Aleethia!

In studying Genesis, let us first consider who the author was. The Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit so ultimately God is the author. He worked through men to record his revelation though, so it is the earthly, human instrument we are considering.

It is generally agreed that Moses is the author of the first five books (Tora), other than a few verses which he could not have written, concerning his death. Some scholars in recent years have attempted to prove that Moses could not have written all of the Law due to place names appearing from the post-mosaic period. Most scholars agree though that he did author the books and that only the place names were updated later.

Genesis tells the story of human history from creation to the death of Joseph. The book can be outlined in the following manner.

I. Primeval History

A. 1-3 Creation & Fall
B. 4-11 Adam-to-Abram

1. Noah & flood
2. Tower of Babel

II. Patriarchal History

A. 12-25 Abraham
B. 26-36 Jacob (Israel)
C.  37-50 Joseph

Genesis begins with the story of creation. God, who exists in and of himself creates time and space. He creates the earth and all life. He creates man in his image. The story moves quickly along those lines, from the creation of the universe to the individual people.

Scripture doesn’t dwell on creation in a philosophical sense. That’s not the subject matter Scripture is concerned with. People, and their relationship with God is the primary focus of all Scripture.

Genesis 1-11 is the opening act, setting up the rest of the story line. These chapters help us to better understand the world, even the world as we find it in the 21st century.

The story opens in darkness. The power of God’s word brings the universe into existence. The OT never attributes the creation of anything to anyone other than God. Men are said to build, to make, to form, but not to create. Only God creates.

Humans are introduced and the setting is an idyllic garden. The garden is peaceful, comforting, provides for all the needs of our first parents. It doesn’t stay that way for long, however.

So the plot of Genesis 1-11 begins with a good creation and moves to a world corrupted by the sin of men.

The major characters are Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Noah.

Major events include: creation, sin, the flood, and the Tower of Babel.

In the garden, God placed a tree which he commanded man not to eat from. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why did God create this tree? Foreknowing what would happen, why create a tree that makes sin possible? The Bible makes it clear that all creation exists for one purpose, to glorify God in Christ (Ephesians 1:4-14). The creation of this tree, of the possibility for sin served a purpose in the plan of God to glorify himself.

That may seem strange when you first think on it, but remember this, God had the opportunity to create the world however he wanted. He chose to create it in this way for a reason. That reason, is to glorify himself. We must conclude therefore, that this is the best of all possible worlds he could have created.

Sin was in the world in the form of Satan, before it entered the human race. We were created in God’s image. Man was created sinless, but not perfect. If Adam and Eve had been perfect, they would have discerned the lie in Satan’s words. They were sinless and very good, but not perfect.

After their sin, God comes into the garden and pronounces the curse, or repercussions of that sin.

For the woman this included: increased pain in childbirth, a desire to rule over her husband, a position of submission to his rule.

For the man: a struggle to survive and provide food for his family, work.

For the serpent: crawling on it’s belly.

For Satan: defeat by the offspring of the woman.

Here is the first Gospel promise (protoevangelion). The promise of a redeemer, who will defeat the enemy.

We see that even after sin occurs, God still cares for humans. Humans are sinful, that sin has spoiled a good creation, but God has promised to overcome sin for us.

As the story continues, things go from bad to worse. Cain murders his brother Able. The entire race is wicked. Only Enoch walks with God, and God takes him out of the world.

Many people will argue that the idea of Total Depravity originated with John Calvin, or maybe with the Apostle Paul, but here it is presented in the opening chapters of Genesis.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. -  Genesis 6:5

This is not John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or even Paul, this is God, stating that all of mankind had fallen into such a state that every intention of the heart of man was evil.

God decides to destroy the earth with a global flood.

This scene gives a clear example of God’s holiness and judgement of sin. There is no getting around the fact that God hates sin and punishes it. It also shows his mercy and grace. Enoch’s great-grandson, Noah, is the only one who finds grace with God. God has him build an ark to save himself, his family, and all the animals.

After the flood recedes, God charges Noah and his family with the same responsibilities he originally gave to Adam and Eve.  He promises not to destroy the earth with a flood ever again. And he calls his renewed relationship with Noah, and by extension mankind, a covenant. The covenant is given by God and accepted by Noah, there is no negotiation.

Any hope that the flood and the covenant would eliminate sin, is dashed in the later half of chapter 9. Here we see a real redneck scene. This righteous man who found favor with God, is found drunk and naked in his tent. One of his sons sees him and mocks him. The other two behave better and cover him. The behavior of the sons leads to blessings and curses for their descendants.

Not long after this scene, human pride and sin once again reach disturbing levels. The race decides to defy God’s command to populate the whole earth, and instead purposes to stay together in one place, and to build a tower reaching to heaven itself. The purpose of the city and the tower was to honor man, not God.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” – Genesis 11:4

God confounds their language and disperses them anyway.

Clearly the flood did not solve the sin problem. Thus ends the primeval era.

This opening section of Scripture (1-11) gives us much to think about.

It forces us to consider our temptation, our pride, and our fall. It leaves us to wonder how God will work in this kind of world to bring hope and salvation to His creation and its population. It shows us the issues we must deal with to understand our universe and to cope with life in that universe. The remainder of the Bible will provide solutions to this introduction to the problems of the nature of creation, humanity, sin, pride, temptation, judgment, hope, and salvation. ¹

In the remaining chapters of Genesis we see God’s dealings with four generations of one family. This section introduces us to Abraham, the man whom God chooses to use for the purpose of establishing a kingdom to be a witness to the world, and to bring the promised savior.

Abram (Abraham) is to establish the line through which the promised redeemer will come. Scholars agree that Abram lived sometime between 2100 and 1700 BC. Abram lived in a highly developed culture. God calls him, and makes a covenant with him, setting before him promises and responsibilities.

God calls Abram (Genesis 12) to leave his country and people and family and travel to a land God will give him. This event may be the single most important event to take place between the fall and the birth of Christ. It is the beginning of God’s work to raise up a people of his own choosing, through whom he will bring the promised messiah who will crush the head of the serpent and save us from our sin.

Now Abram has some faith struggles along the way. While he trusted God enough to leave his family and his home, and to travel to parts unknown in the wilderness, he fails several tests of faith. He lies to Pharaoh (that Sarah was his sister) to protect himself instead of trusting in God for protection, and takes matters of an heir into his own hands. He attempts to father the promised heir by having sexual relations with his wife’s maid. The resulting son, Ishmael, becomes a great nation, but not the one God had promised.

In Genesis 17 God confirms his covenant with Abram (exalted father) and changes his name to Abraham (father of many). He also changes Sarai’s name to Sarah (princess). God gives them a sign of the covenant, circumcision. God promises to continue the covenant through a promised son, Isaac.

God fulfills his promise and Abraham finally has the son God intended as the heir.

In Genesis 22, God tells him to sacrifice that son. By this point, Abraham has learned to trust God, and obeys. He travels to the place God tells him, intending to offer his son as a sacrifice, trusting that God will fulfill his promises. When Isaac asks where the sacrifice is, Abraham tells him that God will provide. We have no reason to think that Abraham knew God had a ram hiding out in the thicket. Abraham could have had some idea of the coming Messiah, but he wasn’t articulating that here. He was answering his son’s question about the immediate sacrifice to be made. He intended to kill his son because God had told him to. Yet God had promised to fulfill the covenant through this son.

The writer of Hebrews tells us what was going through Abraham’s mind at that moment.

He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead… (Hebrews 11:17-19)

On what is later to become the temple mount, Abraham bound Isaac on an alter and prepared to kill him. God intervened, stopped him and provided a ram for the offering.

It is through Abraham that God begins to fulfill his promise of a redeemer. Abraham has his faults, but he is called the “father of all who believe” (Romans 4:11) in the New Testament.

Galatians 3:8 says that the Gospel was preached to Abraham in the promises God gave him. Specifically in the promise that

…in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, – Genesis 22:18

The key verse in Abraham’s life is Genesis 15:6

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

This verse is quoted and referred to more often in the NT than any other single verse in the OT. Abraham’s belief in God was the foundation of the nation of Israel, the foundation of the church.

Isaac grows and marries and has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob is the younger son, but the one whom God chooses to continue the line through which will be born the savior.

Jacob cheats his older brother out of both his birthright and his blessing. Fearing for his life, Jacob leaves his home and travels back to the land from which Abraham had come and stays with his Uncle Laban. 

On his way, he encounters God and the covenant promises are renewed to Jacob.

In his uncle’s house he meets Rachel. He falls in love, agrees to work 7 years for the right to marry her. But his uncle cheats the cheater. He tricks him into marrying Rachel’s older sister Leah. He then works another 7 years for Rachel.

Due to competition between the sisters for Jacob’s love and approval, he fathers 12 sons through the two women and their two maid servants.

After some confrontation with his uncle Laban, Jacob decides to return to the land of promise. On the way he once again encounters God. This time he wrestles with God and God changes his name to Israel. The change is more than just a name, Jacob himself changes and acts as a man of faith for the rest of his life.

Jacob’s son Joseph now becomes the central character of the book. Joseph is a favored son. His father dotes on him. And Joseph is a dreamer. His dreams are fantastic and they have prophetic meaning. Joseph himself, as a young man, knows little humility though and lords it over his brothers due to his dreams.

The other brothers, being jealous, sell him into slavery in Egypt. With the favorite son sold into slavery, his father believing him dead, and the other brothers being men of hatred and vengeance, how will God set things strait and bring about his promised redemption?

From a human perspective, things seem to be going very wrong at this point. Yet in Egypt, Joseph is blessed by God and rises to great power. He serves in the household of a wealthy man and God blesses his work so that his master is blessed as well. Yet Potiphar’s wife makes lustful advances toward Joseph, which he resists, until she becomes bitter toward him and has him jailed on false charges.

In jail Joseph again rises to the top of the situation and comes to run the jail just as he had run Potiphar’s household. Here he meets Pharaoh’s former baker and cup bearer. When each man has a dream, Joseph, by the power of God, interprets their dreams. One is to die, the other to be restored to his former position. The cup bearer forgets Joseph until two years later when Pharaoh himself has a dream no one else can interpret. Joseph is brought out of prison and gives the meaning of dream, prophesying 7 years of plenty and then 7 years of famine.

Pharaoh places Joseph in charge of all of Egypt. He is second only to Pharaoh himself.

When the famine becomes severe, Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt looking for grain to buy. Joseph tests them to see if they are still hate filled and evil. He finds that they are not. He reveals himself to them and sends for his father Jacob. Thus it is that all of Israel ends up in the land of Egypt. This sets the stage for the story of the book of Exodus.

In the story of Joseph we can see several parallels to the life of Jesus. I would say he is a “type” of Christ.

Joseph is the favored son. He is sold into slavery/death. He tells us it not his brothers, but God himself that sent him to Egypt (Genesis 45:8), and their he rescues his people from death by famine.

Jesus is the favored son of God. He was put to death on the cross, by men, yet by the will of God himself (Acts 4:27-28 ). It is on the cross that he rescues his people from the death of sin.

An important theme in this story is the sovereignty of God even over the actions of evil men. They did exactly what their evil hearts desired, yet Scripture says it was the will of God that they do so. Not that God made the best of their actions, but that their actions carried out his will.

Nothing happens outside the will of Almighty God. God works all things together for good (Romans 8:28).

Genesis concludes with Joseph’s two sons taking a place as sons of Jacob alongside Joseph’s 11 brothers, each to inherit a portion of the land of promise. Jacob dies and they carry his body back to Canaan and bury him with Abraham and Isaac.

Before his death Jacob blessed his 12 heirs. His son Judah received the promise of the messiah coming through his line.

In the closing verses of the book, Joseph dies as well. The people of Israel are now living in Egypt, without Joseph representing them to Pharaoh. Yet before his death Joseph prophecies that God will keep his promises and return them to the promised land.

Conclusion

In Genesis we see that sin has entered the world. To be human is not to be sinful, but all fallen humans are sinful. This sin offends God and spoils his good creation. God will overcome sin.

We see the character of God as creator. We see that God has the authority and the will to judge his creation. We see that judgment in the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the killing of Judah’s two sons.

We also see God’s sovereignty on display as he spares Noah, disperses the people by coming DOWN to see this mighty tower of Babel, chooses Abraham not Nahor, chooses Isaac not Ishamael, chooses Jacob not Esau, prospers Jacob, sends Joseph to Egypt, and saves his people.

We see God’s mercy on display as he spares Noah, saves Lot out of Sodom, protects Abraham, protects Jacob, and saves his people from famine.

As you consider your own life, do not forget the creator of heaven and earth. He is sovereign and merciful and takes an active interest in the lives of his people. His judgment is to be feared, his mercy is to be celebrated, his goodness is overwhelming.

And so Genesis, the book that began with creation, ends with a coffin. A coffin in Egypt. God has set the stage for his great rescue in Exodus.

¹ Old Testament Survey, 2nd Edition, Paul R. House – Eric Mitchell (B&H Publishing, 2007) p. 18