Genesis 1 (Bible Study)
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In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Matthias Chosen to Replace Judas
12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk[c] from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters,[d] the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”
18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
20 “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms:
“‘May his place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in it,’[e]and,
“‘May another take his place of leadership.’[f]
21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”
23 So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” 26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.
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Daniel 4
Introduction begin by reading Genesis 1:1-31
It is easy to read the first chapters of Genesis and then ask questions of our day: “Were the days of creation 24 hours long?” “How long ago did this happen?” “Is this history or myth?” “Does creation fit with science and evolution?”
Of course, these are important questions, and we can probably gain some answers to these from Genesis 1-11. But we don’t learn much if we ask questions of a passage if it wasn’t written to answer those. Genesis is, about deeper issues than origins of species. It is answering questions like: “What are human beings?” “What are we here for?” “What is our relationship to nature and the world?” Genesis 1 is not about the “how” of creation but the “why” and that is a more important question.
So God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
1. Read Genesis 1:1-3. (a) Was the earth “without form and void” (v2) before God began to create (v1) or after? Why does it matter? (See Heb 11:3) (b) What do verses 2-3 tell us about the “means” by which God always creates?
Ans: There are at least three ways to interpret the relationship between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
The least likely interpretation considers Gen 1:2 as a contrast to verse 1. This view essentially translates: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but then the earth became formless, void, and dark, and God had to go back and create it again.” This is called the “Gap” theory. It posits that the six days of re-creation occurred many years after an initial creation that was followed by some sort of disaster. Some try to place dinosaurs, etc, in this “gap” between Gen 1:1 and 2. However, there is no grammatical basis for this view. There is no “But” to begin verse 2, nor is there any reason to translate the verb “was” as “became.” This is an example of the way we can try to force a text to answer questions it was not intended to address. Nevertheless, this view is supported by many. A more likely interpretation reads Gen 1:2 as a parenthesis to a clause completed in Gen 1:3. This view translates: “When God began to create (the earth being without form and void), God said . . . .” We have to ask the question, “If God did not create the original ‘stuff’ of the earth, where was it from?” Hebrews 11:3 and many other passages tell us that there was no universe before God spoke. (See John 1:3, Col. 1:16, Rom. 11:36.) If the earth was “already there,” did not create absolutely everything, which would compromise the absoluteness of his power and authority.
The most likely interpretation is that Gen 1:2 is the result of Gen 1:1. This view translates: “God created the heavens and the earth. But after the initial creative act, the earth was still shapeless and empty. Then God proceeded to say . . . .”
What are the means for creation?
The two instruments for creation are the “Spirit of God” and the Word of God (“and God said”). It is fascinating to see how the Spirit and the Word work together throughout the Bible. Christians are born again by the Spirit (John 3:5) but also born again by the Word (1 Peter 1:23). We are told to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) but we are also called to be filled with the Word (Col. 3:16). In each case, the effects are basically the same.
In the creation of the world and the re-creation of salvation, the Spirit and the Word are inseparable, bringing life where there is no life. If our faith is only Word-oriented, it will be rational, cold, and dogmatic; if our faith is only Spirit-oriented, it will be too emotional, intuitive, shapeless, and unaccountable. God never brings life and growth without both the Word and the Spirit.
2a Read through Genesis 1, noting repetitive, patterned text. What are the main repetitions in phrases and ideas?
2b What Lessons do we learn from the repetition?
The main repetitions
The main repetition is the word “God made” or “God created.” “God” appears 35 times in the Gen 1:1-34. He overwhelms the text, dominating and overshadowing everything. Nothing happens unless he makes it happen. Nothing is made or created except by him. The extreme repetition is a way of saying, “Without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3 KJV). The second repetitive pattern is the phrase “And God said.” This occurs once on the first (v. 3), second (v. 6), fourth (v. 14) and fifth (v. 20) days of creation. But it occurs twice on the third day and several times on the sixth day. This shows the importance of the Word of God in creation.
A t 3rd repetitive pattern is the idea of the power of God’s Word. Repeatedly, we are told, “and there was” or “and it was so” (v 3, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30). God doesn’t say, “I’m going to do this” and then do it. He says, “Let there (or it) be . . .” and immediately “it was so.” Our words only express the intention to act, but God’s Word is itself an action.
A 4th repetition is the “benediction” phrase, “and God saw that [it] . . . was good.” God’s assessment of the goodness of creation occurs in verses 4, 10,12, 18, 21, 25, 31.
In verse 31, we have a “benediction,” where God sees that “all that he had made . . . was very good.”
A 5th repetitive idea is that of “separating” or making distinctions. On the first day, God separates the light from the darkness (v. 4). On the second day, he separates the sky from the sea (v. 7). On the third day, though the word “separates” is not used, he separates the land from the water. He also separates the various plants “according to their kind” (vv. 11-12). On the fourth day, he separates the day from the night (v. 14). On the fifth day, though the word “separates” is missing, God separates the various animals “according to their kind.” The initial act of creation (v. 1) is ex nihilo—out of nothing, but after that God’s creative work consists of elaborating, distinguishing, and “drawing out” the creation into greater complexity.
The pattern of the days.
A 6th repetitive phrase and idea is the days of creation: “the evening and the morning were the . . . day” occurs six times. Obviously, the division of God’s creative work into six days is a repetition in itself, but there is also a broader pattern. The last three days return to the realms created in the first three days and give them their rightful inhabitants.
KingdomsKings of the Kingdoms
Day 1 Realms of Light and Dark Day 4 Lights to “govern” (v. 18) Light and Dark
Day 2 Realms of Sea and Sky Day 5 Creatures to “fill” or dominate Sea and Sky
Day 3 Realm of the Earth (Plants) Day 6 Creatures of the Earth; Humankind
Day 7 God the Creator rests
2b. Look at each repetitive pattern you have identified and answer: What lessons do we learn from each repetition?
About (1) God, (2) the world and creation?
God
The chapter shows us: A personal God. The verbs of the chapter show us a God can't be an “It.” God speaks, plans, creates, sees, evaluates, and enjoys.
Lesson 1: God is not a “force.” He is distinct from the universe, rather than being the “soul” of the universe, as Eastern religions teach. That means that, contrary to the teachings of mystical religions, we do not know this God simply through mystical experience and oneness with nature. He is personal, and we must know him as we know people through (a) listening to his verbal self-disclosure (see below), (b) two-way communication, and (c) personal commitment.
The only God. It is remarkable to notice that this text, written in ancient times, makes no reference to other deities. This is a claim of exclusivity. This God is the only God.
Lesson 2: This means that only God should be worshipped—nothing else. His personality (see above) means we are not pantheists; his uniqueness means we are not polytheists. This chapter warns against the extreme danger of idolatry, because the things God has created are beautiful and attractive. We noticed that the things God makes in days four through six are “rulers.” Both then and now, if we fall into a worship of created things, they become “rulers” of our hearts. We must not let that happen.
Genesis 1 tells us that God is ruler over all.
A sovereign God. The power of God is seen in the fact that a mere word from Him makes the idea a reality. There is nothing in existence that does not owe its existence to him. There is no energy, force, or substance that pre-existed God—he is the source of everything.
Lesson 3: Because he created everything, nothing is outside his control or his rightful authority. Therefore, we cannot simply go to him for forgiveness or for crisis needs. We must make him supreme Lord of every area of our lives. It is “all or nothing” with God.
A speaking God. God never creates except through his word. This means he is all-powerful; even his word is a power.
Lesson 4: This certainly must mean that we cannot expect his power in our lives apart from listening and embracing his Word. We said under question #1 that the Word is alive and works hand in hand with the Spirit. So it is not simply truth memorised and mastered, but truth applied and implanted in our hearts that will bring God’s power into us. There is no creative power without listening to his Word.
A good God. Nothing God makes is imperfect. Everything is “good.” Everything he touches is pleasing, joy-producing, and wholesome.
Lesson 5, as Kidner says, “His ways are perfect. The series of expulsions and cataclysms in Genesis declares that [God] can make no truce with sin.” 1
Genesis 1 foreshadows what Isaiah proclaimed later—that God is perfectly holy. In a pre-fallen (non-sinful) condition, that fact is not threatening. But as we see in Isaiah 6, this quality of perfect goodness is traumatic to sinful people.
The created world/nature
The chapter shows us:
A real world. Eastern religions believe that the natural world is an “emanation” of God, a superficial projection that is not ultimately real. They understand salvation and eternity to be a liberation from the illusion of a physical world and an individual self. But Genesis 1 shows us that the world is not some kind of emanation. It is a real existence outside of God.
Though it is created and sustained by him (Heb. 1:2-3), there was a time when it did not exist.
It was given existence through God’s creative act.
First lesson: Christians are realists compared to many today. Movies like The Matrix posited that physical laws and limitations are an illusion; that if the mind could exercise its power, we could fly, dodge bullets, and so on.
Many strands of the New Age movement and some revived nature religions (like Wicca) are based on the idea that we can transcend disease and other physical limitations “by faith.” But Christians know that the body and the world are real. Living within limits is a good thing.
A designed world - orderly
Notice that the overall effect of the highly patterned, repetitive text is to demonstrate that the world is made in an orderly, purposeful way. There was “evening and morning” not just once, but regularly, faithfully, continually. It was created by a rational Word. What we have is a cosmos, not chaos. Second lesson: This is the basis for modern science, which grew out of a biblical view of creation. The only way science can proceed is to assume the uniformity of natural causes. For eg, we can count on a chemical reaction happening the same way every time under the same conditions. Why is that?
Why can we count on this? Why should the universe work that way?
The answer: because it is the creation of a purposeful God who made it that way. Science did not grow out of Eastern religions (who taught that the world was not real) or Western paganism and polytheism (which did not believe the world was the product of a single, rational mind).
Practical lesson? To a Christian, science and technology in themselves are good things. Christians do not idealise a non-technological existence.
There is another, very important lesson we learn from the design of the universe. If the universe is the product of random forces, as modern secularism says, then how we live is up to us. We can create our own purpose in life and devise our own standards of right and wrong. Most people who say cheerfully that this world is an accident refuse to face the implications of this or live consistently with it. Jean-Paul Sartre was more honest: God does not exist and . . . we have to face all the consequences of this. [We are] strongly opposed to . . . secular ethics which would like to abolish God [and then find] ana priori Good. . . . Nowhere is it written . . . that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because . . . we are on a plane where there are only [human beings]. Dostoyevsky said: “If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible.” 2
A random universe is often seen as a great freedom, but if that is what we have, there is no way to talk about purpose. There is no way to talk about anything being right or wrong. It is an empty freedom.
However, Genesis 1 is all about being designed to rule and to serve. It is not about the “freedom” that individuals find so important today. We saw that God created different realms and put rulers in each of them, each ruler higher than the last. The animals “fill the earth” but we human beings “have dominion” over them, while God rules over us all. That means we will find fulfilment only if we obey the royal design—both to rule and to serve—of the One who made us. In the same way, a yacht only “works” when it is used for the purpose its designer intended—to sail on the water. It will not “work” if you try to cross the street in it; that is not its design. Therefore, Genesis 1 is telling us that we will only find our purpose in life if we know and serve our Designer.
A good world.
The repeated phrase “it was good” shows that the material world and physical reality are intrinsically good. While the orderliness of creation prevents us from being overly fearful of science, the goodness of creation leads us to respect natural resources instead of using technology to turn them into commodities.
Third lesson: The goodness of creation keeps Christians and Jews from the errors of religions and philosophies that believe we must leave the world or eschew physical pleasures to connect with God. This is not so much a contrast to Eastern philosophy as to Western. The Greeks (and many others) believed that the creation of the physical world was an accident, or even a rebellious action by some lower deities. They taught that matter was the prison house of the soul. It was intrinsically bad, dirty, and stultifying to soul and spirit. Thus, in Greek thinking, the body was something to be transcended in order to reach spiritual heights. As a result, many in Western history have believed that (1) manual labour is demeaning, (2) sexual pleasure is intrinsically dirty or spiritually polluting, (3) salvation is obtained through the denial of pleasures, and (4) suffering is good in itself. In contrast to these legalistic perspectives,
Genesis 1-2 show us a God with his “hands dirty,” creating the world and deliberately putting a spirit in a body. Of course, the incarnation of Christ and the resurrection of the body show us how Christianity is more pro-physical than any other religion. Even our future is a physical one! No other religion envisions matter and spirit living together in integrity forever.
A wondrous world. We cannot do justice to the view of creation we get in Genesis 1 simply by saying it is real, patterned, and good. There is a wonder and awe about the richness of the world. It teems with life. God diversifies the life of every living thing. He seems to delight in diversity and creativity. There is another important lesson we learn from the “goodness” of creation. The animals, plants, and even the mountains and seas are all part of a choir of praise to the glory of God. This is stated explicitly in Psalm 19 and Psalm 150. We are therefore made stewards of nature. Mountains, trees, animals are “declaring the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1) by being themselves. David Atkinson reflects: It is from [Genesis 1] that we need to begin in trying to develop a Christian mind on many of our contemporary environmental and social questions. Our concerns for pollution; our motivation to avert the ecological crisis; our anger at terrorism and our hatred of war; our delight in beauty and our support for the arts; our fighting against the depersonalising trends of so much of modern ideology and for social and economic justice in the world . . . all these themes . . . need all to be traced back to their beginnings. And their beginnings are to be found in the God who makes all things, and [therefore is committed to] make all things new (Rev. 21:5). 3Summary: What a remarkably nuanced and balanced view of the world we have here! Secularism can lead us to exploit nature, paganism to worship it, legalism to fear it, and pantheism to ignore it. Genesis 1 leads us to love it, care for it, explore it, and take an almost childlike delight in it.
3.What is different about the way humanity is created from the way other things are created? What does that teach us?What is different about the way humanity is created?
Derek Kidner writes, “‘Let us make’ stands in tacit contrast with ‘Let the earth bring forth’ (v. 24); the note of self-communing and the impressive plural proclaims it a momentous step; and this done, the whole creation is complete.” 4
Usually, as Kidner points out, God simply speaks (“Let there be”) and it happens (“and there was”). But when it comes to humankind, the creative act is not that simple.
First, there seems to be much more planning and thought (Kidner’s “self-communing”). God says, “Let us make” in Gen 1:26 and in verse 27 it reads, “So God created man”
Also unique is God’s use of the plural when speaking of the act of creation: “Let us make.” Some people see the hint of the Trinity here. Kidner is right in saying that means some deeper creative act.
Secondly, “vis-à-vis the animals, man is set apart by his office (1:26b, 28b; 2:19; cf. Ps. 8:4-8; James 3:7).” 5
Though there is a brief reference to the sun and moon “governing” the day and night (v. 18), and while all the plants and animals are called to “teem” and “reproduce,” only humans are explicitly given a “job.” They are called to “subdue” and “rule over” the earth.
Thirdly, “but his crowning glory is his relation to God.” 6 Only human beings are said to be made “in the image” of God. [We will look deeper at this later].
It is clear that we have a closer relationship to God than any other creature. The metaphor of “image” means a “reflection” or a “small-scale copy.” This means we are like God: He is not wholly “other” and mysterious. At the same time, it means we are not God. There is no indication of us being “part of God.” Most importantly, “image” contains the seeds of the idea of sonship. Just as children are born in the image of their parents, so we are called to be his children.
What does this teach us?
First, we learn the dignity of human beings. We have seen God creating a hierarchy of kings and kingdoms, and last of all is humankind. Thus we are the crown of creation, and we are the result of the highest, most complex creative act. A human being is a greater natural wonder than all the oceans, mountains, birds, fish and animals combined.
Secondly, we learn the two-fold calling of human beings: (a) to serve God as his vice-regents over the world, caring for and cultivating creation, and (b) to know God as his children, loving him and coming to reflect his character in our being.
