Genesis - In the Beginning - Grace

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Creation and the Fall- Genesis 1-3 By: Mike Anderson - prodigalmike.com

Overview

What do you need to create a universe? First you would have to start time and then you would have to have a place to put it? Something to make it out of? And then you need to organize it! Energy to run it with? In Genesis 1, God creates the four things that are required to have a universe. The beginning is the beginning of time. The heavens are the space in which to put everything. The Earth (erets) - means dirt - literally “STUFF” - matter... And then God said! God's Word carries power! And then God said let there be light! At that moment God took all of the matter in all of the space coming through time and put it together exactly as He wanted it fashioned!  

But there is one more thing that is required to have a universe. And that is something to hold it together! What keeps everything from flying apart? If we split an atom, what is released? Energy! And it’s no wonder so much energy comes out of a small amount of matter when we split an atom. God spoke matter into existence with the power of His Word!  

So what holds it all together? Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” See also: Hebrews 1:3. The Word! What or who is the Word? John tells us that Jesus is the Word of God in John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...”  

He goes on in His gospel to tell us that they knew the Word. They traveled with Him. They ate with Him. John tells us that he laid His head upon His shoulder during that last supper. The Word came down from heaven and became flesh and dwelt among us and here. He is in Genesis 1:1. In the beginning - there's Jesus! Revelation 21:6, “And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end...”

Lesson Objective

To understand more about the beginning of God's creation and God''s creation of man.

Key Truths

The Lord God is the eternal creator of the universe.

The Trinity was present at the creation. 

God is the origin of man as he breathed his own spirit into Adam.

Lesson Outline 

1. In the beginning is Jesus! 

So we have the Son in verse 1. In fact, that is an indication of what the Word of God is going to be about from cover to cover. It is all about Him. How could it not be when all things were created by Him and for Him?  

The Trinity is present in verse 1. In the beginning God... That is the Father. 1 Corinthians 8:6 says, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”  In the beginning God... created! That's Jesus the Son of God. All things were created by Him. Then what does it say in verse 2? “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” There is the Holy Spirit.  

The Trinity is more than I can understand or comprehend. The Trinity is God and God is the Trinity. 3 in 1 and 1 in 3. Hopefully, we will gain a better understanding of the Trinity as we go through our study over the next couple of years. It is important that we do so, because we need to understand the full measure of what Jesus did for us by stepping down out of Heaven and emptying Himself, becoming obedient unto death on the cross. Why? He came because of us. He died because of us and it all started with Adam and Eve.  

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (26). What does that mean? Make man in our image? First of all “Our image” makes better sense since we now realize that the Trinity is present in verse 1 at the beginning! In the beginning makes more sense since we now know that the beginning is Jesus Christ! He is the beginning and the end!  

So when He says let us make man in Our image, man is made in the image of God! That makes man different from all of the rest of creation. Man has many of the same needs, wants and desires that God has. Man wants to be loved. Man wants to create. Man wants to express his innermost being. Man desires to plan for the long-term future. Man thinks about where he has been and where he is going.  

So Adam and Eve are in the garden and Eve is tempted by the serpent, that old devil. Genesis 3. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” Then we read 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.  

2. They knew they were naked? 

There had never been any such thing as clothing in any part of creation. It's very unlikely they realize they didn't have any clothes since clothes had not been invented. It's much more likely that being created in the image of God had something to do with it. When they were created in the image of God, I believe it is very likely that they not only thought differently than the animals of creation, but that they looked different from the rest of creation as well. Could there have been a glory of some type that could be seen? Were they clothed in righteousness? Was there something seeable that was different about Adam and Eve? Could it be that when they sinned and they looked at each other, and realized that they now looked so different that God was sure to notice. And He was coming! They needed to figure out what to do. So they tried sewing leaves together to cover themselves. Maybe God wouldn't notice? But it didn't take long to realize that wasn't going to work. They heard God coming through the garden. It would be an awesome thing to hear God coming towards you... unless you were trying to hide something from Him. They ran and hid in the bushes! They didn't hide because they were ashamed of God seeing their bodies that He had created! They hid because of the shame of the sin that they had committed.  

When God approaches, He calls out and says where are you? The God who knows everything, certainly knew where they were. That is not why He is asking the question. He is asking the question for them to answer for themselves. They would now have to admit where they really were. Living in sin, ashamed and afraid. So God kills the first sacrifice and sheds the blood of an innocent animal in order to make clothing to cover the shame of what they had done. The glorious bodies, the created ones that God had breathed life into we're now nothing more than flesh and bone like the rest of the animals of creation? Falling into sin and owing a debt they could never pay! 

Their righteousness was gone!  

But God... had a plan! He announces the plan when He curses Satan. There would be One who would come! One who would reverse and undo what Satan has done. One who would come to clothe man in righteousness once again. Romans 5:17-18 “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.”

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 God's goal is to restore man to righteousness! That's what was lost in the garden! That's the fact that Adam and Eve tried to cover up and could not.

Why did Eve want to eat the fruit to begin with? Genesis 3:6, “...the tree was desirable to make one wise.” There's the reason! The tree was desirable to make one wise. Who is wise? God Almighty is wise! Satan's sin was that he wanted to be like God and raise up himself to be God! He convinces Eve of the same line that he is convinced himself of. That she can be like God. When she saw that the tree was good and could make one like God, who is wise, she took and ate and so did her husband

Application - What does this lesson teach us about God? Man? Sin? Grace?

How do you apply all of this? In this first lesson, it seems like the application would be to use this as a stepping stone off into the deeper meanings of the Word of God. Somehow we must come to the realization that people are out there and that they need the Lord! Somehow we must realize that God made people and God loves the people that He made.

We must realize, that if we do not love the people that God loves, we are wasting the life that He is given to us. The Bible is about Jesus Christ from cover to cover and we must learn it and share it and teach it to others. It starts here in Genesis and it will continue all the way through Revelation again and again as we learned throughout our lifetime.

What we see in Genesis, is that God does not give up or quit. He intends to restore us back to what was His original plan. To spend eternity with us. So I echo the words of Paul in Galatians 6:9, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”

Summary

God speaks and gives the couple a promise of redemption whereby they may walk by faith and abound in hope.

God acts by providing the couple with a picture of redemption when He slays an animal to cover their nakedness, so that they will understand that God Himself absorbs the cost of redemption.

God reveals that He accepts and justifies those who trust His promise of redemption and live in light of its fulfillment.