humanity says there is no God, or it makes God in its own imagination, or it tries to come to God in its own way. The other humanity comes to the true God in God’s way. There is no neutral ground.
We can’t begin to imagine the effects of God’s declaration of war. He cursed the ground since from that point Adam would get his food from working the ground. Thorns were then the symbol of the curse. On the Cross, Jesus bore those thorns, which were literally thorns but also were symbolic of bearing the curse for all of us.
Suddenly with this act of disobedience of Adam and Eve, Man is in his fallen nature. And so the first act of religion is recorded in Genesis 3. Remember what Adam and Eve did when they first discovered they had sinned (v7)? The first thing they tried to do was to cover themselves, to cover their sin by the work of their hands. “Religion” is always man’s attempt to cover himself. But the central message of the bible is that God Himself has taken care of it as only He can – if we but accept it.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
As God made garments of skin to clothe Adam and Eve verse 21, His begins to lay before us His plan of Redemption. He was teaching them that by the shedding of innocent blood on another tree, in another garden they would be covered. The Scarlet Thread began from the “seed of the woman” mentioned in chapter 3, which became the title of the Messiah; it was a hint of the Virgin Birth. It continued in the call of Abraham in chapter 12 and through the call of Judah, and culminated that day 2000 years ago on the cross. So what was lost is now held for our future, Paradise gained!
