In May of the year 2011 I started a sermon series on the
book of Genesis, primarily on Sunday nights, at Fordsville Baptist Church. After
nearly two years, we finished the study this past week. My childhood was spent
in church and both of my parents love Jesus and raised me to do the same. As a
result of this rearing I am quite familiar with the content of the book of Genesis;
after all I have been to Sunday School and have seen the flannelgraphs. With
that being said, this is the first time that I had ever done extensive study,
verse by verse, through the book of beginnings. There were many things I
learned for the first time and many truths that were reinforced as I led our
congregation through this study. God’s Word is so deep that we can never walk
away un-impacted by its great truth. As I reflect on the past two years there
are a few truths from the Pentateuch’s inaugural piece that stick with me:
I.
God Creates Via His Word
Chapter one begins with God speaking creation into
existence. Each day initiates with the words, “God said” and creations flows
from the very words he speaks. God’s creative power is exercised through his
word and it is the origin of all that exists. In Genesis 12 God calls Abraham
out of his idolatry to follow the true creator. It is through God’s Word that
he creates a new people for himself; Abraham would be the father of Isaac, who
would be the father of Jacob, who would be renamed Israel and have twelve sons.
Just as God brought our physical reality into existence with his Word, so also
does he create new spiritual realities with his Word. Through the Word of God
the Spirit makes the dead hearts of fallen men alive. It is only through the
message of the gospel that men can be made new. The Word of God that created
the cosmos is the same Word that replaces a heart of stone with a heart of
flesh. This reminds us of the urgency to preach the gospel to dying men because
it is the only thing that breathes life into the lifeless as God did with Adam
in Genesis 2.
II.
God Uses Broken People
If your knowledge of Genesis is limited to your childhood
Sunday School lessons then this may be some truth with which you’re unfamiliar.
The Genesis narrative is filled with heroic giants in the faith, but if we’re
not careful we can forget that they were all very sinful, broken people. The
only merit they can claim is the grace given to them by God. Our parents in the
garden, Adam and Eve, were the first to sin and bring death on all men, and yet
in spite of their sin God gives them sons. And when one of their sons murders
the other son God gives them another son who carries on the line of the seed of
the woman. Abraham tried to give his wife away a few times and fathered a child
with Hagar. Isaac struggled with favoritism and tried to secretly bless Esau.
Jacob was a mess; he stole his brothers blessing, he struggled with favoritism
even more than his father did and it tore his family apart. Joseph was a
spoiled brat because he was his daddy’s favorite and Judah sold his brother
into slavery, his sons were murdered because of their wickedness and he slept
with his daughter-in-law, thinking she was a prostitute. Those are just a few
of the issues with which our spiritual fathers struggled. In spite of their brokenness,
God used these men to bring about his plan of redemption for the whole world.
Oh how we can take comfort in the grace of God when we fall down.
III.
God Loves Families
The book of Genesis is all about how much God loves the
family. The first thing God does after he creates the world and everything in
it is he officiates a wedding. After marrying Adam and Eve, the first thing God
does is tell them to have a bunch of kids. After the fall God’s promise to the
fruit thieves is that they will have a son and he will save the world. When
Noah is saved he brings his family into the ark and they are called to have
more babies when they return to the dry land. Starting in chapter 12 God calls
Abraham and his barren wife and tells them they will have a son and
consequently they will have more family members than there are stars in the
sky. The remainder of the book is all about Abraham’s kids, grandkids and
great-grandkids and how God is going to use them to save the world. We live in
a world that hates families. God loves when men and women get married, he loves
when they have a lot of babies and he loves when people raise those babies to
love Christ.
IV.
God Loves The Nations
Sometimes when people study the book of Genesis they spend a
lot of time focusing on God’s love for Israel. This is a good thing, Genesis
teaches us about the early history of the nation of Israel and how God called
his elect nation. It would be through the nation of Israel that Christ would
come and would bless all nations. The promise of redemption given in Genesis 3.15
is not merely about the nation of Israel, but it is about the entire world (especially
considering there was no Israel in Genesis 3). The seed of the woman will crush
the head of the serpent and those who are sentenced to die will live again. In
Genesis 11 God scatters the nations, and from there he calls Abraham. Abraham
and his family have many interactions with other nations, like Egypt, sometimes
he causes them trouble and sometimes he blesses them. Years later his grandson,
Joseph finds himself in Egypt through the evil acts of his brothers. In the
final chapter of the book we learn that God sent Joseph to Egypt so that he
could be there to provide during the famine and save not only his family, but the
entire world. Moses gives us a picture of the Jews and the gentiles united in
salvation under the son of Israel. This is an Old Testament sign post pointing
us to the grafting in of the gentiles through the work of Christ. Israel was
called to be a light to the nations, they were to represent YHWH and bring
others into the covenant community. God loves the nations, he has always loved
the nations and his plan has always been that every knee bow and every tongue
confess that Jesus is Lord. (Phil. 2.9-11)
V.
Genesis Is All About Jesus
The book of Genesis begins with the creation of the world
through the Word of God, Jesus (Jn. 1, Col. 1). In Gen. 3.15 God promises that
the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent, this is the
very first gospel announcement in scripture. When God calls Abraham he promises
him that through his family the world would be saved. Jesus is the son of
Abraham, the true Israel, who saves his people. Isaac points us to Christ;
Jesus was the true lamb sacrificed in Isaac’s stead on the mountain. Joseph is
a type of Christ; the son of Israel who was betrayed by his brothers and then
redeemed them. Judah, from whose line Jesus is born, is a type of Christ who
stands in the place of his convicted brother. The book of Genesis could be
subtitled: “The Gospel According to Moses.” Every page in scripture is
Christ-centered and the book of Genesis is no exception. As I read and studied each
narrative in the book I was struck by how Christocentric every passage was.
Every page of scripture points us forward to Christ, teaches us about Christ,
or points us back to Christ. The promise of the gospel penetrates the great stories
that make up this very first book of the bible. The hope that Adam had was the
same hope of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was the hope of Moses, Joshua,
Samuel, David, Solomon, Daniel, Isaiah, and all of the prophets. It is the hope
that John the Baptist announced and it is the hope that came in the person and
work of Jesus. It is the hope that the church carries even today. When Jesus
walked out of the tomb he placed his heel on the serpent’s head. Our hope is
that a day is coming when Christ will return and death will finally die.
As I prepared for my sermons I used commentaries by Bruce
Waltke and Ken Mathews and read sermons by Mark Driscoll and Ligon Duncan. Let
me know what you think and what resources you think are helpful.
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