Study Guide

Introduction

Beginnings are important. How the day begins determines the way it goes. Did you wake up refreshed and rested, or did you wake up with a sore neck and little sleep. If you’re going to run a marathon, you have to begin at the correct pace in mile one so that you don’t pass out on mile twenty-two. Before you begin the road-trip, you check your oil and tires, fill up with gas, and make a map. There’s a reason good pastors require pre-marital counselling leading up to a marriage. They want the newlyweds to avoid the potential potholes that can give the marriage a flat tire. And so we ask, “How much money do you think you should have in an emergency fund?” When she says, “3-6 months of expenses,” and he asks, “What’s an emergency fund,” we know we have some work to do.

Getting things right from the beginning clarifies direction, prevents costly mistakes, establishes proper patterns, and influences outcomes. The beginning of a story tells you the setting, characters, problem, and sets the stage for a resolution.

Raise the Need, State the Destination, Give Signposts:

The book of Genesis does the same thing. It’s a book of beginnings. It records the beginning of our world, the beginning of humanity, the beginning of marriage, the beginning of sin and brokenness, and the beginning of God’s faithfulness to redeem, reclaim, and restore his people.

Here’s the plan for this morning. I plan to take 5 minutes and give you a 50,000 summary of the entire book: Genesis in 5 minutes. Then I’m going to circle back to the beginning and tell the entire story of Genesis in 4 movements:

1. The Beginning of Creation (Genesis 1)
2. The Beginning of Mankind (Genesis 1:27-2:25)
3. The Beginning of Sorrow (Genesis 3-11)
4. The Beginning of a Savior (Genesis 12-50)

Let’s begin with a summary of the entire book.

Introduction to Genesis

Author: Moses

Genesis was written by Moses, the prophet of God who led the children of Israel out of their captivity in Egypt. Moses was also the author of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and most of Deuteronomy. We often refer to those 5 books as one book called the Pentateuch (penta = 5) You may also hear these books referred to as the “Law of Moses” (Luke 24:44), or the “Book of Moses” (2 Chronicles 25:4) Since the 17^th century (Spinoza), scholars have contested the Mosaic authorship of these books, but critical theories have fallen flat.

Date: Genesis Covers Two Histories

Genesis was written by Moses during the Exodus before Israel entered Canaan, but Genesis itself records events that occurred centuries before Moses’ time. So, if you’re a history nerd, like me, Moses was writing Genesis between 1445 – 1410 B.C. But Genesis records events from the Creation of the universe all the way to the death of Jacob around 1859 B.C.

Scope: Cosmic Yet Intimate

On the one hand, Genesis is cosmic in scope: it tells the story of the creation of every atom in every molecule in every planet in every solar system in every galaxy. It tells us of a universal fall from blessedness and a global flood. On the other hand, Genesis is an intimate book showing us the trickery of Jacob as he steals Esau’s birthright with a bowl of stew. The first 11 chapters of Genesis cover nearly 2,000 years of human history, yet chapters 11-50 slow down to cover 4 generations of Abraham’s family. Genesis zooms in from the creation of the entire universe to focus on the patch of dirt in the Middle East which God promised to Abraham.

Audience: The Children of Israel on the Cusp of Canaan

The original audience of Genesis were the children of Israel on the cusp of entering Canaan. They had wandered in the desert for 40 years after the first generation, who left Israel had disobeyed God and died in the wilderness. Now, a younger generation has arisen, preparing to enter the Promised Land.

Structure: Genesis is Episodic

Think of Genesis as a long TV series full of many episodes. Each episode begins with the words “The Generations of…”

• The Generations of the Heavens and the Earth (Gen. 2:4)
• The Generations of Adam (Gen. 5:1)
• The Generations of Noah (Gen. 6:9)
• …
• The Generations of Jacob (Gen. 37:2)

If you want a simple break down:

1. The Creation (Gen. 1-2)
2. The Fall & Spread of Sin (Gen. 3-11)
3. The Covenant Family (Gen. 12-50)

Purpose: To Show God’s Faithfulness in Spite of our Failure

In Genesis, God teaches us that he is faithful in spite of our failures. Every human in the book fails. Adam failed. Cain Failed. Noah failed. Abraham failed. Isaac failed. Jacob failed. Joseph failed. The only truly faithful person in Genesis is God himself. He is the creating God. He is the redeeming God, and he redeems us because he is faithful to his covenant promises even when are faithless. And it is as we see his unended, unstoppable, never-giving-up, faithfulness that we can become people of faith ourselves.

So, there it is: the entire book of Genesis in 5 minutes. Now, let’s go to the beginning, slow down, and think about the beginning. Genesis teaches us:

The Beginning of Creation (Genesis 1)

Genesis 1:1 says: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible begins with a God who is already there, who has always existed, who needs nothing, yet who decides in and of himself to sovereignly act. In other words, the universe is real, but it isn’t ultimate. Behind and back of the universe is the eternal, triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The rest of Genesis 1 unfolds with the creation of earth, space, time, light, atmosphere, dry land and oceans, plants, fish, sea creatures, birds, and land animals. Each of these comes into being out of nothing, no pre-existing material, simply by the spoken command of God.

Then, on the final day of creation, God takes the dust of the earth, forms it into a body, and breath’s life into it creating the first man, Adam. He then takes a part of the man and forms the first woman, Eve.

Friend, if you read all of Genesis 1, you see that Creation is not the random and accidental explosion and rearrangement of matter from one pinpoint spot, with no design or plan. No, instead you see that all of creation is a structured and designed project of the divine mind, brought into existence by his almighty power.

And what is that culmination of the created week?

³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Now, for many of you, Genesis 1 makes complete sense. You’ve heard it a hundred times. You know all the days of creation. This is how you view the world, and you can’t imagine it being any other way.

But some of you heard everything I just said and it was like I was speaking a foreign language. You’ve never considered the question of beginnings. You assume the universe is all there is, and that the universe has always existed, or that a series of universes have always existed.

Friend, you need to consider this question: why? Why is there anything rather than nothing?  If the universe is all there is, then how do you account for that? How do you account for the the fact that the universe doesn’t just exist, it appears to be designed with purpose in mind. The beasts reproduce and human beings dream about the future. We invest money, build institutions, and produce works of art to help us understand and explain life. How do you explain the vast order of the universe springing from chaos?

This week a church member sent me a picture of a new book they purchased entitled: HVAC Water Chillers and Cooling Towers: Fundamentals, Application, and Operation. And here’s the best part: they were actually excited about this book. Three points: first, you are no longer allow to say I’m the biggest nerd in this church. Second, anything you text me can and will be used against you in a sermon. Third, consider the implications of living in a universe in which a sentient creature has written 403 pages on the selection of refrigerants in chilled water systems.

Do you think that happened by accident? No. HVAC units are very good, and they are very good because they occur in a universe declared very good by the Greatest Good, God himself. The Christian worldview invites you to see the world as a good gift from its creator, not an accident nor an illusion. And if that is true about creation as a whole, then it is equally true for us as human beings. Which leads us to our next point:

The Beginning of Mankind (Genesis 1:27-2:25)

Genesis 1:27 says:

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

God created us, male and female, in his own image to glorify him through dominion, culture, rest. In Genesis 2, the Bible presents humankind as a special creation of God, not as subset of another species which evolved over time. The clear teaching of Scripture is that Adam and Eve, the original pair, were historic figures, not mythological or merely spiritual ancestor. Every person in this room descends from that original human pair.

In Romans 5, the Apostle Paul says that death reigned from Adam to Moses, and that eternal life comes in and through Jesus Christ. Paul puts Adam, Moses, and Jesus all on the same plane as equally historic people, and all of whom are essential to understanding the Bible.

So, you were made by God and for God, and what sets you apart from every dog, cat, wildebeest and ape is that unlike all of them, you bear what the author if Genesis calls God’s image. Theologians call it the Imago Dei. Simply put: when God made humans, he made creatures that are as much like him as he could possibly make. Unlike the animals, who live by instinct, humans reflect and image God’s creativity, community, morality, and a host of other facets.

You are a created person. Because you are a creature, it means that in an ultimate sense, you can’t move a finger or utter a word apart from God. To be a person means that when your fingers move, it is you who move them. And when words are uttered from your lips, it is you who speak them.

The atheist, Carl Becker, said human beings are “little more than a chance deposit or the surface of the world, carelessly thrown up between two ice ages by the same forces that rust iron and ripen corn.” If that is true, then you aren’t responsible for anything. We’re just the products of the random collision of atoms. If that’s true then human beings can’t possibly be free. Your thoughts, beliefs, dreams, plans, are all just an illusion and it matters not if you work hard for future generations or you steal to please yourself.

Friend, as a creature, you are dependent upon God in whom you live and move and have your being. Yet, because you are a person, bearing his image, you have agency. You can make free choices. Your life matters.

If you’re just a chance deposit, then human life has no real value or dignity. We have no right to oppose wars, or stop criminals, or teach our children. We can end unwanted pregnancies for any reason. Or even worse: we can end any human life for any reason. If you’re a chance deposit, it makes no difference if you kiss a child or slap a child.

The Christian understanding of humanity alone provides the resources for valuing life, defending the oppressed, and pursuing human flourishing. Either life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come from God, or they do not exist at all.

Secularism is a dead end street. It’s a failed project, and we have to utterly reject it as a culture. It cannot produce a culture.  It cannot make: not real things of its own. It can only borrow and mock. It can only twist and ruin.

Genesis 2 is clear that gender is utterly connect to our biology and it’s a gift from God. So much damage has been done, not just to culture, but to individual humans who have been lied to about the struggles they face with their own bodies and self-understanding. Friends, we know the truth. We must not tell lies. We must reaffirm the goodness of and truthfulness of the body.

Friends, either we are uniquely made by God in his image with purpose, dignity, and complementarity in our design as male and female, or we are not. And if we are, then every human being owes God, we are responsible to God, and we must find out what it is that he desires of us.

Which leads us to our third point:

The Beginning of Sorrow (Genesis 3-11)

Genesis 3 records the Fall of human beings into sin and rebellion. God gave to Adam and Eve a law of universal obedience. As his creatures, they owed God perfect and continual submission. In particular, he told them not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve was deceived by Satan’s lies, and Adam followed her in knowing disobedience, leading God to curse all of creation and exile them from the Garden. From Genesis 3 all the way to Genesis 11 we see the tapestry of creation unravelling.

Genesis 4 records the first human murder when Cain slew his brother Abel. Genesis 5 spans 10 generations, from Adam to Noah, after every generation, for 10 times, Genesis 5 says: “And he died And he died. And he died.” By Genesis 6, humanity is knowingly intermarrying with demons and God decides to wipe out the entire race, save Noah and his family. Even after God essentially “starts over” with Noah, again evil multiplies on the earth as human pride tries to build a tower that reaches into the heavens until God confounds their language and scatters the people from Babel in Genesis 11.

Friends, Genesis 3-11 tell us what’s wrong with the world. It reveals the beginning of sorrow. It tells us what’s wrong with us. Secular sociologists and psychologist try to explain our troubles by pointing to factors like our environment, family or, education. And the Bible says that what is wrong is us is not less than any of those things. You see our problem is not that bad environments produce broken people. Even those who had loving families, first class education, and social privileges are just as capable of the worst kinds of behavior. The human condition of fallen sinfulness is universal.

Our culture offers self-improvement, technological advancement, or societal progress, but Genesis 3-11 shows our repeated failure to produce a good environment. And in every century since Genesis 3, every attempt at Utopia has only invented a new hell on earth. It’s clear that we cannot save ourselves. While me may be able to feed a few hungry people, the ultimate answer to human suffering and oppression will never come from us. Friends, we should thank God for interplanetary travel and even AI. But they cannot and will not save the human race. Every generation has thought they found the answer to humanity’s problems. And every generation has been dead-wrong. What makes you think we’re the ones who broke the code?

No, Voltaire knew the truth centuries ago when he wrote:

What is the verdict of the vastest mind?

Silence: the book of fate is closed to us.

Man is a stranger to his own research;

He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes.

Tormented atoms in a bed of mud,

Devoured by death, a mockery of fate.

Any explanation of human suffering or alienation which omits our severed relationship with our Maker is doomed to fail. Friend, any attempt to address human injustice without anchoring itself in the reality of a just God will only create new oppressors. If there is not ultimate and final judge, then there is no hope for justice.

But if there is a cosmic judge, then what hope is there for us? For we, just as Adam and Eve, our first parents, have each gone our own way. We’ve turned away from our Maker to gratify ourselves.

After the Second World War, the French philosopher Albert Camus struggled to make sense out of all the ghastly devastation in the war. In the Spring of 1946 he addressed Columbia University with these words:

“It is too easy, on this point, simply to accuse Hitler, and to say that the snake having been crushed, the poison is gone.  For we know perfectly well that the poison is not gone, that we all bear it in our very hearts”

What’s he saying? The poison didn’t end with Hitler. And it didn’t begin with Hitler either. It began with the Serpent in the Garden, and it flows through every son of Adam and Daughter of Eve.

Finally, Genesis reveals:

The Beginning of a Savior (Genesis 12-50)

Genesis doesn’t just tell us the setting, the characters, and the problem; it sets the stage for God’s resolution.

Immediately after Adam and Eve fall into sin, God curses the serpent:

¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

The rest of Genesis, through promises and covenants, foreshadows’ God’s ultimate redemption in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Why does Genesis zoom into the life of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for over 2/3 of the book? Is it because they were moral exemplars? Uh, no. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob constantly show themselves unworthy of the promises of God. And that’s the point. God continues to bless them, rescue them, provide for them, forgive them, and carry them because Genesis proves his faithfulness, not ours. It proves his power through our weakness. His truth, in spite of our lies. His mercy in spite of our sin.  He is the covenant making, and covenant keeping God!

Jesus Christ, is the true and better Adam, who passed the test in the Garden, a harder test in a more difficult garden. God told Adam, “Obey me regarding the tree, and you’ll live.” God told Jesus, “Obey me according to the tree, and you’ll die so that others may live.” In Genesis 3:21, God slew an animal and covered Adam and Eve in their guilt and shame, and at the cross, God slew his own Son to cover our sin in his own righteousness.

Jesus is the true and better Abel, whose blood “speaks a better word” than Abel’s. Whose blood cries out, not for our condemnation, but for our acquittal and reconciliation. (Hebrews. 11:4; 12:24)

Jesus Christ is the true and better Ark of Noah, and all who are in him are saved from the storms of God’s wrath and judgment. And just as Noah’s family passed through the waters, Baptism signifies that we to have passed through death into life.

And that image of the rainbow, there in Genesis is not like a little bow you might wear in your hair. It’s the word for battle bow. And the sign God gives us that he will never destroy the world again by a flood is the picture of a battle bow drawn and pointed and aimed at himself. And what the cross tells us is that that battle bow has been loosed, but not at us.

Jesus Christ is the true and better Abraham, who trusted God, and left his homeland in order to found a new people.

He’s the true and better Isaac. He’s the true Son of Promise, who brings laughter into a dying world. And just as God said to Abraham on the mountain, “Now I know you love me, because you did not withhold your only son from me,” so too we, at the foot of the cross can say to God, “Now we know that you love us, since you did not withhold your Son from us.”

Jesus Christ is the true Jacob’s ladder. He’s the true mediator who connects heaven and earth, granting us access to God.

He’s the true Joseph, who came unto his own and his own received him not. Who was betrayed by his own brothers, suffered unjustly, yet uses his exaltation and power to save his betrayers, declaring to us, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”

Conclusion

Genesis is the story of beginnings—creation and fall. But it’s also a preview of the end—of redemption and restoration. It shows God who speaks light into darkness, makes man in his image, and remains faithful despite our failures. From Adam’s rebellion to Abraham’s faltering faith, Genesis reveals our desperate need for a Savior. And from the Seed of Eve to the Son of Abraham, it foreshadows Christ who alone can restore what sin has shattered to restore us to the Father.

Let Genesis be your map, pointing you to Jesus, who is the beginning and end of all things.