GOD BEGINS THE STORY

This study helps us to understand how all the different parts of the Bible fit together. I am sure at some time in your life, as I have, you have wondered how all this “stuff” in the old Testaments is relevant for Christians. The next 13 weeks we are going on a journey, a pilgrimage to discover God’s Story in the Bible.  We will examine each part carefully to see how they all interlock with each other to provide the total picture of God’s Story. (If this study turns out to be as complete as it promises, you may want to keep all the lessons in a folder for sharing with those who do not really understand God’s Complete Story.) After all, the Bible is God’s Story. The biblical narratives relating God’s Story are accurate and trustworthy accounts of actual historical events. The first lesson sets the stage to develop full confidence in the veracity of God’s Word, from this opening scene of God’s creation in Genesis to the final curtain in Revelation. We need to understand where “we” have been to know where “we” are going.

Read Genesis 1:2, 26-27 God Creates

God’s Story begins by summarizing the relationship between God and everyone and everything else. In this first verse of the entire Bible we are told a vital, amazing, and critically important fact that the vast majority of people on earth fail completely to understand and believe. We could reduce this verse to its shortest form to read “God created”. The verb translated means “to bring into existence”; it didn’t just happen, only God creates. From the opening statement in the Bible, we learn that God is the main subject of the entire Bible and He is uniquely set above all else including people, plants, animals and things. The phrase “the heavens and the earth” encompasses everything and everyone that is not God- Himself. This story does not begin “once upon a time”. It begins “in the beginning” and is not a fairy tale. What are some of the ways you have heard about -how the earth was formed and how people came to be? (We have heard the story of evolution or that everything just happened. We may have heard that we came from another galaxy. We also have many who believe that the earth is millions of years old and on and on.) It would take more faith to believe in one of these theories, than to believe it was created by God.

Psalm 29:1 reminds us “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord”. At the same time, we need to remember God is above creation, both eternal and awe-inspiring. Here is a comment that we may not have thought about: “Creation is subordinate to the Creator”. So creation is finite, limited, and the object of God’s intentions. He did not need to create the universe, He chose to create it. God saved His best creation for last. Only people were created in the “image” and “likeness” of God, terms that speak to people’s capacity to relate to God in a personal way. Notice the plural in verse 26 “let us make man…”; likely a reference to the Trinity. God created people for fellowship with Him. Additionally, only people were given the high responsibility and privilege of ruling over the rest of creation (Gen. 1:26, 28). Specifically, people were to “rule the fish of the sea”, the birds of the sky, the livestock and the creatures of the earth”. In this assignment, God declared people’s privileged status before Him, a status of superiority over the rest of creation, but inferiority to God.

To understand God’s Story, we must grasp this privileged status of humankind. What does the phrase “the image of God say to us? (It refers to people’s wisdom, logic, intelligence and even people having souls. However,, the pronounced aspect of the image of God is the people’s capacity to relate to God in a special way not available to any other creature.) God’s Word is described as the instrument of His creative activity. The creation and development of the universe were the result of the personal will of God. This record of creation reflects the marvel of inspiration. Then in the sixth day came an entirely new dimension of creation. It is as though all that had gone before was in preparation for the crowning act- human life. God’s stated objective was to make a creative like Himself, one superior enough to have a place of authority and control over other creatures God had made.

Read Genesis 2:15-17; 3:6-7 Humanity Rebels

THE CURSE OF SIN

Besides main characters and a theme, every story includes a conflict. Conflict emerged fairly quickly in God’s Story (how soon is not said). This could be considered a second account of creation. Beginning in Genesis 2:4 through 2:25, the focus is on the creation of the first man and woman. God took special care in forming man out of dust from the ground. Then God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). So this says, apart from God, people have no life. God also took great care in providing the first man a suitable home, the Garden of Eden, and a suitable vocation, to work and to watch over the garden. Let’s think about all of this. We are told that Jesus is preparing more than a suitable home for us. Then in Isaiah and Revelations we are told we will share in the Lord’s glory after He returns again and will help Him in cleansing the earth. So what God did for Adam and eventually for Eve, He has promised for all of us who become true believers. God then provided Adam with “a helper as his complement” (v.18). With the creation of Eve, the human race had begun in earnest.

God gave Adam and Eve full access to everything but the fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. Why do you think God gave the couple this one prohibition? (God sought to spare people from the bitterness of knowing evil. Secondly, without the will of choice, people cannot express love- to God or to others.) People would still learn about good things through their relationship with God. All loving parents want to shelter their children from evil- which is what God wanted to do, Every time Adam and Eve passed by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they had to make a conscious choice of whether to obey God and not eat or to disobey God and eat. The advantage of not eating was a close relationship with God. People could express their love and respect for God by freely choosing to obey His command. Jesus expressed a similar connection between love and obedience in John 14:15. “If you love Me, you will keep My commands”. Then in 1 John 5:3, “For this is what love for God is; to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden.”

Though surrounded by His abundance the woman and then the man freely chose to disobey God. The serpent who deceived Eve is later identified as the Devil and Satan in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. The temptation had three characteristics: good for food (appeal to the appetite), delightful to look (appeal to the eyes), and desirable for obtaining wisdom (appeal to the intellect). The close affinity of these three characteristics to the Devil’s temptation of Jesus (Luke 4:1-13) and John’s observation that these three things belong to the world (1John 2:16) show the overarching unity of God’s Story. We are told that Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened to sin, which is necessary for all of us. In the case of Adam’s sin, God already had a plan in motion to overcome the effects of the rebellion. The entire Bible is the story of how that plan unfolds, ultimately leading to God’s own visit to earth through His Son- and then to the new heaven and the new earth when the Father comes back to earth. Among the unanswered questions from this part of the story is why didn’t Adam intervene between Eve and the serpent? (Maybe Adam wanted to see if what the serpent had said was true. Maybe it was because God again was giving Adam the freedom of choice, or maybe this was God letting Adam say nothing because Eve’s sin had already set in motion the “curse” of sin.)

Read Genesis 3:14-19, 23-24 Sin Has Consequences

The immediate effects of sin became readily apparent. The death process introduced by sin included alienation from God. Adam and Eve had themselves from God and blamed someone or something else. God began His judgment of sin by confronting the serpent. Then 3:15 has been called the “first gospel”, the first promise in the Scripture of the coming Redeemer. The verse predicts the clash between the seed of the woman, Jesus, and the serpent or Devil. This Scripture also promised the serpent’s defeat. Thus from the beginning of God’s Story, He had the end of the Story in view. Jesus would defeat the serpent (Devil) – (Rev. 20:2, 10).

Significantly, the word “curse” does not occur in God’s comments to Eve (3:16). However, Adam is told the ground is cursed because he listened “to the woman”. The ground will produce thorns and thistle for Adam and he will have to work until he returns to dust. Adam was banned from his paradise (Eden) and God used the cherubim to guard the garden. God also gave a new affirmation of the worth of life by a two-fold gift of grace. First, God provided animal skins and helped them overcome the reasons for their shame. God took the initiative to begin the redemptive work for those who had sinned against Him. This redemptive love of God came to fullest measure when Jesus died for sinners.